They Found By Actual Measurement That They
Were Eight Inches Deep - Solid Hail, And Over The Entire Floor.
Much of
the water had run into the kitchen and on through to the butler's
pantry, and was fast making its way to the dining room when it was cut
off.
The scenes around the little house were awful. More or less water
was in each room, and there was not one unbroken pane of glass to be
found, and that was not all - -there was not one unbroken pane of glass
in the whole post. That night Faye telegraphed to St. Paul for glass
to replace nine hundred panes that had been broken.
Faye was at the quartermaster's office when the storm came up, and
while it was still hailing I happened to look across the parade that
way, and in the door I saw Faye standing. He had left the house not
long before, dressed in a suit of immaculate white linen, and it was
that suit that enabled me to recognize him through the veil of rain
and hail. Sorry as I was, I had to laugh, for the picture was so
ludicrous - Faye in those chilling white clothes, broken windows each
side of him, and the ground covered with inches of hailstones and ice
water! He ran over soon after the men got here, but as he had to come
a greater distance his pelting was in proportion. Many of the stones
were so large it was really dangerous to be hit by them.
When the storm was over the ground was white, as if covered with snow,
and the high board fences that are around the yards back of the
officers' quarters looked as though they had been used for targets and
peppered with big bullets. Mount Bridger is several miles distant, yet
we can distinctly see from here the furrows that were made down its
sides. It looks as if deep ravines had been cut straight down from
peak to base. The gardens are wholly ruined - not one thing was left in
them. The poor little gophers were forced out of their holes by the
water, to be killed by the hail, and hundreds of them are lying around
dead. I wondered and wondered why Dryas did not come to our
assistance, but he told us afterward that when the storm first came he
went to the stable to fasten the horses up snug, and was then afraid
to come away, first because of the immense hailstones, and later
because both horses were so terrified by the crashing in of their
windows, and the awful cannonade of hail on the roof. A new cook had
come to us just the day before the storm, and I fully expected that
she would start back to Bozeman that night, but she is still here, and
was most patient over the awful condition of things all over the
house. She is a Pole and a good cook, so there is a prospect of some
enjoyment in life after the house gets straightened out.
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