He would
get up in the morning, eat his food, and then lie down and sleep for two
or three hours. He would only talk when he was spoken to; and all he
knew was to sleep and eat. I got very lonesome, and would sit for hours
thinking of our situation. Sixty miles from any human habitation!
Surrounded with wild Indians and wild beasts! Then, when I would look
away at the snow-capped peaks of the Sierra, and think that my father
and the rest of the men where there, toiling under the heavy loads which
they carried, I became still more gloomy. When night would come, the big
gray wolves that had collected on the mountains facing to the south,
where the snow had melted off, would set up their howlings. This, with
the dismal sound of the wind roaring through the tall pine trees, was
almost unendurable. To this day, when I am in pine timber, and hear the
wind sighing through the tree-tops, I always think of the Donner Party
and of those lonely days in the mountains.
"The third day after the men left I became so lonesome that I took the
gun and went down in the direction in which I had heard the wolves
howling. When I got down out of the snow, I found the deer had collected
there by the hundreds. I killed two deer; went up and got Billy Coon,
and we carried them up to camp. We hung one on each corner of our brush
tent, not more than six feet from our bed, and not more than four feet
from the fire.
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