e tidings: "Jacob Donner, Samuel Shoemaker, Joseph Rhinehart, and
James Smith are dead, and the others in a low condition."[5]

Uncle Jacob, the first to die, was older than my father, and had been
in miserable health for years before we left Illinois. He had gained
surprisingly on the journey, yet quickly felt the influence of
impending fate, foreshadowed by the first storm at camp. His courage
failed. Complete prostration followed.

My father and mother watched with him during the last night, and the
following afternoon helped to lay his body in a cave dug in the
mountain side, beneath the snow. That snow had scarcely resettled when
Samuel Shoemaker's life ebbed away in happy delirium. He imagined
himself a boy again in his father's house and thought his mother had
built a fire and set before him the food of which he was fondest.

But when Joseph Rhinehart's end drew near, his mind wandered, and his
whitening lips confessed a part in Mr. Wolfinger's death; and my
father, listening, knew not how to comfort that troubled soul. He could
not judge whether the self-condemning words were the promptings of a
guilty conscience, or the ravings of an unbalanced mind.

Like a tired child falling asleep, was James Smith's death; and Milton
Elliot, who helped to bury the four victims and then carried the
distressing report to the lake camp, little knew that he would soon be
among those later called to render a final accounting. Yet it was even
so.

Our camp having been thus depleted by death, Noah James, who had been
one of my father's drivers, from Springfield until we passed out of the
desert, now cast his lot again with ours, and helped John Baptiste to
dig for the carcasses of the cattle. It was weary work, for the snow
was higher than the level of the guide marks, and at times they
searched day after day and found no trace of hoof or horn. The little
field mice that had crept into camp were caught then and used to ease
the pangs of hunger. Also pieces of beef hide were cut into strips,
singed, scraped, boiled to the consistency of glue, and swallowed with
an effort; for no degree of hunger could make the saltless, sticky
substance palatable. Marrowless bones which had already been boiled and
scraped, were now burned and eaten, even the bark and twigs of pine
were chewed in the vain effort to soothe the gnawings which made one
cry for bread and meat.

During the bitterest weather we little ones were kept in bed, and my