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Even Sister Frances looked tall and helpful as she trudged by with her little loads. The combination of tent and hut was designed for my father and family and Mrs. Wolfinger. The teamsters, Samuel Shoemaker, Joseph Rhinehart, James Smith, and John Baptiste, built their hut in Indian wigwam fashion. Before we two could leave our perch, the snow was falling faster and in larger flakes.
Wolfinger was startled to recognize her husband's gun in their possession. They explained that they were in the wagon with Mr. Wolfinger when the Indians rushed upon them, drove them off, killed Wolfinger and burned the wagon. My father made a note of this conflicting statement to help future investigation of the case.
He assured them that Wolfinger was not far behind him, so they returned without further search. All night the frantic wife listened for the sound of the coming of her husband, and so poignant was her grief that at break of day, William Graves, Jr., and two companions went again in search of Mr. Wolfinger.
Then they went up to fell the sheltering pine tree over our tent for fuel; while Noah James, Mrs. Wolfinger, my two half-sisters, and mother kept moving about hunting for things. Finally Elitha and Leanna came and kissed me, then father, "good-bye," and went up the steps, and out of sight. Mother stood on the snow where she could see all go forth.
Wolfinger, and my two half-sisters from us; then had stopped at Aunt Betsy's for William Hook, her eldest son, and my Cousin George, and all were now on the way to the lake cabins to join others who were able to walk over the snow without assistance.
Wolfinger, and she was permitted to believe that her husband had been murdered by Indians and his body carried off. Nevertheless, some suspected Keseberg of having had a hand in his disappearance, as he knew that Mr. Wolfinger carried a large sum of money on his person. Three days later Rhinehart and Spitzer, who had not been missed, came into camp, and Mrs.
Wolfinger and my father and Uncle Jacob, and also flesh-wounded several poor beasts with arrows. These were more serious hindrances than we had yet experienced. Still, undaunted by the alarming prospects before us, we immediately resumed travel with cows under yoke in place of the freshly injured oxen.
Eddy declared that no language could portray the desolation and heartsick feeling, nor the physical and mental torture which he and his wife experienced while travelling between the sink of Ogden's River and the Geyser Springs. It was during that trying week that Mr. Wolfinger mysteriously disappeared.
Then, under suspicious circumstances one of the party, Wolfinger, was lost, and though his wife was informed that he had been murdered by Indians, there was always a doubt in the minds of some as to whether that explanation were the true one. On the 19th of October, an advance guard that had gone on to California for food, returned, bringing seven mules ladened with flour and jerked beef.
The proposition seemed so feasible, that after cool deliberation and discussion, a party was formed to take the new route. My father was elected captain of this company, and from that time on it was known as the "Donner Party." Wolfinger and wife; Patrick Dolan, Charles Stanton, Samuel Shoemaker, Hardcoop, Spitzer, Joseph Rhinehart, James Smith, Walter Herron, and Luke Halloran.
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