History of the Donner Party: A Tragedy of the Sierra

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able to move when the famished "Seven" passed. Yes, passed! for the starving emigrants went on by the poor fellows, unable to deprive them of the little spark of life left in their wasted bodies. Traveling was now slow work for the dying whites. They only went about two hundred yards. In a few more hours, perhaps that very night, they would die of starvation. Already the terrible phantasies of delirium were beginning to dance before their sunken eyes. Ere the Indians would cease breathing some of the Seven would be past relief. There were two men and five women. William Foster could see that his wife-the woman who was all the world to him-was fast yielding to the deadly grasp of the fiends of starvation. For the sake of his life she had stifled the most sacred instincts of her womanly nature, and procured him food from Fosdick's body. Should he see her die the

s. They did not moan or struggle, or appear to regret that their lingeri

t yet save those who we

, the little band speedily realized that they were not yet saved. It was food for only a few days. Then they

ft in case we might find game which we could kill. We traveled over a ridge of mountains, and then descended a deep canyon, where one could scarcely see the bottom. Down, down we would go, or rather slide, for it is very slavish work going down hill, and in many cases we were compelled to slide on our shoes as sleds. On reaching the bottom we would plunge into the snow, so that it was difficult getting out, with the shoes tied to our feet, our packs lashed to our backs, and ourselves head and ears under the snow. But we managed to get out some way, and one by one reached the bottom of the canyon. When this was accomplished we had to ascend a hill as steep as the one we had descended. We would drive the toes of our shoes into the loose snow, to make a sort of step, and one by one, as if ascending stair-steps, we climbed up. It took us an entire day to reach the top of the mountain. Each time we attained the summit of a mountain, we hoped we should be able to see something like a valley, but each time came disappointment, for far ahead was always another and higher mountain. We found some springs, or, as we called them, wells, fr

t disappeared or lay only in patches. Their strength was well-nigh exhausted, when one day Mary Graves says: "Some one called out, 'Here are tracks!' Some

ng out their arms for assistance. At first, they all ran and hid, but soon they returned to the aid of these dying wretches. It is said that the Indian women and children cried, and wailed with grief at the affecting spectacle of starved men an

uld anything be more touching than t

ure before they die, had been experienced by these people at least four different times. To their horror, they now discovered that despite the acorn bread, they must die of hunger and exhaustion a fifth and last time. So sick and weak did they become, that they were compelled to lie down and rest every hundred yards. Finally, after being with the Indians seven days,

nd fairly carried him along. His feet moved, but they were frozen, and blistered, and cracked, and bleeding. Left alone, he would have fallen helplessly to the earth. It w

had reached Johnson's Ranch on the twenty-fifth of October, 1846. They had been with the Donner Party until Fort Bridger was reached, and then took the Fort Hall road. Their j

the mountains, and was unable to get back or forward. He told how the fifteen had started, and that six beside himself were still alive. That the six were back in the mountains, almost starved. R. P. Tucker and three other men started at once with provisions, the Indian acting as guide. They reached

he Sacramento plains a vast quagmire. Yet one man volunteered to go to Sacramento with the tale of horror, and get men and provisions. This man was John Rhodes. Lashing two pine logs together with rawhides, and forming a raft, John Rh

the meat. The country was scoured for horses and mules, and for saddles and pack-saddles, but at last, in ten or twelve days, they were ready to start. Alcalde Sinclair had come up from the Fort, and when all were ready to begin their march, he made them a thrilling little address. They were, he said, starting out upon a hazardous journey. Nothing could justify them in attempting so perilous an undertaking except the obligations due to their suffering fellow-men. He urged them to do all in their power, with