"Days passed. No food in camp except an unsavory beef hide—pinching hunger called for more. Again John Baptiste and Noah James went forth in anxious search for marks of our buried cattle. They made excavations, then forced their hand-poles deep, deeper into the snow, but in vain their efforts—the nail and hook at the points brought up no sign of blood, hair, or hide. In dread unspeakable they returned, and said: "We shall go mad; we shall die! It is useless to hunt for the cattle; but the dead, if they could be reached, their bodies might keep us alive." "No," replied father and mother, speaking for themselves. "No, part of a hide still remains. When it is gone we will perish, if that be the alternative." The fact was, our dead could not have been disturbed even had the attempt been made, for the many snowfalls of winter were banked about them firm as granite walls, and in that camp was neither implement nor arm strong enough to reach their resting-places. It was a long, weary waiting, on starvation rations until the nineteenth of February." from "The Expedition of the Donner Party and its Tragic Fate" by Eliza Poor Donner Houghton
My Kindle library is very diverse.
// @bazbt3 @jws
