Fortunately, the
slope on the opposite side was gradual and the last wagon descended to
camp before darkness obscured the way.
The following morning, we crossed the river which flows from Utah Lake
to Great Salt Lake and found the trail of the Hastings party. We had
been thirty days in reaching that point, which we had hoped to make in
ten or twelve.
The tedious delays and high altitude wrought distressing changes in Mr.
Halloran's condition, and my father and mother watched over him with
increasing solicitude. But despite my mother's unwearying
ministrations, death came on the fourth of September.
Suitable timber for a coffin could not be obtained, so his body was
wrapped in sheets and carefully enclosed in a buffalo robe, then
reverently laid to rest in a grave on the shore of Great Salt Lake,
near that of a stranger, who had been buried by the Hastings party a
few weeks earlier.
Mr. Halloran had appreciated the tender care bestowed upon him by my
parents, and had told members of our company that in the event of his
death on the way, his trunk and its contents, and his horse and its
equipments should belong to Captain Donner. When the trunk was opened,
it was found to contain clothing, keepsakes, a Masonic emblem, and
fifteen hundred dollars in coin.
A new inventory, taken about this time, disclosed the fact that the
company's stock of supplies was insufficient to carry it through to
California.
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