s blue eyes that
look squarely at you while he talks. He is sometimes absent-minded
and at times seems almost carried away with the intensity of his
misery and desolation.

He speaks and writes German, French, Spanish, and English; and his
selection of words proves him a scholar. When I first asked him to
make a statement which I could reduce to writing he urged: "What is
the use of making a statement? People incline to believe the most
horrible reports concerning a man; they will not credit what I say
in my own defence. 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."

He finally consented to make the desired statement, and in speaking
of your family he continued: "Some time after Mrs. George Donner's
death, I thought I had gained sufficient strength to redeem the
pledge I had made her before her death. I went to Alder Creek Camp
to get the money. I had a difficult journey. The wagons of the
Donners were loaded with tobacco, powder, caps, school-books, shoes,
and dry goods. This stock was very valuable. I spent the night
there, searched carefully among the bales and bundles of goods, and
found five hundred and thirty-one dollars. Part of this sum was
gold, part silver. The silver I buried at the foot of a pine tree, a
little way from camp. One of the lower branches of another tree
reached down close to the ground, and appeared to point to the spot.
I put the gold in my pocket, and started back to my cabin; got lost,
and in crossing a little flat the snow suddenly gave way, and I sank
down almost to my arm-pits. After great exertion I raised myself out
of a snow-covered stream, and went round on a hillside and continued
my journey. At dark, and completely exhausted, and almost dead, I
came in sight of the Graves's cabin, and sometime after dark
staggered into my own. My clothes were wet, and the night was so
cold that my garments were frozen stiff. I did not build a fire nor
get anything to eat, just rolled myself up in the bed-clothes, and
shivered; finally fell asleep, and did not waken until late in the
morning. Then I saw my camp was in most inexplicable confusion;
everything about the cabin was torn up and scattered about, trunks
broken open; and my wife's