h horse. Oh, how
relieved mother was! I think she could not have eaten a mouthful,
hungry as she was, without the glad tidings. Father had asked Mr.
Stanton to personally conduct us across the Sierras before snow came,
which he had promised to do, so with new courage we hurried on,
keeping a close watch on those gaunt peaks ahead of us, which we must
climb before realizing our dreams. Although it was so early in the
season, all trails were covered with snow, but we struggled on, mother
riding one mule with Tommy in her lap, Patty and Jim on another,
behind two Indians who had accompanied Mr. Stanton, and I riding
behind our leader. But though we did all in our power to travel fast,
we were obliged to call a halt before we reached the summit, and camp
only three miles this side of the crest of the mountain range.

"That night," says Virginia, "came the dreaded snow. Around the
camp-fires under the trees great feathery flakes came whirling down.
The air was so full of them that one could see objects only a few feet
away. The Indians knew we were doomed and one of them wrapped his
blanket about him and stood all night under a tree. We children slept
soundly on our cold bed of snow, which fell over us so thickly that
every few moments my mother would have to shake the shawl--our only
covering--to keep us from being buried alive. In the morning the snow
lay deep on mountain and valley, and we were forced to turn back to a
lake we had passed, which was afterward called 'Donner Lake,' where
the men hastily put up some rough cabins--three of them known as the
Breen cabin, the Murphy cabin, and the Reed-Graves cabin. Then the
cattle were all killed, and the meat was placed in the snow to
preserve it, and we tried to settle down as comfortably as we could,
until the season of snow and ice should be over. But the comfort was a
poor imitation of the real thing, and now and then, in desperation, a
party started out to try to cross the mountains, but they were always
driven back by the pitiless storms. Finally, a party of fifteen, known
in later days as the 'Forlorn Hopes,' started out, ten men and five
women, on snow-shoes, led by noble Mr. Stanton, and we heard no more
of them until months afterward.

"No pen can describe the dreary hopelessness of those who spent that
winter at Donner Lake," says Virginia. "Our daily life in that dark
little cabin under the snow would fill pages and make the coldest
heart ache. Only one memory s