OCR Text |
Show 74 FORTY YEARS AMONG THE INDIANS. with us, hides and all, suffer all manner of privations, almost starve to death, that he could go on with me the next day and overtake the trains. No one wanted to go. All voted to take their chances. On taking stock of provisions, we found about twenty day's rations. No salt or bread excepting a few crackers. There was at least five months of winter before us and nothing much to eat but a few perishing cattle and ' what game we might chance to kill. The game was not very certain, as the severe storms had driven everything away. The first move was to fix up the fort. Accordingly Brother Alexander, being a prac-tical man, was appointed to manage the business ; Brother Hampton was to see about the cattle. I followed the train this day to their second encamp-ment and the next day traveled with them. There was much suffering, deaths occurring often. Eph Hanks arrived in camp from the valley and brought word that some of the teams that had reached South Pass and should have met us here, had turned back towards home and tried to persuade Redick Allred, who was left there with a load of flour, to go back with them. The men who did this might have felt justified ; they said it was no use going farther, that we had doubtless all perished. I will not mention their names for it was always looked upon by the company as cowardly in the extreme. If this had not occurred it was the intention of Cap-tain Grant to have sent some one down to us with a load of flour. As it was, by the time any was received, the people were in a starving condition, and could not spare it. From the third camp, where I saw the last of the brethren, an express was sent on to catch the returning supplies and continue on to the valley, giving word that |