An idea how selfish men will get under such circumstances may be gained by relating that on one occasion when an ox was killed the liver was carried to the brave little Mrs. Brier for herself and children, and she laid it aside for a few moments till she could attend to some other duties before cooking it.  Darkness coming on meanwhile, some unprincipled, ungallant thief stole it, and only bits of offal and almost uneatable pieces were left to sustain their lives.  That any one could steal the last morsel from a woman and her children surpasses belief, but yet it was plain that there was at least one man in the party who could do it.  No one can fully understand or describe such scenes as this unless he has looked into just such hungry looking, haggard eyes and faces, a mixture of determination and despair, the human expression almost vanishing, and the face of a starving wolf or jackal taking its place, There are no words to paint such a state of things to him who has never seen and known.

But there were true men, true, charitable hearts in that little band.  Though death stared them in the face they never forgot their fellow men.  As they slowly crawled along many would wander here and there beside the trail and fall behind, especially the weaker ones, and many were the predictions that such and such a one would never come up again, or reach the camp.  Then it was that these noble souls, tired almost beyond recovery themselves, would take water and go back to seek the wandering ones and give them drink and help them on.  More than one would thus have perished in the sands but for the little canteen of water carried back by some friend.  Only a swallow or two would often revive their failing strength and courage, and with slow step they would move on again.  How much good a crust of bread would have done such a poor creature.  Bread there was none—­nothing but the flesh of their poor oxen, wasted and consumed by days of travel and lack of food till it had no goodness in it.  Even the poor oxen, every night seemed to be the end of their walking; every morning it was feared that that would be the last time they would be able to rise upon their feet.

Already five or six days had passed since they left the camp at the willows where they had their last supply of water, and still they were on the desert.  The journey was longer than they had expected, partly owing to the slow progress they had made for there were frequent stops to rest or they could not move at all.  The mountains seemed nearer every day, and the trees were outlined more plainly each morning as they started out.  Capt.  Doty used every circumstance to encourage them.  He would remark upon the favorable signs of water in the hills before them, and the hope that there might be some game to provide better meat than that of starving oxen.  Thus he renewed their hope and kept alive their courage.  He must have had a great deal of fortitude to hide his own sad feelings, for they must as surely have come to him as to any one, and to keep up always an air of hope, courage, and determination to succeed.  If he had been a man of less spirit and good judgment it is very probable that many more would have been left by the wayside to die.