"At dawn father rushed off to find his cattle, but in vain. He met the drivers, who told him that as the frenzied beasts were being driven toward the wells, they had broken loose and been lost in the darkness. At once all the men of the company turned out to help father to search for them, but none were ever found except one ox and a cow, and in that plight we were left stranded on the desert, eight hundred miles from California! To turn back to Fort Bridger was an impossibility--to go forward meant such hardship as blanched even my sun-reddened cheeks, and I shuddered at the thought that mother must live through greater privations than those we had already encountered. Well it was that the future was hidden from our eyes on that day in the desert!
"Two oxen were loaned father, which, yoked together with our one cow and ox, would draw one wagon, but not the family one, which had grown to be so home-like to us in our journeyings. It was decided to dig a trench, and _cache_ all of our things except those which we could take in the one wagon. A _cache_ is made by digging a hole in the ground and sinking in it the bed of a wagon, in which articles are packed; the hole is then covered with boards and earth, so they are completely hidden, and when we buried ours we hoped some day to return and take them away."
Having _cached_ so many of their treasures, on the party went as bravely as possible until they reached Gravelly Ford on the Humboldt, where on the 5th of October there was such a tragic occurrence that Virginia says, "I grew up into a woman in a night, and life was never the same again, although for the sake of mother and the children I hid my feelings as well as I could."
Here her record is detailed, and as concise as possible. She writes:
"I will tell it as clearly and quickly as I can. We had reached a short sandy hill, and as the oxen were all tired, it was the custom at such places for the drivers to double up teams and help one another up the hill. A driver named Snyder, for some unaccountable reason, decided to go up alone. His oxen could not pull their load, and Snyder, angry at them, began to beat them. Father, who had gone on ahead, looking for the best road, came back, and in trying to make Snyder stop abusing his beasts, roused his anger to the point of frenzy. Father said, 'We can settle this, John, when we get up the hill.' 'No,' said Snyder. 'We will settle it now!' and, jumping on the tongue of his wagon, he struck father a hard blow over the head with his heavy whip-stock. One blow followed another, and father was stunned, as well as blinded by the blood streaming down from the gashes in his head. The whip was about to drop again when mother sprang between the two men. Father saw the uplifted whip and had only time to cry 'John! John!' when down came the blow on mother's head. Quick as a flash father's hunting-knife was out and Snyder fell, mortally wounded, and fifteen minutes later died. Then father realized, too late, what he had done. Dashing the blood from his eyes, he knelt over the dying man, who had been his friend, with remorse and agony in his expression.