An idea how selfish men will get under such circumstances may be gained
by relating that on one occasion when an ox was killed the liver was
carried to the brave little Mrs. Brier for herself and children, and she
laid it aside for a few moments till she could attend to some other
duties before cooking it. Darkness coming on meanwhile, some
unprincipled, ungallant thief stole it, and only bits of offal and
almost uneatable pieces were left to sustain their lives. That any one
could steal the last morsel from a woman and her children surpasses
belief, but yet it was plain that there was at least one man in the
party who could do it. No one can fully understand or describe such
scenes as this unless he has looked into just such hungry looking,
haggard eyes and faces, a mixture of determination and despair, the
human expression almost vanishing, and the face of a starving wolf or
jackal taking its place, There are no words to paint such a state of
things to him who has never seen and known.
But there were true men, true, charitable hearts in that little band.
Though death stared them in the face they never forgot their fellow men.
As they slowly crawled along many would wander here and there beside the
trail and fall behind, especially the weaker ones, and many were the
predictions that such and such a one would never come up again, or reach
the camp. Then it was that these noble souls, tired almost beyond
recovery themselves, would take water and go back to seek the wandering
ones and give them drink and help them on.
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