had to walk who were able. Men,
women, and children were forced to travel on foot all day long, and in
many cases were compelled to carry heavy burdens in order to lessen
the loads drawn by the weary cattle. Wm. G. Murphy remembers distinctly
seeing his brother carrying a copper camp-kettle upon his head. The
Graves family, the Breens, the Donners, the Murphys, the Reeds, all
walked beside the wagons until overpowered with fatigue. The men became
exhausted much sooner, as a rule, than the women. Only the sick, the
little children, and the utterly exhausted, were ever allowed to ride.
Eddy and his wife had lost all their cattle, and each carried one of
their children and such personal effects as they were able. Many in the
train were without shoes, and had to travel barefooted over the weary
sands, and flinty, sharp-edged stones.

On the ninth of October a death had resulted from this necessity
of having to walk. It was a case of desertion, which, under other
circumstances, would have been unpardonably heartless. An old man named
Hardcoop was traveling with Keseberg. He was a cutler by trade, and had
a son and daughter in the city of Antwerp, in Belgium. It is said
he owned a farm near Cincinnati, Ohio, and intended, after visiting
California to dispose of this farm, and with the proceeds return to
Antwerp, for the purpose of spending his declining years with his
children. He was a man of nearly three-score years, and the hardships of
the journey had weakened his trembling limbs and broken down his health.
Sick, feeble, helpless as he was, this old man was compelled to walk
with the others. At last, when his strength gave way, he was forced to
lie down by the roadside to perish of cold and hunger. Who can picture
the agony, the horror, the dreary desolation of such a death? The poor
old man walked until his feet actually burst!--walked until he sank
utterly exhausted by the roadside! It was a terrible death! To see the
train disappear in the distance; to know he was abandoned to die of
exposure and starvation; to think that the wolves would devour his flesh
and gnaw his bones; to lie down on the great desert, hungry, famished,
and completely prostrated by fatigue--to meet death thus is too dreadful
to contemplate.

No one made any attempt to return and find the poor old fellow. This,
however, is partially excused by the overwhelming dangers which now
threatened the entire company. Each hour's delay rendered death in th