After the messengers left, and as father and Uncle Jacob were hastening preparations for our own departure, new troubles beset us.  Uncle was giving the finishing touches to the axle, when the chisel he was using slipped from his grasp, and its keen edge struck and made a serious wound across the back of father’s right hand which was steadying the timber.  The crippled hand was carefully dressed, and to quiet uncle’s fears and discomfort, father made light of the accident, declaring that they had weightier matters for consideration than cuts and bruises.  The consequences of that accident, however, were far more wide-reaching than could have been anticipated.

Up and up we toiled until we reached an altitude of six thousand feet, and were within about ten miles of our companions at the lake, when the intense cold drove us into camp on Prosser Creek in Alder Creek Valley, a picturesque and sheltered nook two and a half miles in length and three-quarters of a mile in width.  But no one observed the picturesque grandeur of the forest-covered mountains which hem it in on the north and west; nor that eastward and southward it looks out across plateaus to the Washoe Mountains twenty miles away.

A piercing wind was driving storm-clouds toward us, and those who understood their threatening aspect realized that twenty-one persons, eight of them helpless children, were there at the mercy of the pitiless storm-king.

The teams were hurriedly unhooked, the tents pitched, and the men and the women began collecting material for more suitable quarters.  Some felled trees, some lopped off the branches, and some, with oxen, dragged the logs into position.  There was enough building material on the ground for a good sized foundation four logs deep, when night stopped the work.  The moon and stars came out before we went to bed, yet the following morning the ground was covered with snow two or three feet in depth, which had to be shovelled from the exposed beds before their occupants could rise.

I remember well that new day.  All plans for log cabins had to be abandoned.  There was no sheltered nook for shivering children, so father lifted Georgia and me on to a log, and mother tucked a buffalo robe around us, saying, “Sit here until we have a better place for you.”  There we sat snug and dry, chatting and twisting our heads about, watching the hurrying, anxious workers.  Those not busy at the wagons were helping the builders to construct a permanent camp.

They cleared a space under a tall pine tree and reset the tent a few feet south of its trunk, facing the sunrise.  Then, following the Indian method as described by John Baptiste, a rude semi-circular hut of poles was added to the tent, the tree-trunk forming part of its north wall, and its needled boughs, the rafters and cross-pieces to the roof.  The structure was overlaid so far as possible with pieces of cloth, old quilts, and buffalo robes, then with boughs and branches of pine and tamarack.  A hollow was scooped in the ground near the tree for a fireplace, and an opening in the top served as chimney and ventilator.  One opening led into the tent and another served as an outer door.