ll pine. In this position he passed
the entire night, only moving occasionally to keep from being
covered with snow. Mrs. Reed spread down a shawl, placed her four
children--Virginia, Patty, James, and Thomas--thereon, and putting
another shawl over them, sat by the side of her babies during all the
long hours of darkness. Every little while she was compelled to lift the
upper shawl and shake off the rapidly accumulating snow.

"With slight interruptions, the storm continued several days. The mules
and oxen that had always hovered about camp were blinded and bewildered
by the storm, and straying away were literally buried alive in the
drifts. What pen can describe the horror of the position in which the
emigrants found themselves? It was impossible to move through the deep,
soft snow without the greatest effort. The mules were gone, and were
never found. Most of the cattle had perished, and were wholly hidden
from sight. The few oxen which were found were slaughtered for beef."

The travelers knew that the supplies they had could not last long. On
the 12th of November a relief party essayed to go forward, but after
struggling a short distance toward the summit, came back wearied and
broken-hearted, unable to make way through the deep, soft snow. Then
some one--said to have been F. W. Graves of Vermont--bethought himself
of making snowshoes out of the oxbows and the hides of the slaughtered
oxen. With these they did better.

Volunteers were called for yet another party to cross the mountains into
California. Fifteen persons volunteered. Not all of them were men--some
were mothers, and one was a young woman. Their mental condition was
little short of desperation. Only, in the midst of their intense
hardships it seemed to all, somewhere to the westward was California,
and that there alone lay any hope. The party traveled four miles the
first day; and their camp fires were visible below the summit. The next
day they traveled six miles and crossed the divide.

They were starving, cold, worn out, their feet frozen to bursting, their
blood chilled. At times they were caught in some of the furious storms
of the Sierras. They did not know their way. On the 27th of December
certain of the party resolved themselves to that last recourse which
alone might mean life. Surrounded by horrors as they were, it seemed
they could endure the thought of yet an additional horror.... There were
the dead, the victims who already had perished