Chapter 10
The Article
What happened next . . . well, I’ve kinda got to jump way ahead to tell you about it. You know I’d always wanted to write, and had even hoped to write newspaper articles someday—more than the one or two little things I’d done for Mr. Singleton. As it turned out, what happened to me and Mr. Jones in the blizzard was the thing that my first really big article was about. Of course, it wasn’t printed in the paper till a couple months later—that’s the jumping-ahead part.
But as I was writing about the blizzard, it just seemed that perhaps the best way to tell what happened would be just to let you read the article I wrote afterward. And I’m kind of proud of the article too, even after all these years, since it was the first one I got published in a big city paper. So here it is:
Sometimes danger brings with it adventures that would never have happened without it. That’s how it was during the blizzard that struck the foothills northwest of Sacramento last March. Folks had already been calling the winter of ’55 a bad one, and the sudden fall of snow that dropped on all the gold-mining communities of the region sure made it seem like they were right.
The blizzard brought danger, all right, because most of the citizens weren’t expecting it, since it struck so suddenly and all, before anyone was prepared.
The first sign of trouble came when word got to the men gathered in Miracle Springs’ Gold Nugget—one of the town’s only establishments open at the time—that an avalanche had just occurred on Washington Ridge east of Nevada City, burying three cabins in the ravine below, and endangering the lives of six or eight miners trapped inside. Immediately all the town’s available men set out through the snow to try to dig the men out.
No sooner had the men left Miracle Springs when another emergency came. Mr. Jeriah Ward staggered into town, nearly dead of exposure in the bitter cold and in danger of frostbite, frantically in search of help. Finding no one at the saloon or the sheriff’s office, Ward made his way to the Parrish Mine and Freight Company. In a state of collapse, he desperately told Mrs. Almeda Parrish Hollister that his wife and three young girls were trapped underneath their broken-down wagon halfway up Buck Mountain.
The words had barely passed his lips when one of Parrish Freight’s young employees set out through the snow with a high-axle flatbed wagon pulled by two sturdy workhorses. The Parrish Freight wagon first headed north through the snow-blanketed white countryside on the main road toward North Bloomfield and Alleghany. Following Humbug Creek, swollen full from the winter’s rains, the wagon left the main road at the base of Buck Mountain, dropping down into Pan Ravine, a narrow gulch running along the south flank of the mountain. There the snow, which had been between six inches and a foot and a half deep on the main road, was only an inch or two thick. According to Mr. Marcus Weber of the Parrish Mine and Freight Company, who was interviewed afterward, this unusual phenomenon, which keeps most snowfall off the floor of Pan Ravine, is known only to the oldest natives of the region, but has been responsible for saving the lives of more than one person in winter snowstorms like this one.
Up through the ravine the young freight driver urged the two workhorses, who found the footing easier. But as the elevation steadily rose, so did the snow on the ground.
About halfway through the canyon the familiar voice of longtime Miracle Springs miner Alkali Jones was heard. Jones had left the previous day, prior to the beginning of the blizzard, for the Dolan ranch on the higher ground beyond Buck Mountain, and had been feared trapped or even lost in the snow. Like a ghost peering out from the darkness of the cave where he had been trying to wait out the worst of the storm, Jones appeared and joined the rescue effort.
The two made their way to the end of the ravine where they left their wagon. Then up the narrow trail into the blizzard they went, Jones leading on the back of his sure-footed mule, followed by his young friend on the bare back of one of the horses, pulling the other.
Steadily they climbed up the side of Buck Mountain, the snow falling heavier and heavier, but the trail under the thick foliage of the trees remaining visible. The way was slow, but all three animals proved true to their sure-footed reputations. Up the steep way they went, switching back often, always climbing, until at last they reached the main road that ran along the ridge. Snow over a foot thick covered the way.
“I hope they’re still alive!” cried out the young freight driver as they began their search for the broken-down wagon.
“Ain’t likely they can last long in this cold!” said Alkali Jones. “We gotta find ’em quick!”
As rapidly as they could in the thick snow, they trudged along the road, following the barely visible indentations of wagon tracks, which were growing fainter and fainter by the minute.
“I think I see it!” shouted the young driver at last. “There . . . off the road, all covered with snow!”
“Could be a wagon,” replied Jones, giving his mule a hard kick in the side.
“Mrs. Ward . . . Mrs. Ward!” the two shouted as they approached, jumping down and staggering through the deep snow. “Mrs. Ward—you there?”
“Thank God!” said a faint voice from underneath the half-buried wagon. “Who is it?”
“I’m from the Parrish Mine and Freight Company. Your husband came looking for help. His horse broke a leg and he couldn’t get back to you.”
The two bent down. Under the wagon, protected from the snow, sat the freezing woman, the chill of death in her eyes, huddling her three children close to her under two or three blankets. The bed of the wagon, partially sloped against the wind, had kept them dry, and the blankets had preserved at least some of their body heat as the woman clutched the three children close to one another. Otherwise, all four would have been dead.
“Why, Alkali Jones!” exclaimed the woman, recognizing one of her rescuers for the first time.
“In the flesh, ma’am,” replied Jones. “I haven’t seen ya since last spring.”
“You two can visit later! Let’s wrap up the girls in these blankets. We’ve got to get back down to the canyon before this snow gets any deeper!”
Helping her to her feet, Jones assisted Mrs. Ward onto the back of his mule—the most sure-footed of the three animals—then handed her the smallest of the girls, tightly wrapped in a blanket. Then the other two remounted, each cradling one of the children securely.
Ten minutes later, the three animals were retracing their hoofprints toward the steep trail they had recently ascended. Downward they went this time, in tracks they had carved through the powder on the way up—still visible, though snow continued to fall. Jones, on one of the horses, with seven-year-old Julie bundled on his lap, led the way, followed by Mrs. Ward with the baby on the mule, and then the last Parrish workhorse with four-year-old Tracey in the rider’s lap. In a rainstorm the footing on the steep trail would have been muddy and treacherous, but in the frozen snow the hoofs of the animals found solid footing; and though the way was slow, they made the descent into the ravine below without stumbling once.
The waiting wagon was loaded with the four Wards while the two-horse team was once again hitched to the wagon. Then the intrepid group turned for Miracle Springs.
“What about your other mule?”
“Leave it!” replied Alkali Jones, referring to the second of his two mules that he had tied back at the cave. “He couldn’t make it afore ya came, an’ he ain’t likely t’ feel none different now. I’ll come back fer him when the storm breaks. You jest whip them two horses o’ yers along an’ git us back t’ town! I’m as blamed anxious t’ git outta this cold as the Missus an’ her young’uns. My fingers is likely already froze clean off!”
And so the rescue of Mrs. Jeriah Ward and her three daughters off Buck Mountain took place. When her husband next saw her, Mrs. Ward was sitting trying to get warm, drinking a cup of tea, while her two older girls sipped hot milk and vanilla in front of the fireplace at Mrs. Hollister’s. Waking up in a chair he could not remember being dragged to, with his family warm and safe and recovering, Ward took a cup of coffee from the hand of Alkali Jones, full of more questions than he could ask at once. Then, with many interruptions of “hee, hee, hee!” from the old miner, the relieved father and husband heard the entire story.
In conclusion, it should be mentioned that the rescue of the miners trapped on Washington Ridge was also successful, though it was after nightfall before most of the men returned to Miracle Springs.