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Show THRILLING EXPERIENCE IN A SOUTH DAKOTA BLIZZARD St. Paul, April 2. Passengers arriving ar-riving today on a Great Northern train due last Friday tell of being snow-bound for four days and five nights on the prairies of North Dakota Da-kota in the worst blizzard the northwest north-west has seen in many years, with only food enough for two frugal meals a day, and with such a small amount of fuel that the women had to wrap themselves in blankets and the men to wear their overcoats day and night to keep from freezing. The train was completely lost to the world. Late Thursday afternoon it picked its Trecarious way out of Williston in the hope of being able to reach Minot, some fourteen miles to the east, before be-fore night. Almost midway, at a little stopping place called Ray, where there is only a siding, a water tank and a coal shed, the train was stalled. The engineer thought he could run the engine en-gine back to Williston and get aid, and taking the conductor with him, started on the trip. The lone engine was stuck in a drift in a cut a short distance out of the town, and had to be abondoned. This left the train of eight coaches and about 250 passengers alone on the siding, and with all communication cut off. I Then started the long, siege, during ! which the cold had to be borne and hunger stifled. There was much suffer- , ing. There was an incipient riot on the I first day. The second-class passengers insisted that they must have as much or more food than the others, "and they being in Iargeh numbers and had more ravenous appetites, it was difficult to confine them to their quota. Many were not willing, as the first-class passengers pas-sengers insisted, that the women and children should be fed and taken care of first, but after some argument they were prevailed upon to subside. Monday evening Professor Colgrove of the University of Washington, who was en route east on a vacation trip, and who had been despondent and morose, mo-rose, attempted to commit suicide by cutting his throat with a razor. There was a physician on the train, but he had no facilities for performing the necessary operation, and it was absolutely ab-solutely necessary to get into communication commu-nication with one of the neighboring towns. In their desperation the passengers broke open everything in the train's cnesi ana in ine conaucior h uox iouiiu a telegraph instrument. A young man, on the train, an electrician, faced the blizzard and tapped one of the wires and attached the instrument. He knew a little about telegraphy and notified the operators at Minot and Williston of what had occurred. From each place a snow plow was started in front of an engine bearing a surgeon. The one from Minot, after a hard night's work, reached the siding early the following -morning and the wounded man was removed on the first train to St. Paul, where he was cared for at the city hospital. The almost famished passengers' who had suffered from the cold and exposure, ex-posure, were given food and warm berths in the first train pushed through the drifts. The rotary plow made one trip through the drift between Ray and Minot, but the snow piled in so rapidly that it was necessary for the rotary to pass through again, and then precede the passenger train through the cut. Professor Colgrove was brought to I St. Paul early this morning. The jugular ju-gular vein is partially severed, and it is not believed he can recover. He has been ill from too close application to work, and had decided to spend a month with friends and relatives at Hamilton, N. Y. |