Our condition was perilous in the extreme

Two days after the colonel left we had all assembled on the river. The last of our provisions had been consumed,  and we had been living for several days upon parfleche. Our condition was perilous in the extreme. Starvation stared us in the face; to remain there longer was certain death. We held a consultation and determined to start down the river the next day and try to make our way to some settlement where we could get relief; in the mean time keeping as much together as possible, and hunting along as we went as our only chance of safety.

Now commenced a train of horrors which it is painful to force the mind to dwell upon, and which the memory shrinks from. Before we had proceeded far Manuel, a California Indian of the Cosumne tribe, who had his feet badly frozen, stopped and begged Mr. Vincent Haler to shoot him, and failing to meet death in this way turned back to the lodge at the camp we had left, there to await his fate. The same day Wise lay down on the ice and died; and the Indian boys, Joaquin and Gregorio, who came along afterward, having stopped back to get some wood for Manuel, seeing his body, covered it over with brush and snow. That night Carver, crazed by hunger, raved terribly all night, so that some in the camp with him became alarmed for their safety. He told them, if any would follow him back, he had a plan by which they might live. The next day he wandered off and we never saw him again.

The next night Sorel, his system wrought upon by hunger, cold, and exhaustion, took a violent fit which lasted for some time, and to which succeeded an entire prostration of all his faculties. At the same time he was almost totally snow-blind. Poor fellow, the next day he traveled as long as his strength would allow, and then, telling us we would have to leave him, that he could go no farther, blind with snow he lay down on the river-bank to die. Moran soon joined him, and they never came up again. Late at night, arriving one by one, we all came into a camp together on the river-bank.

Gloom and despondency were depicted on every face. Our condition had become perfectly desperate. We knew not what to do; the candles and parfleche had kept us alive thus far, but these were gone. Our appearance was most desolate as we sat in silence around the fires, in view of a fast approaching death by starvation, while hunger gnawed upon our vitals. Then Vincent Haler, to whom the colonel had left the charge of the camp, and whom for that reason we had allowed to have the chief direction, spoke up and told us that he then and there threw up all authority; that he could do nothing, and knew not what to advise; that he looked upon our condition as hopeless, but he would suggest, as the best advice he could give, that we break up into small parties, and, hunting along, make the best of our way down separately, each party making use of all the advantages that might fall in its way, so that if any should chance to get through to a settlement they could forward relief to the others. ...

continued

<< Previous    1...   2  3  4  [5]  6    Next >>