tragic
as those of the sufferers they sought to help. Bret Harte, in his
_Gabriel Conroy_, has told much--though in the exaggerated and
unjust form the stories were first circulated--of the Donner tragedy,
and it has been made the subject of much newspaper and other writing
and discussion.

An unusual trip that can be taken from Tahoe Tavern is down to the
foot of Donner Lake and then, turning to the left, follow the old
emigrant and stage-road. It has not been used for fifty years, but it
is full of interest. There are many objects that remain to tell of its
fascinating history. Over it came many who afterwards became pioneers
in hewing out this new land from the raw material of which lasting
commonwealths are made. Turning south to Cold Stream, it passes by
Summit Valley on to Starved Camp. The stumps of the trees cut down by
the unfortunate pioneers are still standing.

It was always a difficult road to negotiate, the divide between Mt.
Lincoln and Anderson Peak being over 7500 feet high. But those heroes
of 1848-49 made it, triumphing over every barrier and winning for
themselves what Joaquin Miller so poetically has accorded them,
where he declares that "the snow-clad Sierras are their everlasting
monuments."

This road is now, in places, almost obliterated. One section for three
miles is grown up. Trees and chaparral cover it and hide it from the
face of any but the most studiously observant. When the road that
takes to the north of Donner Lake was built in 1861-62 and goes
directly and on an easier grade by Emigrant Gap to Dutch Flat, this
road by Cold Stream was totally abandoned. For years the county road
officials have ignored its existence, and now it is as if it never had
been, save for its memories and the fragments of wagons, broken and
abandoned in the fierce conflict with stern Nature, and suggesting
the heart-break and struggle the effort to reach California caused in
those early days.

CHAPTER XI

LAKE TAHOE AND THE TRUCKEE RIVER

As is well known, the Truckee River is the only outlet to Lake Tahoe.
This outlet is on the northwest side of the Lake, between Tahoe City
and Tahoe Tavern, and is now entirely controlled by the concrete dam
and head-gates referred to in the chapter on "Public uses of the Water
of Lake Tahoe."

When Fremont came down from Oregon in 1844, he named the river
_Salmon Trout River_, from the excellent fish found therein, but
the same year, according to Angel, in