That, Dear Reader, is death by starvation.

Patrick Dolan, on the other hand, died of exposure. Exposure does not feature apathy, but rather delirium, stemming partly from the sensation one feels when one's blood rushes inward to warm the organs and leaves the skin somehow feeling hot. Patrick Dolan felt this corporeal illusion and tore out of the makeshift shelter, ripping off his clothing during the worst of the storm. Eddy fought him back inside and the others helped to hold him down, but it was no use: Patrick Dolan was gone.

[He begins to cry, but without hysterics-only tears.]

And, with those three deaths, there was food enough for a belated Christmas meal.

No one ate his own kin.

Only the Indian guides abstained.

By December 27, the snow was over nine feet deep. That great cathedral of snow and ice and ancient arbors that is California in those parts in wintertime had now transformed into a frozen, gothic crypt. Mercifully, the snow kept falling and quickly covered the pools of blood they left upon it.

That meal sustained them—but only another three days. And, I suppose, once that taboo had been broken, there was no repairing the breach: the world was their icebox!

It is said that William Foster suggested their next meal: Luis and Salvador, the guides. It is said that William Eddy caught wind of this and told the pair so that they could escape—they did not believe him, thinking he, too, has gone mad. Eventually, Eddy prevailed and they vanished into the woods.

The following day, Eddy temporarily staved off the crisis, felling a doe with a single shot. However, this venison proved too late for Jay Fosdick, also married to a Graves daughter. He expired in his wife Sarah's arms.

The group soldiered on through snow that in some places was 22 feet deep and, again, hunger set in. It is said a few days later they came upon Luis and Salvador dying of exhaustion, starvation, and exposure in the snow. The record is silent as to whether Eddy objected when Foster shot the pair for meat—though that same record tends to suggest once it was a fait accompli, even Eddy partook.