Ere the Indians would cease breathing some of the Seven
would be past relief. There were two men and five women. William Foster
could see that his wife - the woman who was all the world to him - was
fast yielding to the deadly grasp of the fiends of starvation. For the
sake of his life she had stifled the most sacred instincts of her
womanly nature, and procured him food from Fosdick's body. Should he see
her die the most terrible of deaths without attempting to rescue her?
Reader, put yourself in this man's place. Brave, generous, heroic, full
of lion-like nobility, William Foster could not stoop to a base action.
Contemplate his position! Lying there prostrate upon the snow was Mrs.
Pike, the woman whom, accidentally, he had rendered a widow. Her babes
were dying in the cabins. His own boy was at the cabins. His comrades,
his wife, were in the last stages of starvation. He, also, was dying.
Eddy had not nerve enough, the women could not, and William Foster
must-what! Was it murder? No! Every law book, every precept of that
higher law, self- preservation, every dictate of right, reason or
humanity, demanded the deed. The Indians were past all hope of aid. They
could not lift their heads from their pillow of snow. It was not simply
justifiable - it was duty; it was a necessity.
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