Hattie Judson sat by the window overlooking the green wheat fields ofthe Los Ossis valley. The bells in the old mission were calling thehumble worshippers of the valley, just as they had done for more thanone hundred and forty years. She watched the blue haze of the valleygrowing denser in the shadows of the evening. She heard the low boomof a signal gun roll up from the sea. It was from the coast steamer inthe open roadstead, the signal she was listening for in the hope thatit would bring her a letter--the letter for which she had been waitingfor six weeks.
The shadows from the coast hills crept up the valley, and thestars shone, when the whistle of the little narrow-gauge engineannounced its arrival from the port. She put on her wraps and wentto the postoffice and waited a good long hour before the mail wasdistributed. There was nothing in her box except the San Franciscopaper. And yet she felt intuitively there must be some news. Shereturned to her home with a vague feeling of dread and lit the parlorlamp. Mechanically she scanned the headlines of the paper when hereye caught the line:
"Imprisoned Miners in Snow-slide; Relief Party Working Night and Day."
"Saguache, Colo.--Word reached here last night that John Buchan andJames Winslow, miners working a claim on the Sangre de Christo range,were buried in their cabin beneath a snow slide. It is believed themen are alive although there seems to be small hope of rescuing themon account of an overhanging cliff which may topple at any moment,with the melting snows and crush them out of existence. Rescue partiesare at work night and day."
The room seemed to whirl and grow dark as she finished reading. Tearscame to her eyes and she cried aloud. The members of the family cameto find the cause of her outcry and found her in a flood of tears.They read the dispatch and knew the cause. The paper was two days oldfrom San Francisco. What could she do? She must know at once. She wentto the telegraph office and sent a message of inquiry to the mayor ofSaguache. It was twelve o'clock when the message came: "Lines all downin San Luis valley." There was a telegraph line to San Louis Obispo,but no coast line railroad nearer than Paso Robles Hot Springs, sixtymiles inland. It would be three days before there was another steamerfor San Francisco. She felt that if she waited the suspense would killher. She must go to Saguache.
In the grey of the morning she was seated beside a driver in a lightrunning rig behind the swiftest pair of horses in the town. Thenorthern express was due at noon and the distance of sixty miles mustbe made. The fleet animals climbed the mountain slopes and crossed thedivide of the Santa Lucia range, and went speeding through thebeautiful Santa Marguerite valley with its carpet of green, enlivenedwith splashes of yellow from the wild mustard blossoms. Across theswift flowing ford of the Salinis river, through deep ravines andmountain gorges, and over miles and miles of sun-baked sand and drearywaste of stunted cactus and sagebrush, the horses sped.
The scorched winds of the desert caught up the sands and hurled themhot into their faces and stung them like tiny sparks.
Dripping with foam the horses were reined up at the depot platform injust five hours and fifty minutes from the time of starting--a recordthat stands in San Louis Obispo today as the best ever made, and thattoo by a big-hearted western man who did it only to aid a woman indistress.
The train sped over miles of brown and parched desert, studded with agrowth of palms that rattled in the sultry wind like dried sunflowerstalks. The scenes were scarcely noticed by Hattie as she sat in thecoach busied with her own thoughts. The train was an express but itseemed to her to creep along. The rumble of the wheels clanking onthe iron rails seemed to say: "You'll be too late, you'll be toolate."
At Sacramento there was a wait of four hours for the east boundexpress, and Hattie sat in the depot where she could watch the clock,tick, tock, tick, tock--swinging the pendulum in these moments ofsuspense and waiting. Those monotonous sounds persistently repeatedthe single theme, seconds were born and ushered into eternity with theslow swing of the pendulum; every tick brought the time of startingnearer, but the pendulum swung so slow.
Those four hours watching the clock were the most tedious of her life.When the time was drawing nigh and the waiting passengers werestirring about, the man in the ticket office came out and wrote uponthe blackboard, "East bound Express two hours late."
Again the slow swinging pendulum sent a torrent of woe to the unhappygirl, and when the train rolled into the yards she felt as though shehad lived within sound of that clock for a year.
The green valley changed to the red earth of the foothills, stillshowing signs of the gold hunters of 1849. The puffing and wheezing ofthe engine told they were climbing steep grades, and soon they were inthe snows of the Sierra Nevada mountains. The train entered theforty-two mile snow shed and when half way through struck a hand car,derailing the engine.
It was day without, but dark within the sheds. A kindly woman with herdaughter occupied the berth opposite Hattie. She noticed the troubledlook on the girl's face and from that time on until they separated atCheyenne, did everything she could to make the journey pleasant. Butthere was the ever present suspense and doubt.
It was ten hours before the train was again under way, but they hadlost the right of way on the road and were compelled to make frequentstops on the sidings to allow other trains to pass.
As the train skirted the Great Salt Lake with its bleak and desolateislands of rock rising in silhouette against the cold grey skies,Hattie compared the scene to the feeling of utter desolation withinher soul.
A storm was raging on the Laramie plains and when the snow plow,driven by the tremendous force of an extra engine in front, stuck fastin the snow, she began to have some conception of the mighty force ofan avalanche, and the difficulty of reaching imprisoned men beneathits weight.
The railroad ended at a little station in the San Luis valley and thenfollowed many miles of staging in a crowded coach. Everywhere the girlmet with the most profound respect and attention from fellowpassengers. She was always given the best seat in the coach, andotherwise made as comfortable as circumstances would permit. Such wasthe gallantry of these men of the frontier to the girl who wastraveling alone.
At the last stage station before reaching Saguache, she heard mentalking of the imprisoned miners in the Sangre de Christo mountains,but she was unable to learn any of the particulars other than thatthe relief party was still working. When, at last, she alighted at thehotel in Saguache her first question was concerning the imprisonedmen. They will have them out in a few days if nothing happens was theassurance given by the landlady. "They are alive, we know, for we cansee the smoke coming out from under the rock."
The two men under the snow slide had been the talk of the town fordays. Every day a new party went to the scene to relieve those who hadworked the day and night before, tunneling up the steep mountain sidethrough snow of an unknown depth.
When Hattie reached the tunnel she begged to be allowed to go to theend of it where the men were working. She was assisted up the mountainside by willing hands and when she reached the workers one of themsaid: "The boys are all right for we can hear their voices."
It was then she gave an exclamation of joy, and when Buchan said to mein the cabin, "It seems that I hear her voice," he was right.