A NARROW ESCAPE (STORY) AN INCIDENT FROM THE LIFE OF FREDERICK WILLIAM WHITE PIONEER OF 1862 A NARROW ESCAPE Far up in the mountains of Hardscrabble Canyon stood a tiny log cabin, where lived the family of William and Elizabeth (Bessie) White. The family had left their home in England and emigrated to Utah as Mormon converts, reaching the Salt Lake Valley in the early 60's. Mr White had been a seafaring man spending most of his life on the water. Foe months at a time his feet never touched the land. When he reached Utah and learned that farming was almost the soul industry of this new country he was bewildered and troubled. No one could be more unprepared to meet the situation than he. He didn't even feel at home on the land, and he knew nothing of farm¬ing. But at least he could try. He made several attempts, then decided he must find some other kind of work. He had had some experience with the ships engines. If he could only find something along that line he felt he could adapt himself to his work and soon learn to do his job well. At about this time he met a man named William Eddington who owned a sawmill, but who needed an engineer to run it. The two men formed a partnership, and Mr. White moved his family up into the Weber Valley (now Morgan), where the sawmill was located. They took the mill up Hardscrabble Canyon, almost to the summit, and set up a lumber business there. A short distance from the place where the mill stood, Mr. White built a small log cabin, and took his family with him into the mountains for the summer, intending to move them down into the town before the snow came. It was a lovely place for a summer home. The tall green pines were everywhere, and the mountainsides were gorgeous with grass and flowers. Everyone was busy. The father ran the sawmill. The older boyshelped to cut and haul the timber to the camp. And the women kept house and cooked for the hired men. It was a busy, happy family. The summer was gone before anyone knew it, and autumn was there. And then one morning they awoke to a thick blanket of snow. Winter was on them andthe family was still in the mountains. Day after day and night after night the snow kept falling. It lay thick and heavy on the mountain sides. Each morning the crew broke trail from the cabin to the mill, andeach night it filled up again, but still the work went on. When the warm days of spring returned and thesnow began to melt and settle on the mountainsides, the old timers kept sending out warnings to the mill hands to keep away from the steep slopes. There was danger of snowslides. But the young boys, full of daring and the "know-it-all" of youth, paid little heed to the warnings. One day Fred, the eldest son, then about nineteen years old, sighted a dead tree on a hill across the gulch and decided to cut it down and bring it in for firewood. He shouldered his ax, crossed the gulch and had nearly reached the tree when he heard a terrific rumbling. He raised his eyes and saw the whole side of the mountain sliding down. He was directly in the path of the slide and could not escape. He realized instantly what was happen¬ing, and threw his ax as farm from him as he possibly could to keep from being cut by it, and in the next instant the slide was on him. He was thrown over ah bank of a dugway road, a drop of about twenty feet, and was pinned there, face down but still conscious. Every act of his life raced madly through his mind. Then the jar of the moving mass loosened the snow on the other side of the gulch, and a second avalanche came thundering down burying him still deeper. The family in the little cabin had heard the rumbling, roar¬ing noise, and the mother rushed out to try to determine the cause of it. As she did so she saw her husband, bare headed, without coat, and with shirt sleeves rolled to the elbows, just as he had been at work, running up the hill side. Someone shouted, "Man under the snow!" And a second voice answered, "It's Fred White". How that mother got back into the house she never knew. At the place of the disaster there was confusion. The work¬men all rushed to the spot eager to help only to find there was only one brokes shovel in the camp. There was another sawmill in another fork of the canyon a mile and a half away, but how could they spare the time to go so far for help? However, they had no choice in the matter, and young men were sent to get the necessary tools. The long wait was maddening, and during that time the father was called on to decide where the digging should begin. With nothing to guide him but an unerring instinct he indicated the spot. When the shovels arrived the digging began, but soon the father stopped them and indicated another spot about five feet away from the first place. As the digging proceeded the younger boys were sent to the house repeatedly to report their progress to the poor, distracted mother. The boys would dash in breathlessly give the message and rush away again. Then one of theolder bays came. He quietly opened the door and slowly walked across the room to the chair where his whitefaced mother sat constantly praying. With his arms around her he said. "Mother dear, you must brace yourself for bad news. Fred can't possibly be alive after all this time under the snow. You must give up the idea that we can save him." And on the other side of these chair stood the eldest daughter Bessie. Her arms were around her mother, too. She was pleading with her mother to cling to her faith. "Don't give him up, Mother, don't! Our faith can save him." For two and one half hours the struggle went on, and then one of the men struck a foot. At the sight of it the half crazed father jumped into the hole and started digging with his hands. The men realized that if they had continued digging where they had started to, they would have struck his head. Thomas Erwin, one of the older men who helped with the rescue, when describing the accident said, "Fred was lying face down, his head slightly turned to one side. His ax lay closely against his face, blade down forming a wedge, protecting his nose and mouth from the closely packed snow. This gave him a breathing space which no doubt saved his life." When the boy was finally rescued, his face was black and distorted, but the heart was still beating. They carried him home, put him to bed and applied the old fashioned remedies. He soon revived, and in a short time recovered and was able to continue his work, a wiser and more cautious boy. Written by- Bessie P. Brough