Early on the morning of January 18, Messrs. Richey, Johnson, Varro, and Keiser, equipped with horses and other necessaries, hurried away to bring in the refugees, together with their comrades who had gone on before.  By ten o’clock that night the whole of the Forlorn Hope were safe in the homes of their benefactors.  Mr. Richey declared that he and his party had retraced Mr. Eddy’s track six miles, by the blood from his feet; and that they could not have believed that he had travelled that eighteen miles, if they themselves had not passed over the ground in going to his discouraged companions.

[Footnote 6:  The experiences of the Donner Party, to which he refers in a footnote, suggested to Bret Harte the opening chapters of “Gabriel Conroy”; but he has followed the sensational accounts circulated by the newspapers, and the survivors find his work a mere travesty of the facts.  The narrative, however, does not purport to set forth the truth, but is confessedly imaginative.]

[Footnote 7:  Mr. Eddy had killed the bear and dried the meat early in the winter.]

[Footnote 8:  His body was found there later by the First Relief Party.]

CHAPTER X

RELIEF MEASURES INAUGURATED IN CALIFORNIA—­DISTURBED CONDITIONS BECAUSE OF MEXICAN WAR—­GENEROUS SUBSCRIPTIONS—­THREE PARTIES ORGANIZE—­“FIRST RELIEF,” UNDER RACINE TUCKER; “SECOND RELIEF” UNDER REED AND GREENWOOD; AND RELAY CAMP UNDER WOODWORTH—­FIRST RELIEF PARTY CROSSES SNOW-BELT AND REACHES DONNER LAKE.

The kindness and sympathy shown Mr. Eddy by the good people in the neighborhood of the Richey and Johnson ranches encouraged his efforts in behalf of his fellow-sufferers in the mountains.  While the early sunlight of January 19 was flooding his room with cheer and warmth, he dictated a letter to Mr. John Sinclair, Alcalde of the Upper District of California, living near Sutter’s Fort, in which he stated as briefly as possible the conditions and perils surrounding the snow-bound travellers, and begged him to use every means in his power toward their immediate rescue.

Bear River was running high, and the plain between it and Sutter’s Fort seemed a vast quagmire, but John Rhodes volunteered to deliver the letter.  He was ferried over the river on a raft formed of two logs lashed together with strips of rawhide.  Then he rolled his trousers above the knee and with his shoes in his hand, started on his mission.  He saw no white faces until he reached Sinclair’s, where the letter created a painful interest and won ready promises of help.

It was dark when he reached Sutter’s Fort, nevertheless from house to house he spread the startling report:  “Men, women, and little children are snow-bound in the Sierras, and starving to death!”

Captain Kerns in charge at the Fort, pledged his aid, and influence to the cause of relief.  Captain Sutter, who had already twice sent supplies, first by Stanton and again by McCutchen and Reed, in their unsuccessful attempt to cross the mountains, at once agreed to cooeperate with Alcalde Sinclair.