dig up from the snow the bodies of their companions for the purpose of prolonging their wretched lives. Mrs. Reed, who lived in Breen's cabin, had, during a considerable time, supported herself and four children by cracking and boiling again the bones from which Breen's family had carefully scraped all the flesh.
Some of the emigrants had been making preparations for death, and at morning and evening the incense of prayer and thanksgiving ascended from their cheerless and comfortless dwellings. Others there were who thought they might as well curse God as bless him for bringing them to such a pass; and so they did; and they cursed the snow, and the mountains, and in the wildest frenzy deplored their miserable fate. Some poured bitter imprecations upon the world, and everything and everybody in it; and all united in common fears of a common and inevitable death. Many of them had, in a great measure, lost all selfrespect. Untold sufferings had broken their spirits, and prostrated everything like a commendable pride. Misfortune had dried up the fountains of the heart; and the dead, whom their weakness made it impossible to carry out, were dragged from their cabins by means of ropes, with an apathy that afforded a faint indication of the extent of the change which a few weeks of dire suffering had produced in hearts that once sympathized with the distressed and mourned the departed. With many of them, all principle, too, had been swept away by this tremendous torrent of accumulated woes. It became necessary to place a guard over the little store of provisions brought to their relief; and they stole and devoured the raw-hide strings from the snow-shoes of those who had come to deliver them. Upon going down into the cabins of this Mountain camp, to the party were presented sights of misery and scenes of horror, the full tale of which will never be told, and never ought to be; sights which, although the emigrants had not yet commenced
