2 
everything, and evefa then I had. to carry the mail myself yesterday 
and the day before, bringing in matter that had been in the next 
office for a month. Oar contractor is a Swede, and a poor stick in 
a pinch. I travelled 8 miles, riding one horse and packing another 
in 3 hrs. and 45 min. after he had told me by phone that he had 
tried it and it could not be done. 
But about this Chinook. We have been having beautiful 
weather for the most part since the storm stopped, warm days, but 
frosty nights, and the snow has lessened but little. Then Thursday 
we got another foot. This broke the Swede's back, and in order to 
get our chickens through I had to take them myself. We have been 
hoping for a Chinook. Many and many a time I have gone to bed with 
the thermometer below freezing, and been wakened by a door slamming 
and hearing the gusts come down the valley, apparently bounding 
from one slope to the other. I am always out of bed in a moment and 
4 ^ 3 m u o' 
out at the gMss. I have seen it rise above 70 in half an hour, 
and it licks up the snow as nothing else. It comes from the west 
and south west, and,"it bloweth when it listeth"not when we want it. 
With a large herd of stock to c-re for, and none too much hay and 
other feed on hand, and two feet and more of snow on the ground, 
the prospect is not pleasing. I do not anticipate any loss of 
stock, but it will cost a good deal to buy feed for them if the 
snow does not go$ soon, and nothing but a Chinook can help us. 
Not every west or southwest wind is a Chinook. They come without 
a moment's warning, and feel like the breath of a furnace, and the 
streams fill and the railroads look out for their bridges, and the 
farmers on the lowlands make ready to drive their stock to the hills. 
We have had lots n>f birds to feed through the storm. Hun¬ 
dreds of juncos, some redwing and Brewer b&ackbirds, a meadowlark, 
several Varied Thrushes, Song sparrows, all have had their meals 
