gainst a tree and
endeavored to gather her wandering faculties in vain. The enfeebled
will could no longer hold rule over them. She had broken perceptions,
fragments of visions, contradictory and mixed-former mingled with latter
times. Recollections of plenty and rural peace came up from her
clear, tranquil childhood, which seemed to have been another state of
existence; flashes of her latter life-its comfort and abundance-gleams
of maternal pride in her children who had been growing up about her to
ease and independence.

She lived through all the phases which her simple life had ever worn,
in the few moments of repose after the dizzy effort of ascending; as
the thin blood left her whirling brain and returned to its shrunken
channels, she grew more clearly conscious of the terrible present, and
remembered the weary quest upon which she came. It was not the memory
of thought, it was that of love, the old tugging at the heart that had
never relaxed long enough to say, "Now I am done; I can bear no more!"
The miserable ones down there--for them her wavering life came back; at
thought of them she turned her face listlessly the way it had so often
gazed. But this time something caused it to flush as if the blood, thin
and cold as it was, would burst its vessels! What was it? Nothing
that she saw, for her eyes were quite dimmed by the sudden access of
excitement! It was the sound of voices! By a superhuman effort she kept
herself from falling! Was it reality or delusion? She must at least
live to know the truth. It came again and again. She grew calmer as
she became more assured, and the first distinct words she heard uttered
were, "There is Mrs. Breen alive yet, anyhow!" Three men were advancing
toward her. She knew that now there would be no more starving. Death
was repelled for this time from the precious little flock he had so long
threatened, and she might offer up thanksgiving unchecked by the dreads
and fears that had so long frozen her.

Chapter XVII.

The Rescue
California Aroused
A Yerba Buena Newspaper
Tidings of Woe
A Cry of Distress
Noble Generosity
Subscriptions for the Donner Party
The First and Second Reliefs
Organization of the Third
The Dilemma
Voting to Abandon a Family
The Fatal Ayes
John Stark's Bravery
Carrying the Starved Children
A Plea for the Relief Party.

Foster and Eddy, it will be remembered, were