"Snow-Shoe Thompson" [pp. 419-435]

434 "Sn$ozw-Shoe T/mipso.i." [Oc
son offered to put up money and go out Genoa, and now rests by the side of his so
upon the highest mountains, where there was Arthur, his only child and a most promisin
no track made, and run and jump with them, lad, who died June 22d, i878, at the age
but no one would take him up." The style eleven years and four months.
of snow-shoe racing mentioned by Mr. Mer- Thompson left his widow a farm of on
rill is nothing more nor less than "coasting hundred and sixty acres, in Diamond Valle
on show-shoes," and in Alpine County it is jlust across the Nevada line, in Californi
so called-is not dignified with the name She married again, and is now Mrs. Joh
of snow-shl)oeing. Scossa. She recently caused a tomnbston
At the time of his death Snow-shoe to be erected over the grave of her form
Thompson was a member of the Board of husband. At the top of the stone are see
Commissioners of Alpine County. He was a pair of artistically carved snow-shoe
a man who appeared to be well educated, crossed, and twelve inches in height.
and wrote a bold and beautiful hand. He John A. Thompson was the father of a
must have been mainly self-educated. When the race of snow-shoers in the Sierra Nevad
a lad in Norway, his only chance for the ac- mountains; and in those mountains he w
quirement of book-knowledge was in the the pioneer of the pack train, the stage coac
oiegangs skoler, or ambulatory schools- and the locomotive. On the Pacific Coa
schools that shift from place to place at cer- his equal in his peculiar line will probab
tain periods of the year, following the popu- never again be seen. The times and cond
lation in the thinly settled sections. They tions are past and gone that called for me
are so called in contradistinction to thefast possessing the special qualifications th
skoler or stationary schools. As the peo- made him fanmous. It would be hard to
ple of Norway, in many places-like those find another man combining his courag
about the Alps, in Switzerland-work their physique, and powers of endurance-a ma
way up into the mountains in summer, with with such thews and sinews, controlled b
their flocks, and move down again at the ap- such a will.
proach of winter, the omgangs skoler af- As an explorer in Arctic regions he woul
ford the only educational facilities attainable. have achieved world-wide fame. Less cou
While moving to and fro in the Western age than he each winter displayed amid the
States, his opportunities for attending school mountains, has secured for hundreds the h
were probably not much better than they ro's crown. Toordinary men there is som
were in his native Norway. thing terrible in the wild winter storms tha
Mr. Thompson was ill but a few days, and often sweep through the Sierras; but.the loud
was confined to his bed but a day or two be- er the howlings of the gale rose, the highe
fore he died. His disease was some de- rose the courage of Snow-shoe Thompson
rangement of the liver. He was engaged in He did not fear to beard the Storm King i