"
"Some time after Mrs. Donner's death, I thought I had gained sufficient
strength to redeem the pledge I had made her before her death. I started
to go to the camps at Alder Creek to get the money. I had a very
difficult journey. The wagons of the Donners were loaded with tobacco,
powder, caps, shoes, school-books, and dry-goods. This stock was very
valuable, and had it reached California, would have been a fortune to
the Donners. I searched carefully among the bales and bundles of goods,
and found five-hundred and thirty-one dollars. Part of this sum was
silver, part gold. The silver I buried at the foot of a pine tree, a
little way from the camp. One of the lower branches of another tree
reached down close to the ground, and appeared to point to the spot. I
put the gold in my pocket, and started to return to my cabin. I had
spent one night at the Donner tents. On my return I became lost. When it
was nearly dark, in crossing a little flat, the snow suddenly gave way
under my feet, and I sank down almost to my armpits. By means of the
crust on top of the snow, I kept myself suspended by throwing out my
arms. A stream of water flowed underneath the place over which I had
been walking, and the snow had melted on the underside until it was not
strong enough to support my weight.
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