idea occurred
to him. Judging from the track, and from the size of the cub he had
seen, Mr. Clark concluded that it was possible he might be able to enter
the cave and kill the cub in a hand-to-hand fight. It was a desperate
undertaking, but it was preferable to death from starvation. He
approached the narrow opening, and tried again to peer into the cave and
ascertain its depth. As he was thus engaged the snow suddenly gave way,
and he was precipitated bodily into the cave. He partly fell, partly
slid to the very bottom of the hole in the rocks. In endeavoring to
regain an erect posture, his hand struck against some furry animal.
Instinctively recoiling, he waited for a moment to see what it would
do. Coming from the dazzling sunlight into the darkness, he could see
nothing whatever. Presently he put out his foot and again touched the
animal. Finding that it did not move, he seized hold of it and found
that it was the cub-dead! His random shot had pierced its brain, and it
had died without a struggle. The cave or opening in the rocks was not
very deep, and after a long time he succeeded in dragging his prize to
the surface.

There was food in the Donner tents from this time forward. It came too
late, however, to save Mrs. Elizabeth Donner or her son Samuel. This
mother was quite able to have crossed the mountains with either of the
two relief parties; but, as Mrs. E. P. Houghton writes: "Her little boys
were too young to walk through the deep snows, she was not able to carry
them, and the relief parties were too small to meet such emergencies.
She stayed with them, hoping some way would be provided for their
rescue. Grief, hunger, and disappointed hopes crushed her spirit, and so
debilitated her that death came before the required help reached her or
her children. For some days before her death she was so weak that Mrs.
George Donner and the others had to feed her as if she had been a child.
At last, one evening, as the sun went down, she closed her eyes and
awoke no more. Her life had been sacrificed for her children. Could
words be framed to express a more fitting tribute to her memory! Does
not the simple story of this mother's love wreathe a chaplet of glory
about her brow far holier than could be fashioned by human hands!"

Samuel Donner lingered but a few days longer. Despite the tenderest care
and attention, he grew weaker day by day, until he slept by the side of
his mother and brother in their snowy grave.