ted the men to cross and follow us to
Johnson's Ranch. We arrived there early that day. Making known our
situation, he drove his cattle up to the house, saying, 'There are the
cattle, take as many as you need.' We shot down five head, staid up all
night, and with the help of Mr. Johnson and his Indians, by the time the
men arrived the next morning, we had the meat fire-dried and ready to be
placed in bags. Mr. Johnson had a party of Indians making flour by hand
mills, they making, during the night, nearly two hundred pounds."

"We packed up immediately and started. After reaching the snow, the meat
and flour was divided into suitable packs for us to carry, we leaving
the horses here. At Johnson's I learned that a relief party had passed
in a few days previous, being sent by Captain Sutter and Mr. Sinclair."

This was the party commanded by Captain Reasin P. Tucker, whose journey
over the mountains as far as the summit was described in the last
chapter. Reed was faithful and energetic in endeavoring to recross the
mountains. Mr. McCutchen, also, did all in his power to reach the wife
and baby he left behind. The snow belt is about four times as wide on
the west side of the summit as it is on the east side. It was almost
impossible for relief parties to cross the mountains. Captain Tucker's
party was composed of men of great nerve and hardihood, yet, as will be
seen, the trip was almost as much as their lives were worth.

On the morning of the nineteenth of February, 1847, the relief party of
Captain R. P. Tucker began the descent of the gorge leading to Donner
Lake.

Let us glance ahead at the picture soon to be unfolded to their gaze.
The mid-winter snows had almost concealed the cabins. The inmates lived
subterranean lives. Steps cut in the icy snow led up from the doorways
to the surface. Deep despair had settled upon all hearts. The dead
were lying all around, some even unburied, and nearly all with only a
covering of snow. So weak and powerless had the emigrants become, that
it was hardly possible for them to lift the dead bodies up the steps
out of the cabins. All were reduced to mere skeletons. They had lived
on pieces of rawhide, or on old, castaway bones, which were boiled or
burned until capable of being eaten. They were so reduced that it seemed
as if only a dry, shriveled skin covered their emaciated frames. The
eyes were sunken deep in their sockets, and had a fierce, ghastly,
demoniacal look. The faces w