388 BUFFALO LAND. 



Our path lay over the same undulating plain that 

 we had been traversing for many weeks, the wind 

 blowing fiercely in our teeth. The violent movement 

 of the air over this vast surface is often unpleasant, 

 and during a severe winter is more dangerous than 

 the intense cold of the far north, as it penetrates 

 through the thickest clothing. The winter of 1871-2, 

 when numbers of hunters and herders were frozen 

 to death, illustrated this to a painful degree. The 

 months of December and January are usually mild, 

 and no precautions were taken. On the morning of 

 the most fatal day, it was raining ; in the afternoon, 

 the wind veered and blew cold from the north, the 

 rain changing to sleet, and this, in turn, to snow so 

 blinding that objects became invisible at the dis- 

 tance of a few feet. 



After the storm, near Hays City, five men belong- 

 ing to a wood-train were found frozen to death. 

 They had unloaded a portion of their wood, and en- 

 deavored to keep up a fire, but the fierce wind blew 

 the flames out, snatching the coals from the logs, and 

 flinging them into darkness. The men seized their 

 stores of bacon and piled them upon fresh kindling, 

 but even the inflammable fat was quenched almost 

 instantly. One of another party, who finally escaped 

 the same sad fate, by finding a deserted dugout, said 

 it seemed as if invisible spirits seized the tongues 

 of flame and carried them, like torches, out into the 

 awful blackness. Thousands of Texas cattle perished 

 during that storm. One herder, in order to save his 

 life, cut open a dying ox, and, after removing the 

 entrails, took his place inside the warm carcass. 



