To one who has never gone from comparative summer in a few hours’ ride, to the depths of winter and a considerable depth of snow, the sensation is a strange one.  Of course, I had often done that before.  But having more leisure to think of it now, and having more to do with the snow, I thought of its strangeness, and I am reminded of a little girl whom I have become acquainted with long since those days, and the effect that the first sight of snow had upon her.  She was born in San Francisco, and had not seen any snow up to the time when she was three years old.  Her parents were coming east with her on a railroad train, which runs over about the same ground that we were on at the time I was there with Col.  Elliott.  Awakening in the morning in a sleeping-car on top of the Sierras, the little one looked out, and seeing the vast fields of whiteness, she exclaimed:  “Do look, mamma; the world is covered with sugar.”

As we ascended the mountains the snow became so deep in a little while that we were forced to camp.  The next morning the herders were directed to take the stock ahead in order to tramp down the snow to make a trail, but in four miles it became so deep that it was impossible to proceed further in that manner, and then the Colonel detailed fifty men to shovel snow, but having only a few shovels, wooden ones were made that answered the purpose, and while we were shoveling, the horses were also frequently driven back and forth over the trail, and in three days we had a passable road for the wagons.

At the end of the three days we reached the edge of the snow on the opposite side of the mountains, and there being a beautiful camping ground and the first night out of the snow for some time, the luxury of it was fully appreciated by all hands.

On a pine tree here I again saw signs of my old friend, Jim Beckwith, for there was written:  “Twenty miles to Beckwith’s Hotel.”  So you see that even in that faraway country, and at that early day, even the pioneer had learned the uses of out-door advertising.

The next morning we took an early start and traveled hard all day, anticipating with much pleasure that at night we should enjoy all the luxuries of the season at Beckwith’s Hotel.  And we did, to the extent that this region and the markets of San Francisco could afford.

We reached [Transcriber’s note:  unreadable text] about sunset that evening, and the command went into camp and I went to Jim’s new log house.  He had built one and had started in to build the second, having two carpenters at work finishing them up.

After supper Col.  Elliott and all his officers, both commissioned and non-commissioned, came to Jim’s house, where, after a social chat and having cracked a few jokes, which latter was really a part of the business connected with this life, Col.  Elliott pulled off his overcoat, laid it and his hat on a bed, stepped up near the table and said: