As the train skirted the Great Salt Lake with its bleak and desolate islands of rock rising in silhouette against the cold grey 228 skies, Hattie compared the scene to the feeling of utter desolation within her 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 fast in the snow, she began to have some conception of the mighty force of an avalanche, and the difficulty of reaching imprisoned men beneath its weight.
The railroad ended at a little station in the San Luis valley and then followed many miles of staging in a crowded coach. Everywhere the girl met with the most profound respect and attention from fellow passengers. She was always given the best seat in the coach, and otherwise made as comfortable as circumstances would permit. Such was the gallantry of these men of the frontier to the girl who was traveling alone.
At the last stage station before reaching Saguache, she heard men talking of the imprisoned miners in the Sangre de Christo mountains, but she was unable to learn 229 any of the particulars other than that the relief party was still working. When, at last, she alighted at the hotel in Saguache her first question was concerning the imprisoned men. They will have them out in a few days if nothing happens was the assurance given by the landlady. “They are alive, we know, for we can see the smoke coming out from under the rock.”
The two men under the snow slide had been the talk of the town for days. Every day a new party went to the scene to relieve those who had worked the day and night before, tunneling up the steep mountain side through snow of an unknown depth.
When Hattie reached the tunnel she begged to be allowed to go to the end of it where the men were working. She was assisted up the mountain side by willing hands and when she reached the workers one of them said: “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 me in the cabin, “It seems that I hear her voice,” he was right.