Izzy Bird, 11 miles and a dead mule
October 05, 2020
Isabella is in Hayden’s Divide, which she calls “a hideous place.” During her passage through this “weary expanse of deep snow 11 miles across,” she sees nothing of interest save a dead mule.* She briefly wonders if she’s lost the trail but can spy Mount Lincoln** and knows she’s on the right path.
Things pick up even more when she comes out of the forest and finds her stopping place. It’s a clean log cabin where “a truly pleasing, superior-looking woman placed [her] in a rocking chair.” The only labor Isabella must do to earn her stay is rock the cradle nearby.
“The room, though it serves them and their two children for kitchen, parlor, and bed room, is the pattern of brightness, cleanliness, and comfort. At supper, there were canned raspberries, rolls, butter, tea, venison, and fried rabbit, and at seven I went to be in a carpeted log room, with a thick feather bed on a mattress, sheets, ruffled pillow slips, and a pile of warm white blankets! I slept for 11 hours.”
In the morning, she shows the adults of the house her proposed route. They declare it impassible because of the snow and warn her that another storm is on the way.
* FWIW: we might be in the Hayden’s Divide of 2020.
** the “King of the Rocky Mountains”
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