ked here and there among the houses and tents
of Sutter's Fort. They were scantily clothed, and one carried a thin
blanket. At night they said their prayers, lay down in whatever tent
they happened to be, and, folding the blanket about them, fell asleep in
each other's arms. When they were hungry, they asked food of whomsoever
they met. If any one inquired who they were, they answered as their
mother had taught them: "We are the children of Mr. and Mrs. George
Donner." But they added something they had learned since. It was, "And
our parents are dead."

Chapter XIX.

False Ideas about the Donner Party
Accused of Six Murders
Interviews with Lewis Keseberg
His Statement
An Educated German
A Predestined Fate
Keseberg's Lameness
Slanderous Reports
Covered with Snow
"Loathsome, Insipid, and Disgusting"
Longings toward Suicide
Tamsen Donner's Death
Going to Get the Treasure
Suspended over a Hidden Stream
"Where is Donner's Money?"
Extorting a Confession.

Keseberg is one of the leading characters in the Donner Party.
Usually, his part in the tragedy has been considered the entire story.
Comparatively few people have understood that any except this one man
ate human flesh, or was a witness of any scene of horror. He has been
loathed, execrated, abhorred as a cannibal, a murderer, and a heartless
fiend. In the various published sketches which have from time to time
been given to the world, Lewis Keseberg has been charged with no less
than six murders. His cannibalism has been denounced as arising from
choice, as growing out of a depraved and perverted appetite, instead
of being the result of necessity. On the fourth of April, 1879,
this strange man granted an interview to the author, and in this and
succeeding interviews he reluctantly made a statement which was reduced
to writing. "What is the use," he would urge, "of my making a statement?
People incline to believe the most horrible reports concerning a man,
and they will not credit what I say in my own defense. My conscience
is clear. I am an old man, and am calmly awaiting my death. God is my
judge, and it long ago ceased to trouble me that people shunned and
slandered me."

Keseberg is six feet in height, is well proportioned, and weighs from
one hundred and seventy-five to one hundred and eighty pounds. He is
active, vigorous, and of an erect, manly carriage, despite h