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finally went off. When they were fairly out of sight we went on as
fast as possible. Just before night Miller and his companions overtook
us and because of the Indians we all kept as near together as we could
and camped about two hundred yards apart in the deep grass, holding the
lariets [lariats] of our mules.

We got up early the next morning and started, leaning Miller and
the others behind.

When we got near the head of Truckee river [River], near the summit of the
mountain, we saw the cabin where the Donner Dodder [Donner] family and company starved.
They started thru in '46 and got caught in the snow in the mountains in
the fall. Indians discovered them in the spring and carried the news
to Sutter's Fort. The whites made up a company and went up after them.
Those that were alive had lived on human flesh during the winter. There
was one woman, when the rescuing party came after them, hid her husband's
heart to eat on the road.

To show how deep the snow had been, the stumps left where they had
cut off the trees stood eight and ten feet high. That day we crossed
over the summit of the Rockies and started down Bear river [River]. There
was a small trail and a pack mule company ahead of us. There was a
grizzly bear track twelve inches wide. Probably this fellow weighed
fifteen or sixteen hundred pounds.

We overtook a fellow from Michigan, who was riding a big bay mare
and had a sack of crackers, and more provision then he needed to take
him thru, but he would neither sell nor give us anything. He said it