after we had tried to proceed
south. This party was made up of a Mr. Culverwell who had formerly been
a writer in a Government office at Washington, D.C., a man named Fish
claiming to be a relative of Hamilton Fish of New York, and another man
whose name I never knew. He, poor fellow, arrived at our camp in a
starving condition and died before our departure. The other two
unfortunates ones died on the desert, and the colored man reported that
he simply covered their remains with their blankets.

I well remember that last night in camp before we started with our
knapsacks and left the families, for it was plain the women and children
must go very slow, and we felt we could go over rougher and shorter
roads on foot and get through sooner by going straight across the Sierra
Nevada Mountains. Our condition was certainly appalling. We were without
water, all on the verge of starvation, and the three poor cattle which
yet remained alive were objects of pity. It seemed almost a crime to
kill the poor beasts, so little real food was there left on their
skeleton frames. They had been so faithful and had plodded along when
there seemed no hope for them. They might still serve to keep the party
from starvation.

It was at this camp that Mr. Ischam died. The night before our departure
he came wandering into camp and presented such an awful appearance,
simply a living skeleton of a once grand and powerful man. He must have
suffered untold agony as he struggled on to overtake the party, starving
and alone, with the knowledge that two of his companions had perished
miserably of starvation in that unknown wilderness of rocks and alkali.

Our journey on foot through the mountains was full of adventure and
suffering. On our arrival at the shores of Owen's Lake not a man of the
party had a mouthful of food left in his pack, and to add to our
difficulties we had several encounters with the hostile Indians. There
was a fearful snow storm falling at Owen's Lake on the evening that we
arrived there, and we could make no fire. The Indians gathered around us
and we did not know exactly what to make of them, nor could we determine
whether their intentions were good or bad. We examined the lake and
determined to try to ford it, and thus set out by the light of the moon
that occasionally peeped out from behind the clouds, while the red
devils stood howling on the shore.

The following morning we found what was then known as the Fremont Trail,