220 NEW TRACKS IN NORTH AMERICA. 
of shawl or blanket wrapt over your head fails to keep : 
the piercing icy blast. For all this there is so much life . | | 
excitement in ‘the scene that even the drivers, who 4 | 
and playfully ‘“ wake up” their horses also. How we dasiff 
on through the snow, up hill and down dale, all through | | 
night! About twelve o’clock we had a biting snow-sto! 
which completely covered the track, and left us nothing 
steer by but the long row of poles which were stuck in J 
snow to mark the road. Much of the country upon 
summit was level, or nearly so, and there the snow @ 
deepest. The lofty telegraph poles only just raised the wi 
above the surface, and many of the younger firs showed 
more than their tops above the crust. 
The track upon which we drove, or rather galloped, J 
only wide enough for one vehicle, and now and thenf Ay 
through the night one or other of the sledges would run} 
the beaten way and upset in the deep snow, dragging the hors 
after it, and burying them up to their necks. Then we wot 
have to tumble out, and help to lift the sledge on to the tra] 
again. We all got upset in turn, and some of our pa ; We 
twice ; and occasionally we met trucks on runners, return 
for fresh loads of railway iron, or sledges coming from ™ 
opposite direction. There was no room to pass on the tra®)) 
so that one or other had to run into the snow, and submit! ; “ 
cold blood to being upset. of 
Thus the night went by. We changed horses evg 
sixteen miles, and arrived by morning at the head of Doni 
Lake, at the eastern slope of the sierra, where the snow ™f 
already thawed so much that we were obliged to leave ®} 
comfortable sledges and proceed by mud-wagon to Virg 
_ City, about eight hours farther on. 
