[Footnote 4:  Built by Townsend party in 1844.  See McGlashan’s “History of the Donner Party.”]

CHAPTER VIII

ANOTHER STORM—­FOUR DEATHS IN DONNER CAMP—­FIELD MICE USED FOR FOOD—­CHANGED APPEARANCE OF THE STARVING—­SUNSHINE—­DEPARTURE OF THE “FORLORN HOPE”—­WATCHING FOR RELIEF—­IMPOSSIBLE TO DISTURB THE BODIES OF THE DEAD IN DONNER CAMP—­ARRIVAL AND DEPARTURE OF THE FIRST RELIEF PARTY.

Meanwhile with us in the Sierras, November ended with four days and nights of continuous snow, and December rushed in with a wild, shrieking storm of wind, sleet, and rain, which ceased on the third.  The weather remained clear and cold until the ninth, when Milton Elliot and Noah James came on snowshoes to Donner’s camp, from the lake cabins, to ascertain if their captain was still alive, and to report the condition of the rest of the company.

Before morning, another terrific storm came swirling and whistling down our snowy stairway, making fires unsafe, freezing every drop of water about the camp, and shutting us in from the light of heaven.  Ten days later Milton Elliot alone fought his way back to the lake camp with these 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.