Their journey
was apparently interminable. Wearied, foot-sore, freezing at night and
tortured by hunger during the day, life could not last many hours. Some
one must die; else none could live and reach the long-talked-of relief.
Would it be Eddy, whose wife and two children were behind? Would it be
Mrs. Pike, who left two babes? Mrs. McCutchen, who left one? Mr. or Mrs.
Foster, whose baby boy was at the cabin? Or would it be Mary Graves
or Mrs. Fosdick, who had left mother and family? On the night of the
seventh, they lay down upon the snow without having tasted a mouthful
of food during the day. Continued famine and exhaustion had so weakened
their frames that they could not survive another day. Yet, on the
morning of the seventh, they arose and staggered onward. Soon they
halted and gathered about some freshly made tracks. Tracks marked by
blood! Tracks that they knew had been made by Lewis and Salvador, whose
bare feet were sore and bleeding from cuts and bruises inflicted by the
cruel, jagged rocks, the frozen snow, and flinty ice. These Indians had
eaten nothing for nine days, and had been without fire or blankets for
four days. They could not be far ahead.

Chapter VIII.

Starvation at Donner Lake
Preparing Rawhide for Food
Eating the Firerug
Shoveling Snow off the Beds
Playing they were Tea-cups of Custard
A Starving Baby
Pleading with Silent Eloquence
Patrick Breen's Diary
Jacob Donner's Death
A Child's Vow
A Christmas Dinner
Lost on the Summits
A Stump Twenty-two Feet High
Seven Nursing Babes at Donner Lake
A Devout Father
A Dying Boy
Sorrow and Suffering at the Cabins.

How fared it with those left at Donner Lake? About the time the fifteen
began their terrible journey, Baylis Williams starved to death. Such
food as the rest had was freely given to him, but it did not is satisfy
the demands of his nature. Quietly, uncomplainingly, he had borne
the pangs of famine, and when the company first realized his dreadful
condition, he was in the delirium which preceded death. What words can
portray the emotions of the starving emigrants, when they saw one of
their number actually perish of hunger before their eyes! Williams died
in the Graves cabin, and was buried near the house by W. C. Graves and
John Denton.

All the Donner Party were starving. When the cattle were killed the
hides had been spread over the