Many narrow escapes are told of that day. But there were also many who narrowly missed finding a shelter and never lived to tell their experiences. Some lost their way even between house and barn, and some were found frozen only a few rods from the house they had tried to find, but in vain. This was the case with two girls to the east of our place, who in going out to look for a younger brother never came back but were found frozen to death a short distance from the house. My younger brother Sivert and I were at the barn when the storm struck. We did the best we knew how for the cattle, Father being absent at a neighbor's and then we started for the house. We were only a short distance from the house and there was also a small building between, but even then we had to pause before starting out and take definite aim from where we were and then run, as we say, "for dear life". We reached the house to the great relief of Mother, who had become very anxious about us by that time. The storm raged with merciless and demon-like destructiveness all that afternoon and all thru that night, with the temperature getting colder as the hours slowly rolled by. What terror and suffering the hours of that afternoon and fearful night brought to many, no one will ever know. There were those out in the storm, fighting desperately hour by hour with death, and in most cases only to find themselves rapidly nearing complete exhaustion. Then came the gradual numbness of all the sensibilities, followed by nature's merciful growing unconsciousness as drowsiness and sleep crept upon them and they at last stumbled over in the snow not to rise again. But tho the many tragedies and sufferings out in the open prairie that dreadful night were beyond words or imagination, yet scarcely less was the suffering of fathers, mothers and relatives of the lost ones who were utterly helpless in most cases even to attempt a rescue. These latter, as they listened to the merciless storm all thru that night, almost had a taste of the agonies of the lost world--if such a thing can be in this world. For in many cases their waiting thru the night was utterly without hope. If they knew their loved ones were caught by the storm some distance from the house, they also knew that there could be no hope. So they could only follow them in thought and imagination out there in the storm and the darkness as they were fighting their unequal and losing fight with the cruel, relentless storm. But even those who were in uncertainty as to the exact whereabouts of members of their families, like parents who had children in school, scarcely suffered less, for they had no assurance but that theirs, too, might be out there in the storm, and in many cases their worst fears proved to be the fact.