Democratic Northwest. [volume] (Napoleon, Ohio) 1869-1894, 1892-06-30
was over.

'Arter we had been IN camp ten days
we had 70 content ourselves with but
one meal. and that q small one. each
twenty-four hours. A few days more
and even that gave out
Then we had nothing with which to
satisfy our hunger but the moss which
we dug down through the snow and
tore from the rocks, and the bark from
the branches of dead trees.
Soon, so awful was it all, great dis
trust grew up among us. Each man
feared that he would be slain and eaten
by his neighbor. After that none Of us
dared sleep.
For two nights and days we stood
and sat around that roaring fire with
unclosed, glaring eyes.
"Then the end came. One after an
other our overstrained minds succumbed.
We yelled and laughed and danced
about like the maniacs we were, ours
ing the gold which had lured us into
our trouble, the mountains which shut
us off from our fellow beings. the snow,
the fire, God and each other.
"That night, from sheer exhaustion,
we fell like stricken beeves in the snow
around the fire, and while the others
slept, | arose and took an ak and slew
them-all of them-my six poor COM
rades.
"And then, having killed them, l cut
great chunks of flesh from their dead,
helpless bodies, which cooked and ate.
"How long this fearful feast was kept
up do not know, but it must have been
for O considerable time, for it was many
weeks after the storm had ended before
some settlers found me. in valley to
the westward, prone upon the ground
and breathing heavily.
81 was picked up and nursed; through
terrible fever, which followed, every
moment of which | made hideous with
muttered disclosures of my doubts and
fears and orgies around that awful
camp fire.
1.-TWO months later, as soon as was
well enough, came back east to my
young wife, but without any knowledge
of my crimes. | had no recollection
whatever of the period | described to
you. Those to whom recited its par
ticulars at the time of my illness re-
garded everything l disclosed as mere
mad ravings-the hallucinations of fever
and weakness. And so it was not till
my return to California, year later,
that l was told of my sickbed con-
fessions
mo sooner did hear them, though,
than it all came back to me with the
most fearful clearness-the mocking
snow, the maddening hunger, the dis
trust my comrades and l bore each
other, the murders, the cannibalism-
everything.
well, Mr.. Greenwood, after l was
told Of my fever rawlings, went to DON
ner lake and searched till found that
valley of death beyond it. still had
hope that | might have been only deliri-
GUS after all. But at the site of that
wretched camp fire was evidence beyond
doubling, the bones of my murdered
comrades, our arms tools, all the fanil-
lar and damning array. 1t was more
than conclusive. surrendered myself to
the authorities, who thought me labor
ing under delusion. They instituted
private investigation, but were con-
fronted with so many elements of doubt
that they soon dismissed me with the
opinion that it was case in which the
Almighty alone had Jurisdiction.
$50 l left my merciful judges and
came home.
"But terrifying fear had seized me
In that Californian courtroom which
my subsequent studies satisfied me was
only too well grounded. Mr. Green
wood, have consulted every obtainable
authority on the subject of heredity, and
substituting other names and places
have laid the matter before the most
eminent specialists. The result in each
and every instance is the same. Not
one ray of hope offers itself from any
source. My daughter cannot marry,
because sooner or later either she OF her
children will inherit from me an appe-
lite for human fesh!"
For brief interval, perhaps minute,
Kenneth Greenwood sat staring at Tul-
bingham in horritied silence. The sig
niticance of what he had heard was SO
overwhelming that he could not grasp it
all at once. Presently his lungs filled
with a gasp, and then, sitting into a
moan the impulse to'shriek out his de-
spair, he ran out of the house and rushed
swiftly away in the darkness, unnamed,
hopeless, wrecked, fleeing from the un-
movable and unseen. - Pittsburg
Leader.