It had been snowing for ten days: snowing in finely granulated powder, in damp, spongy flakes, in thin, feathery plumes, snowing from a leaden sky steadily, snowing fiercely, shaken out of purple-black clouds in white flocculent masses, or dropping in long level lines, like white lances from the tumbled and broken heavens. But always silently! The woods were so choked with it--the branches were so laden with it--it had so permeated, filled and possessed earth and sky; it had so cushioned and muffled the ringing rocks and echoing hills, that all sound was deadened. The strongest gust, the fiercest blast, awoke no sigh or complaint from the snow-packed, rigid files of forest. There was no cracking of bough nor crackle of underbrush; the overladen branches of pine and fir yielded and gave way without a sound. The silence was vast, measureless, complete! Nor could it be said that any outward sign of life or motion changed the fixed outlines of this stricken landscape. Above, there was no play of light and shadow, only the occasional deepening of storm or night. Below, no bird winged its flight across the white expanse, no beast haunted the confines of the black woods; whatever of brute nature might have once inhabited these solitudes had long since flown to the lowlands. There was no track or imprint; whatever foot might have left its mark upon this waste, each succeeding snow-fall obliterated all trace or record. Every morning the solitude was virgin and unbroken; a million tiny feet had stepped into the track and filled it up. And yet, in the centre of this desolation, in the very stronghold of this grim fortress, there was the mark of human toil. A few trees had been felled at the entrance of the cañon, and the freshly-cut chips were but lightly covered with snow. They served, perhaps, to indicate another tree "blazed" with an axe, and bearing a rudely-shaped wooden effigy of a human hand, pointing to the cañon. Below the hand was a square strip of canvas, securely nailed against the bark, and bearing the following inscription-- "NOTICE. CAPTAIN CONROY'S party of emigrants are lost in the snow, and camped up in this cañon. Out of provisions and starving! Left St. Jo, October 8th, 1847. Left Salt Lake, January 1st, 1848. Arrived here, March 1st, 1848. Lost half our stock on the Platte. Abandoned our waggons, February 20th. _HELP!_ Our names are: JOEL MCCORMICK, JANE BRACKETT, PETER DUMPHY, GABRIEL CONROY, PAUL DEVARGES, JOHN WALKER, GRACE CONROY, HENRY MARCH, OLYMPIA CONROY, PHILIP ASHLEY, MARY DUMPHY. (Then in smaller letters, in pencil:)