Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 5.djvu/405

Rh thick and fast. Toward midnight they found themselves in a circular well in the snow about eight feet deep, with the ice-cold water beginning to rise in the bottom. After the foundation was gone, they kept alive the fire by setting the wood on end and kindling the fire on top. While they were in this condition, one of the Indians, who had been sitting and nodding next the snow wall until he was almost frozen, made a sudden and desperate rush for the fire, upsetting and putting it out.

Eddy urged them to quit this well of frozen death, as it was impossible to live where they were, with their feet in ice water. They all climbed out of the well, spread one blanket on top of the snow, then seated themselves on this blanket, back to back, and covered their heads with the others. In this painful position they remained for the rest of the night, all the next day and night, and until some time after sunrise the last morning. During this time four or five of their number perished, one of whom was a boy. Mrs. Foster spoke of this young hero with the greatest feeling. His patience and resignation were of the martyr type. When we were reduced to half a biscuit each, he insisted that she should eat his portion as well as her own, but this she refused.

From this scene of death the survivors proceeded on their melancholy journey down the western side of the mountain. That evening, after they had encamped and kindled a blazing fire, one of the men, who had born the day's travel well, suddenly fell down by the fire, where he was warming himself, and expired. The cold, bracing air and the excitement and exertion of travel had kept him alive during the day ; but when he became warm his vital energies ceased. This is often the case under like circumstances. I have understood that deaths occurred in this manner among Fremont's men, while making the trip from Oregon to California in the winter of 1843-'44.