as a man of
about sixty, and was at the time of leaving the United States a
highly respectable citizen of Illinois, a farmer of independent
means. Mrs. Donner was considerably younger than her husband, an
energetic woman of refined education.

After Georgia left me, I reopened the book, and pondered its
revelations, many of them new to us both; and most of them I marked for
later investigation.

Bryant found no human bones at Donner's camp. His description of that
camp was all-important, proving that my father's body had not been
mutilated, but lay in his mountain hut three long months, sacred as
when left by my little mother, who had watched over him to the pitiful
end, had closed his eyes, folded his arms across his breast, and
wrapped the burial sheet about his precious form. There, too, was
proof of his last resting-place, just as had been told me in sight of
Jakie's grave, by the Cherokee woman in Sonoma.

The book had also a copy of Colonel McKinstrey's letter to the General
Relief Committee in San Francisco, reporting the return of the first
rescuers with refugees. In speaking of the destitution of the
unfortunates in camp, he used the following words sympathically:

When the party arrived at camp, it was obliged to guard the little
stock of provisions it had carried over the mountains on its back on
foot, for the relief of the poor beings, as they were in such a
starving condition that they would have immediately used up all the
little store. They even stole the buckskin strings from the party's
snowshoes and ate them.

I at once recognized this friendly paragraph as the one which had had
its kindness extracted, and been abbreviated and twisted into that
cruel taunt which I had heard in my childhood from the lips of
"Picayune Butler."

A careful study of Bryant's work increased my desire to sift that of
Thornton, for I had been told that it not only contained the "Fallon
Diary," but lengthier extracts from the _Star_, and I wanted to compare
and analyze those details which had been published as "Thrilling Events
in California History." I was unable to procure the book then, but
resolved to do so when opportunity should occur. Naturally, we who see
history made, are solicitous that it be accurately recorded, especially
when it vitally concerns those near to us.

[Illustration: Photograph by Lynwood Abbott. THE CROSS AT DONNER LAKE]

Shortly before school reopened,