greatest effort. The mules were gone, and were never found. Most
of the cattle had perished, and were wholly hidden from sight.
The few oxen which were found were slaughtered for beef."

The travelers knew that the supplies they had could not last
long. On the 12th of November a relief party essayed to go
forward, but after struggling a short distance toward the summit,
came back wearied and broken-hearted, unable to make way through
the deep, soft snow. Then some one--said to have been F. W.
Graves of Vermont--bethought himself of making snowshoes out of
the oxbows and the hides of the slaughtered oxen. With these they
did better.

Volunteers were called for yet another party to cross the
mountains into California. Fifteen persons volunteered. Not all
of them were men--some were mothers, and one was a young woman.
Their mental condition was little short of desperation. Only, in
the midst of their intense hardships it seemed to all, somewhere
to the westward was California, and that there alone lay any
hope. The party traveled four miles the first day; and their camp
fires were visible below the summit. The next day they traveled
six miles and crossed the divide.

They were starving, cold, worn out, their feet frozen to
bursting, their blood chilled. At times they were caught in some
of the furious storms of the Sierras. They did not know their
way. On the 27th of December certain of the party resolved
themselves to that last recourse which alone might mean life.
Surrounded by horrors as they were, it seemed they could endure
the thought of yet an additional horror.... There were the