The Silver State

SAND STORM.—It is an unfortunate circumstance that the railroad was not built along the Humboldt bottom, so as to obviate the necessity of passing through the two or three hundred yards of sand hills between the Court-house and the depot. Ordinarily no great inconvenience is experienced in crossing this Sahara, but on windy days like yesterday it is a very disagreeable journey. It is related of an old army officer who flourished a few thousand years before the invention of rifled cannon and Colt's revolvers, that he discomfited the enemy by showering red hot sand upon them, which consumed the joints of their armor, burned their flesh, and sent them howling with torture to their camp. Had this old strategist lived to the present day and established a battery near the School-house with sufficient sagebrush for heating purposes, he could defend Winnemucca against the combined forces of the universe while that sand hill lasted. Much has been said and written about plucky persons in various parts of the world, but it is safe to assert that there is not a "grittier" individual on the face of the earth than a Winnemuccan who passes through those sand hills when a stiff zephyr from the southwest prevails; in fact there couldn't be, for he is "grit" all over and two or three inches deep.