the suggestion of using human flesh for food, he admonished them to put aside the natural repugnance which stood between them and the possibility of life.  He commanded them to banish sentiment and instinctive loathing, and think only of their starving mother, brothers, and sisters whom they had left in camp, and avail themselves of every means in their power to rescue them.  He begged that his body be used to sustain the famishing, and bidding each farewell, his spirit left its bruised and worn tenement before half the troubles of the night were passed.

About ten o’clock, pelting hail, followed by snow on the wings of a tornado, swept every spark of fire from those shivering mortals, whose voices now mingled with the shrieking wind, calling to heaven for relief.  Mr. Eddy, knowing that all would freeze to death in the darkness if allowed to remain exposed, succeeded after many efforts in getting them close together between their blankets where the snow covered them.

With the early morning, Patrick Dolan became delirious and left camp.  He was brought back with difficulty and forcibly kept under cover until late in the day, when he sank into a stupor, whence he passed quietly into that sleep which knows no waking.

The crucial hour had come.  Food lay before the starving, yet every eye turned from it and every hand dropped irresolute.

Another night of agony passed, during which Lemuel Murphy became delirious and called long and loud for food; but the cold was so intense that it kept all under their blankets until four o’clock in the afternoon, when Mr. Eddy succeeded in getting a fire in the trunk of a large pine tree.  Whereupon, his companions, instead of seeking food, crept forth and broke off low branches, put them down before the fire and laid their attenuated forms upon them.  The flames leaped up the trunk, and burned off dead boughs so that they dropped on the snow about them, but the unfortunates were too weak and too indifferent to fear the burning brands.

Mr. Eddy now fed his waning strength on shreds of his concealed bear-meat, hoping that he might survive to save the giver.  The rest in camp could scarcely walk, by the twenty-eighth, and their sensations of hunger were deminishing.  This condition forebode delirium and death, unless stayed by the only means at hand.  It was in very truth a pitiful alternative offered to the sufferers.

With sickening anguish the first morsels were prepared and given to Lemuel Murphy, but for him they were too late.  Not one touched flesh of kindred body.  Nor was there need of restraining hand, or warning voice to gauge the small quantity which safety prescribed to break the fast of the starving.  Death would have been preferable to that awful meal, had relentless fate not said:  “Take, eat that ye may live.  Eat, lest ye go mad and leave your work undone!”

All but the Indians obeyed the mandate, and were strengthened and reconciled to prepare the remaining flesh to sustain them a few days longer on their journey.