of 



frightened. I made haste to tell them that the 

 storm would be brief. While I was still trying to 

 reassure them, the clouds commenced to dis- 

 solve and the sun came out. Presently all were 

 watching the majestic soaring of two eagles up 

 in the blue, while I went off to collect five scat- 

 tered saddle-ponies that were contentedly feed- 

 ing far away on the moor. 



Though the winter winds are of slower devel- 

 opment, they are more prolonged and are tem- 

 pestuously powerful. Occasionally these winds 

 blow for days; and where they follow a fall of 

 snow they blow and whirl this about so wildly 

 that the air is befogged for several hundred feet 

 above the earth. So violently and thickly is 

 the powdered snow flung about that a few min- 

 utes at a time is the longest that one can see or 

 breathe in it. These high winter winds come 

 out of the west in a deep, broad stratum that 

 is far above most of the surface over which they 

 blow. Commonly a high wind strikes the west- 

 ern slope of the Continental Divide a little be- 

 low the altitude of eleven thousand feet. This 

 striking throws it into fierce confusion. It rolls 



74 



