retches dragged their weary bodies onward
until they reached a little streamlet, and here they lay down to die.
Nine days, with no other food than they could find in the snow, was too
much even for their hardy natures. They were unable to move when the
famished "Seven" passed. Yes, passed! for the starving emigrants went on
by the poor fellows, unable to deprive them of the little spark of life
left in their wasted bodies. Traveling was now slow work for the dying
whites. They only went about two hundred yards. In a few more hours,
perhaps that very night, they would die of starvation. Already the
terrible phantasies of delirium were beginning to dance before their
sunken eyes. Ere the Indians would cease breathing some of the Seven
would be past relief. There were two men and five women. William Foster
could see that his wife--the woman who was all the world to him--was
fast yielding to the deadly grasp of the fiends of starvation. For
the sake of his life she had stifled the most sacred instincts of her
womanly nature, and procured him food from Fosdick's body. Should he see
her die the most terrible of deaths without attempting to rescue her?
Reader, put yourself in this man's place. Brave, generous, heroic, full
of lion-like nobility, William Foster could not stoop to a base action.
Contemplate his position! Lying there prostrate upon the snow was Mrs.
Pike, the woman whom, accidentally, he had rendered a widow. Her babes
were dying in the cabins. His own boy was at the cabins. His comrades,
his wife, were in the last stages of starvation. He, also, was dying.
Eddy had not nerve enough, the women could not, and William Foster
must-what! Was it murder? No! Every law book, every precept of that
higher law, self-preservation, every dictate of right, reason or
humanity, demanded the deed. The Indians were past all hope of aid. They
could not lift their heads from their pillow of snow. It was not simply
justifiable--it was duty; it was a necessity.

He told them, when he got back, that he was compelled to take their
lives. They did not moan or struggle, or appear to regret that their
lingering pain was to cease. The five women and Eddy heard two reports
of a gun.

The "Forlorn Hope" might yet save those who were dying at Donner Lake.

Even this relief was but temporary. Taking the wasted flesh from the
bones, drying it, and staggering forward, the little band speedily
realized that they were not yet saved. It was food