death of his wife's mother, Mrs. Sarah Keyes,
has already been mentioned as occurring on the Big Blue River, near
Manhattan, Kansas.

During the progress of the train, Mr. Reed was always a prominent,
active member. Full of life and enthusiasm, fearless of danger, he was
ready at all times to risk his life for the company's welfare. On the
desert, we have seen that his lonely expedition in search of water cost
him his valuable oxen, and left him and his family almost destitute.

The deplorable affair about to be narrated was only the natural
outgrowth of the trying circumstances in which the company were placed.
The reader must bear in mind that many petty causes combined to produce
discord and dissension among the members of the Donner Party. Coming
from so many different States, being of different nationalities and
modes of thought, delayed on the road much longer than was expected,
rendered irritable by the difficulties encountered on the journey,
annoyed by losses of stock, fearful of unknown disasters on the Sierra,
and already placed on short allowances of provisions, the emigrants were
decidedly inharmonious.

The action of the company, moreover, was doubtless influenced in a
greater or less degree by Snyder's popularity. A young man, not over
twenty-three years old, he was tall, straight, and of erect, manly
carriage, and his habits of life as a frontiersman had developed him
into a muscular, athletic being. He excelled and led in all the out-door
sports most in favor with Western men, such as jumping, running, and
wrestling. His manner was gentle, retired, and timid to a degree verging
on bashfulness, until roused by the influence of passion. The lion in
the man was dormant until evoked by the fiercer emotions. His complexion
was dark, but as you studied his face you could not repress the
suspicion that Nature had marked him for a blonde, and that constant
exposure to the wind and sun and rain of the great plains of the West
had wrought the color change, and the conviction was strong that the
change was an improvement on Nature. His features were cast in a mold of
great beauty--such beauty as we seldom look for in a man. He was
never moody, despondent, or cast down, and at all times, and under all
circumstances, possessed the faculty of amusing himself and entertaining
others. In the evening camp, when other amusements failed, or when
anticipated troubles depressed the spirits of the travelers, it was his
c