ned me closely about the trip, and particularly if I had
left anything out which I did not want her to know. She said she saw her
chance to ride was very slim, and she spoke particularly of the
children, and that it was impossible for them to walk. She said little
Martha had been very sick since we had been gone, and that for many days
they had expected her to die. They had no medicine to relieve her and
the best they could do was to select the best of the ox meat, and make a
little soup of it and feed her, they had watched her carefully for many
days and nights, expecting they would have to part with her any time and
bury her little body in the sands. Sometimes it seemed as if her breath
would stop, but they had never failed in their attentions, and were at
last rewarded by seeing her improve slowly, and even to relish a little
food, so that if no relapse set in they had hopes to bring her through.
They brought the little one and showed her to me, and she seemed so
different from what she was when we went away. Then she could run about
camp climb out and in the wagons, and move about so spry that she
reminded one of a quail. Now she was strangely misshapen. Her limbs had
lost all the flesh and seemed nothing but skin and bones, while her body
had grown corpulent and distended, and her face had a starved pinched
and suffering look, with no healthy color in it.

She told me of their sufferings while we were gone, and said she often
dreamed she saw us suffering fearfully for water, and lack of food and
could only picture to herself as their own fate, that they must leave
the children by the trail side, dead, and one by one drop out themselves
in the same way. She said she dreamed often of her old home where bread
was plenty, and then to awake to find her husband and children starving
was a severe trial indeed, and the contrast terrible. She was anxious to
get me to express an opinion as to whether I thought we could get the
oxen down the falls where we had so much trouble.

I talked to her as encouragingly as I could, but she did not cheer up
much and sobbed and wept over her work most all the time. It was not
possible to encourage her much, the outlook seemed so dark. Mrs. Arcane
sat under another wagon and said nothing, but she probably heard all we
had to say, and did not look as if her hopes were any brighter. Bennett
and Rogers soon returned with a supply of salt and said the whole shore
of the lake was a winrow of i