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Show 68 MORE ABOUT FORT BRIDGER night before, when the horses took a road leading from it, and after wandering about for an hour or two, they stop ped for the night as we did. Fortunately they had a close ambulance and several robes, and suffered comparatively little from cold, though they imagined that they were so near freezing as to render it dangerous for them to sleep, and they kept awake all night. A party was sent to the relief of Mr. Dean and the dri ver, and they too reached the post safely, the former ex periencing but little inconvenience ; but the driver had his feet and ears so badly frozen as to confine him to the hospital for several weeks. The thermometer stood at 8 above zero the morning we got in, and I have no idea how it stood during the night, but it was the wind that made the cold so intolerable. I have seen the themometer at the same place indicate 15 below zero when calm, and it did not appear near so cold. The storm was pronounced by old residents the most severe they had ever seen in that locality. I learned a lesson from this trip, and shall never start on a hundred and twenty- five mile jour ney in this country again without being better provided for protection against cold. It is a good rule to observe in these wild regions, whenever a storm overtakes a traveller, for him to find some protected spot, if possible, stop, build a fire, and wait until the storm ceases. However familiar with the country one may be, he is liable to get lost if he undertakes to travel in a severe snow- storm. A carriage- ride of one hundred and twenty- five miles in the States, even with comfortable stopping- places for the night, would seem in these days a great undertaking ; but after a journey of twelve hundred miles over the plains, and camping out every night for three months, one feels a per fect contempt for distance, and even to the ladies a three-days' ride through the mountains is as a picnic excursion would have been the year before in civilization, nor are the accommodations afforded by the way such as are to be had at the Fifth Avenue. Indeed, we passed but one hotel be tween the Missouri River and Salt Late City. Travellers |