The report concluded with the statement that the men at
once began log-cutting for cabins in which the company might have to
pass the winter.
After the messengers left, and as father and Uncle Jacob were hastening
preparations for our own departure, new troubles beset us. Uncle was
giving the finishing touches to the axle, when the chisel he was using
slipped from his grasp, and its keen edge struck and made a serious
wound across the back of father's right hand which was steadying the
timber. The crippled hand was carefully dressed, and to quiet uncle's
fears and discomfort, father made light of the accident, declaring that
they had weightier matters for consideration than cuts and bruises. The
consequences of that accident, however, were far more wide-reaching
than could have been anticipated.
Up and up we toiled until we reached an altitude of six thousand feet,
and were within about ten miles of our companions at the lake, when the
intense cold drove us into camp on Prosser Creek in Alder Creek Valley,
a picturesque and sheltered nook two and a half miles in length and
three-quarters of a mile in width. But no one observed the picturesque
grandeur of the forest-covered mountains which hem it in on the north
and west; nor that eastward and southward it looks out across plateaus
to the Washoe Mountains twenty miles away.
A piercing wind was driving storm-clouds toward us, and those who
understood their threatening aspect realized that twenty-one persons,
eight of them helpless children, were there at the mercy of the
pitiless storm-king.
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