For four days the bitter cold and fierce wind held the camps in thrall, then the latter blew itself out.

The cold, however, still endured though the sun shone.

When one looked forth from camp, all that could be seen was a snowbound earth; mesa and mountains were as white and silent as some polar region; nothing moved; nothing seemed to live out yonder.

It was like a dazzling, frigid, extinct world.
The main mesa road was blocked and telephone wires were down.

What went on outside the limits of the camp's snow-drifted horizon its dwellers knew not--nor for the moment cared.