The main body of Jayhawkers kept their cattle, for they were their only hope; on these they lived, and the cattle lived on the bitter sage-brush and grease-wood, except when they occasionally found an oasis with water and a little grass upon it. The feet of the cattle were worn down until the blood marked their every step. Then the boys wrapped their feet in raw hides, as they did their own. Many died from exposure, hunger, and thirst, and were buried in the drifting sands where they fell, while those who were left moved on, weak and tottering, not knowing whose turn would be next. But for their cattle, not a man could have lived through that awful journey. They ate the hide, the blood, the refuse, and picked the bones in camp, making jerked beef of the balance to take along with them. People who are well fed, who have an abundance of the good things of life, say: "I would not eat this; I would not eat that; I'd starve first." They are not in a position to judge. Hunger swallows up every other feeling, and man in a starving condition is as savage as a wild beast.
ALEXANDER MAJORS.
R. H. HASLAM ("Pony Bob"). PRENTISS INGRAHAM.
JOHN B. COLTON. W. F. CODY ("Buffalo Bill").
After many desert wanderings and untold suffering, they at last struck a low pass in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, and emerged suddenly into the Santa Clara Valley, which was covered with grass and wild oats and flowers, with thousands of fat cattle feeding, a perfect paradise to those famished skeletons of men. There were thirty-four of the party who lived to reach that valley, and every one shed tears of joy at the sight of the glorious vision spread before them and the suddenness of their deliverance.
The boys shot five head of the cattle, and were eating the raw flesh and fat when the ranch Indians, hearing the firing, came down with all the shooting irons they could muster, but seeing the helpless condition of the party, they rode back to headquarters and reported to Francisco, the Spaniard who owned the ranch and cattle. He came down and invited them to camp in a grove near his home, bade them welcome, and furnished the party with meat, milk, grain, and everything they needed, and kept them until they were recruited and able to go on their way. Verily, he was a good Samaritan. They were strangers, and he took them in; hungry, and he fed them; thirsty, and he gave them drink. In the grand summing up of all things, may the noble Francisco be rewarded a thousandfold.
They reached the Santa Clara Valley the 4th of February, 1850, and on that day each year they celebrate their deliverance by a reunion, where in pleasant companionship and around the festive board they recount reminiscences of the past, and live over again those scenes, when young and hopeful, they lived and suffered together.
There are but eleven of the survivors of that party alive to-day, and these are widely scattered east of the Rocky Mountains and on the Pacific Slope. Some are old men, too feeble to travel, and can only be present in spirit and by letter at the annual reunions. Gladly would every Jayhawker welcome one and all of that band, bound together by ties of suffering in a bond of brotherhood which naught but death can sever.
The names and residences of the original party are as follows:
John B. Colton, Kansas City, Mo.
Alonzo C. Clay, Galesburg, Ill.
Capt. Asa Haines, Delong, Knox County, Ill., died March 29, 1889.
Luther A. Richards, Beaver City, Neb.
Charles B. Mecum, Perry, Greene County, Iowa.
John W. Plummer, Toulon, Ill., died June 22, 1892.
Sidney P. Edgerton, Blair, Neb., died January 31, 1880.
Edward F. Bartholomew, Pueblo, Colo., died February 13, 1891.
Urban P. Davidson, Derby P. O., Fremont County, Wyo.
John Groscup, Cahto, Mendocino County, Cal.
Thomas McGrew, died in 1866, in Willamette Valley, Ore.
John Cole, died in Sonora, Cal., in 1852.
John L. West, Coloma, Cal., since died.
William B. Rude, drowned in the Colorado River, New Mexico, in 1862.
L. Dow Stevens, San José, Cal.
William Robinson, Maquon, Ill., died in the desert.
---- Harrison, unknown.
Alexander Palmer, Knoxville, Ill., died at Slate Creek, Sierra County, Cal., in 1853.
Aaron Larkin, Knoxville, Ill., died at Humboldt, Cal., in 1853.
Marshall G. Edgerton, Galesburg, Ill., died in Montana Territory in 1855.
William Isham, Rochester, N. Y., died in the desert.
---- Fish, Oscaloosa, Iowa, died in the desert.
---- Carter, Wisconsin, unknown.
Harrison Frans, Baker City, Baker County, Ore.
Capt. Edwin Doty, Naples, Santa Barbara County, Cal., died June 14, 1891.
Bruin Byram, Knoxville, Ill., died in 1863.
Thomas Shannon, Los Gatos, Santa Clara County, Cal.
Rev. J. W. Brier, wife, and three small children, Lodi City, San Joaquin County, Cal.
George Allen, Chico, Cal., died in 1876.
Leander Woolsey, Oakland, Cal., died in 1884.
Man from Oscaloosa, Iowa, name not remembered, died in California.
Charles Clark, Henderson, Ill., died in 1863.
---- Gretzinger, Oscaloosa, Iowa, unknown.