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careful about who they ate, they made sure that none of them were actually consuming any of their own relatives. Most of the dead had died from starvation so they could offer only a small amount of meat, but the little they were able to obtain provided them with enough strength to move on.
    At the end of December the storm, which had held the party in their makeshift camp, subsided and some of the party were able to leave the Camp of Death, leaving those who chose to stay behind. They took as much meat with them as they could carry in their packs, and then pushed ahead as far as they could. They knew they had a long way to go and that they were still miles away from any Indians, let alone white people. The sorry party of five men and five women trudged across the Sierra Nevada in their snowshoes in a desperate effort to reach their final destination.
    By early January the party had made reasonably good progress, but they still had a long way to go and food supplies were again running low. One of the party, Joe Fosdick grew terribly sick and was unable to keep up with the others. Understandably he was left behind with his wife Sarah. After a couple of days William Foster and one other person, presuming that the couple would be dead, turned back to find the corpses and use them for food. But to their surprise, Sarah Fosdick was still alive, although extremely weak. Remaining faithful to her husband she had stayed by his side, and even after his death a short while later she had abandoned any hope of continuing the journey on her own. Right before Sarah’s eyes her husband’s corpse was cut up and, after filling the packs with the meat, Foster and Mrs. Fosdick returned to the others who had made a camp to wait for Foster’s return.
    However, the meat from one very undernourished body did not provide much sustenance for nine people. Among these nine were two Indians, and luckily for the white people they refused to eat any of the human flesh. William Foster was becoming more and more deranged and started to make plans to kills the two Indians, Luis and Salvadore, to give the remaining party more food. Immediately the two Indians ran away, frightened for their lives. It was easy for the party to follow their tracks though, because their bare feet had become so raw from exposure that the majority of their toes had fallen off, and they were leaving a trail of blood wherever they went. Foster decided that even if the Indians didn’t lead them to safety, they could at least find their bodies and use them for food.
    Gradually, through lack of food and exposure, the two Indians became weaker and weaker, and eventually the party caught up with them at a small creek. Despite the protests of other members of the party, Foster took out a rifle and shot the two Indians. Even though they were close to death, the others still considered the act to be horrifying.
    Armed with more supplies the party reached an Indian village on January 11. There were now two men and five women and the natives offered them clothes, shelter and, more importantly, food. The Indians were well aware that these starving people could easily die from overeating, so they were careful to only feed them small amounts, offering them thin soups made from acorns and venison meat. Despite the constant pleading from the survivors, the Indians would not feed them any more food.
    William Foster and the five women were all in a terrible condition, and it was still uncertain whether they would in fact survive. The other man, William Eddy, who was also very sick, knew he had to survive in order to get help to his family who had stayed behind at the lakeside encampment. Whilst the others stayed and rested, Eddy persuaded the Indians to take him to Johnson’s Ranch, and a posse of scouts and women led what became known as the First Relief.
    Despite being desperately sick, Eddy pushed on through the mountains in a desperate effort to reach his family in the hope that they had