Chapter I.


Donner Lake
A Famous Tourist Resort
Building the Central Pacific
California's Skating Park
The Pioneers
The Organization of the Donner Party
Ho! for California!
A Mammoth Train
The Dangers by the Way
False Accounts of the Sufferings Endured
Complete Roll of the Company
Impostors Claiming to Belong to the Party
Killed by the Pawnees
An Alarmed Camp
Resin Indians
A Mother's Death.



Three miles from Truckee, Nevada County, California, lies one of the
fairest and most picturesque lakes in all the Sierra. Above, and on
either side, are lofty mountains, with casteliated granite crests, while
below, at the mouth of the lake, a grassy, meadowy valley widens out and
extends almost to Truckee. The body of water is three miles long, one
and a half miles wide, and four hundred and eighty-three feet in depth.

Tourists and picnic parties annually flock to its shores, and Bierstadt