168 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



gained the western summit abont two o'clock in the afternoon." In 

 the teeth of the intense cold and a hitter west wind, they crossed the 

 three-mile plateau to the western edge. That night they camped 

 down the slope in a forsaken cabin. Their matches had spoiled in 

 Squaw Valley. They lighted their fire with a gun. 



Two days of hard snowing followed. Again they made snowshoes, 

 and again their efforts were doomed to failure, and the shoes were 

 abandoned. Their meat failed. Four da5^s of absolute starvation 

 were before them. The trail now was a blazed one, and easily missed; 

 the isnow was three to four feet deep, and even more in places, along 

 the side of a high ridge. Then the ridge spread into a broad plateau. 

 Soon the trees failed them, there was no trail, and the cold was intense. 

 Xear sundown they came on fresh tracks, and hope sprang up in their 

 hearts. Then they discerned the truth; they had wandered in a 

 circle, and the tracks were their own. They were off the trail. It 

 was snowing hard, oljscuring objects a hundred yards distant. They 

 tried to make a fire, but their' gun failed them. It had got damp 

 and refused to go off. Then they found that they were frost-bitten. 



11. 



The first necessity now Avas immediate shelter from the cold. Hope 

 died in their hearts. The wealth of CTolconda had no further charms 

 or even interest. ' Skin for skin ; yea, all that a man hath, will he 

 give for his life." The gun was thrown awïiy. Allen's papers, con- 

 taining the records of his discoveries and titles to claims, were aban- 

 doned. Others might reap where he had sown. Nothing was kept 

 but the blankets, a tin cup and its contents, and a butcher's knife, 

 In the tin cup was a miserable remnant of their meat. 



They struck for the nearest edge of the ridge and ào\YW the steep 

 slope, full speed through deep snow, to an evergreen valley. Here 

 they placed their blankets on the ground, covered them a foot deep 

 with snow, crept under the blankets feet first, and lay until morning. 

 The warmth of their bodies thawed the snow, and they did not get 

 dry again for several days. 



On the 3rd December they followed down a ravine, hoping to find 

 a river. A muddy current would indicate a mining camp up stream. 

 The walking was through snow two and a half feet deep over very 

 uneven ground. Sometimes they walked into low bushes they could 

 not see. For two days longer they kept on their toilsome way down 

 the ravine to the Middle Forks of the American river and still further 

 down until it ran through a deep rocky canon, where they were forced 



