<TITLE>06. Par 39-47</TITLE>L-39   And now, then, coming down, I had to stop over in Colorado, to visit some of my friends there, some ministers. I'm a--I'm a guide in Colorado, and I was taking them on a hunting trip. Two or three of those men, three or four, five of them are sitting right present now to know this. And it's been awful dry in Colorado this year, as it has been across the nation. And fires were very... going to be very bad, so they delayed the hunting season a while.

L-40 But while we were up there, there come forth an issue that--that there was coming a blizzard. And it's dangerous to be in the mountains at that time, 'cause sometimes I've seen you couldn't even see your hand before you, for hours after hours, and thirty foot of snow dumped right out in one time, just in a few hours, right on top of you. You perish. So I told my brethren, that morning when we was leaving out, I said, "Now the blizzard..."

L-41   Practically a hundred man, or more, had been back in behind us. And here come jeeps, trucks, and everything going right on out, because they knowed what was going to happen. No one left back, but the cowhand himself back there, which, he winters back there.

L-42 And we were the only couple, only truck, that stayed in. And I asked the brethren. They said, "We're going to stay." So then, "All right," I said, "now be ready." And we went out and got... a Methodist minister and I went and got some more bread and stuff, so we could find it; it was about thirty miles in and back. So we come back, Brother John and them sitting here, they heard that and away they went; they got out at the time, so the blizzard struck. But we was going to stay over, and I was going to Tucson for a meeting, and I called my wife and told her that we'd... if I didn't get there, to let somebody else substitute in my place.

L-43   And the next morning we started out. I said, "Now, the first time," it was real cloudy, "you hear the rain fall, or anything, get back to that camp as quick as you can, 'cause within ten, fifteen minutes, you'll never see your way back again." And so I had the men placed out, and went up over the top of the ridge, walking up, trying to run deer down on them.

L-44 And I'd, a few days before that, shooting my rifle in, down in Tucson; coming back up there, throwed it out a little bit to the right. I shot a big buck that I had been looking for for many years, and it hit him too high, and he had died down there and I couldn't find him, the weather was getting bad.

L-45   I thought, "I'll run up and take a look." And when I got up on top the mountain, I noticed the rain started, the sleet falling, and the big drops of snow, the size of a silver dollar, just plastering everywhere, and the winds twisting. I knew everyone was on the run, back to the camp then. Well, I waited a few moments, and I thought, "I'll never be able to find this deer at this time, under this storm."

L-46 So on we went, started down the mountain, just could see about ten feet in front of me. And about... I was about four miles or more, to get in to the place. Knowing, I come down the mountain, knowing the country so well, 'cause I've herded cattle there for years and years. Coming down the mountain, I got about a half a mile from the saddle, of where crossing like this, across the range of where I was at. And there was...

L-47   I had been feeling that horrible burden. "I've cried. I've prayed. I've confessed. What can I do? What is it that I've done?" Like you had done something real evil; like you had hurt somebody, and you know you ought to make it right. What was I condemned about? I knew not. I said, "Lord, if You'll only reveal it to me, I'll make it right. But what have I done but stand and preach, and do all that I knowed to do? And I've tried to live clean, clear, and just according to Your Words. But what have I done?" And still that burden would not let up, year after year. I thought about it on the mountain, that morning, and I started down.


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