344 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



-Tune, 1920 



left the canyon I learned to think of these 

 men as our fellow prisoners, and from ap- 

 pearances they were just as contented and 

 cheerful as the prisoners in the Pullman cars 

 across the canyon. 



TO return to the pile of snow: After a 

 long time, when it seemed that it really 

 was smaller, there was a dull, warning 

 roar, the shovelers had just time to leap back 

 to safety when down came another ava- 

 lanche, burying the tunnel entrance deeper 

 than ever. This was repeated a time or two 

 more with some variations, and other slides 

 nearer the cars kept things from monotony. 

 The track was cleared at last and our 

 locomotive was detached and sent on thru 

 the tunnel to attempt to push off some snow 

 which had come down beyond. And then 

 came back word that the locomotive had left 

 the track and was helpless. At this time a 

 locomotive from Glenwood Springs was at- 

 tached to the rear of the train to furnish 

 heat for the cars. Hearing of the disaster 

 to the first locomotive, with all the enthusi- 

 asm of a Don Quixote, number two promptly 

 detached herself, slid by us on a siding, and 

 went to the assistance of her disabled sister. 

 And she had no sooner disappeared thru 

 that ill-fated tunnel than down came an- 

 other avalanche at our end of the tunnel and 

 cut us off from both locomotives, and then 

 we heard the cheering tidings that a slide on 

 the further side of the tunnel behind us 

 cut us off from help from the rear. Night 

 was approaching, we were without heat, 

 food supplies were running low, there was 

 no water in which to wash, and drinking 

 water was gone in most of the cars. We felt 

 as if we had been cut off from civilization 

 for weeks and weeks, and we began to 

 imagine how beautiful a daily paper would 

 look. • 



HOUES later in the night a sort of snow 

 plow and wrecker combined managed 

 to get thru from the front, righted our 

 helpless locomotive, dug back to us and 

 went on to tackle the slides behind us and 

 then was disabled itself. Some time during 

 the afternoon of the next day the two loco- 

 motives, one in front and one in the rear of 

 the observation car, in which was our sec- 

 tion, cautiously inched us along to the tun- 

 nel, crept thru it, and then proceeded very 

 slowly. Even the most nervous of the pas- 

 sengers were beginning to relax when there 

 was a tremendous jarring bump followed by 

 more bumps and crashes and we stopped. 

 Our section was clear to the front of the 

 car, and as I turned to see if the roof of the 

 car was falling in I was struck with the 

 unanimously ghastly look of the passengers. 

 When we found we were all alive and unin- 

 jured the men rushed out to see what had 

 happened, but from the curve of the road we 

 cculd see without leaving the car that our 

 poor locomotive lay beside the track with ifs 

 wheels helplessly sticking up in the air like 

 a disabled monster. The engineer had at- 



tempted to drive thru a new snow slide, had 

 struck a hidden rock in the snow, the loco- 

 motive had started to climb it and toppled 

 over. 



But it was one of those accidents which 

 we term fortunate. In spite of the fact that 

 an agitated passenger told us the fireman 

 was killed, he was uninjured as he had hap- 

 pened to be on the engineer's side and had 

 clung to it. If the locomotive had gone over 

 in almost any other place it would have 

 landed in the river. The rear locomotive 

 had dropped back some time before. The 

 trainmen told us if it had been pushing, 

 the train might have buckled and some of 

 the ears have been pushed over, into the 

 river. 



OUR new location was also beautiful, 

 but somehow the passengers all seemed 

 to feel rather fed up on canyon scen- 

 ery. I always did prefer mountains only 

 on one side, and hereafter I don 't intend to 

 go out of my way to see any canyon less 

 than the Grand Canyon in Arizona. 



That cA^ening we dined late, and our din- 

 ner had about as many substitutes as we 

 used during the war. The only drink ob- 

 tainable was coffee. I suggested that they 

 made coffee in order to sterilize the snow 

 water, but the head of the family gave it as 

 his opinion that the water was all converted 

 into coffee to hide the fact that it was dirty. 

 Well, it was liquid and hot and comforting 

 anyway. 



By this time the lights were very low and 

 the spirits of a couple of women in the 

 dressing room were so much lower that after 

 a hasty and unsatisfactory attempt at 

 cleansing face and hands in cold cream in 

 lieu of the missing water I crept into a cold 

 and almost dark berth and endeavored to 

 place my various articles of clothing where 

 I could locate them in the dark. Those same 

 women refused to undress and go to bed be- 

 cause they had heard there was a chance 

 of our being rescued and starting in the 

 night. 



Just before daylight we did start. It 

 wasn 't reassuring to think that any moment 

 a portion of that snow blanket on the 

 mountains, loosened by sudden warm wea- 

 ther, might come down on us in a destructive 

 avalanche; but this time we kept on and on, 

 past four or five trains, held up by our trou- 

 bles, on into beautiful Eagle Canyon, doubly 

 beautiful to us when we learned that snow 

 slides are unfashionable in that locality. 

 You see the mountains are cut on a different 

 pattern, more goring you might say. 



AFTER we had climbed over Tennessee 

 ^ Pass and come out into the glorious 

 view of Colorado's 50 wonderful snow- 

 crowned mountain peaks we were rewarded 

 for the anxiety and discomfort of the past 

 days. Years ago I had seen that view of 

 the mountains, and I had been secretly won- 

 dering if my memory hadn 't been playing 

 tricks on me. I felt that those mental pie- 

 {Continued on page 376.) 



