Through gloomy forests, intricate and dark, Which skirt the confines of the mountain park, With arduous climb and hazardous ascent Up through the gulch precipitous and wild To where the avalanche its force had spent, In silent haste the rescue party filed.
On such occasions little may be said, The sternest use subdued and whispered breath, For silence seems contagious from the dead, A vague, unconscious reverence for death. Facing the inconvenience of the blast, Which whirled the drifting snowflakes as it passed, The party shovelled; and with one accord Abstained from converse, no one spoke a word Till hours of strenuous search disclosed to sight Six corpses from their sepulchre of white. The other two, who by some wondrous means, Escaped with but some trifling cuts and sprains, Were in the meantime by their fellows found, Dazed and exhausted in the gulch below, For storm-bewildered men will grope around Describing circles in the blinding snow, Until they sink, their vital forces spent, And crystal snowflakes weave their cerement.
Six pairs of skies,[1] each improvised a sled, On which were placed the stark and staring dead; As flickering lanterns flashed a ghostly glow Upon them in their winding-sheets of snow, The sad procession now retraced its course Back through the dismal forest, while the blast Wailed forth a requiem in accents hoarse, Which shuddering pines re-echoed as it passed.
With sorely overtaxed and waning strength, As some spent swimmer struggling to the shore, The weary party found its way at length, Back through the forest to the cabin's door. As Uncle Jim, whose life was ever spent In ministering to others, had been sent Ahead, the dying coals had been renewed With fresh supplies of pine and aspen wood, And blazed a cheery invitation forth To those who sought the comfort of the hearth.
The two survivors were the strangers who Had just arrived the afternoon before; Their names nor antecedents no one knew, But western miners do not close the door On weary travellers, whosoe'er they be, No matter what their race or pedigree; The one credential needed in the west Is--human being, storm-bound and distressed. The rescued miners, much benumbed and chilled, To show some signs of conscious life began; So Dad McGuire, in therapeutics skilled To cure the maladies of beast or man, Pursuant of his self-appointed task, From out some secret depths produced a flask, Which to the rescued miners he applied As guaranteed to warm them up inside. By way of chance digression, should you ask The nature of the liquid in the flask, Which, evidently, the boys had used before, We must admit, the empty bottle bore, Like most of bottles used in mining camps, The revenue collector's excise stamps.