INTENSE COLD-NORTHERN LIGHTS.



camp, he overtook Umentucken, the Mountain Lamb, nlow
the wife of Milton Sublette, with her child, on horseback.
The weather was terribly cold, and seeming to grow
colder. The naked plains afforded no shelter from the
piercing winds, and the air fairly glittered with frost.
Poor Umentucken was freezing, but more troubled about
her babe than herself. The camp was far ahead, with all
the extra blankets, and the prospect was imminent that
they would perish.  Our gallant trapper had thought
himself very cold until, this moment, but what were his
sufferings compared to those of the Mountain Lamb and
her little Lambkin ? Without an instant's hesitation, he
divested himself of his blanket capote, which he wrapped
round the mother and child, and urged her to hasten to
camp. For himself, he could not hasten, as he had the
horses in charge, but all that fearful afternoon rode naked
above the waist, exposed to the wind, and the fine, dry,
icy hail, which filled the air as with diamond needles, to
pierce the skin; and, probably, to the fact that the hail
was so stinging, was owing the fact that his blood did not
congeal.
  "0 what a day was that!" said Meek to the writer;
" why, the air war thick with fine, sharp hail, and the sun
shining, too! not one sun only, but three suns-there
were three suns! And when night came on, the northern
lights blazed up the sky! It was the most beautiful sight
I ever saw. That is the country for northern lights! "
  When some surprise was expressed that he should have
been obliged to expose his naked skin to the weather, in
order to save Umentucken-"In the mountains," he an-
swered, "we do not have many garments.    Buckskin
breeches, a blanket capote, and a beaver skin cap makes
up our rig."



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