The Expedition of the Donner Party and its Tragic Fate Part 32

My husband, seeing my lips tremble and knowing the intensity of my suppressed emotion, hastened to a.s.sure me that he had talked with the man, and been impressed by his straightforward answers, and that I need have no dread of meeting or talking with him.

When we met at his door, Mr. McGlashan introduced us. We bowed, not as strangers, not as friends, nor did we shake hands. Our thoughts were fixed solely on the purpose that had brought us together. He invited us to enter, led the way to that room which I had been told he had swept and furnished for the occasion with seats for five. His first sentence made us both forget that others were present. It opened the way at once.

"Mr. McGlashan has told me that you have questions you wish to ask me yourself about what happened in the mountain cabin."

Still standing, and looking up into his face, I replied: "Yes, for the eye of G.o.d and your eyes witnessed my mother's last hours, and I have come to ask you, in the presence of that other Witness, when, where, and how she died. I want you to tell me all, and so truly that there shall be no disappointment for me, nor remorse and denials for you in your last hour. Tell it now, so that you will not need to send for me to hear a different story then."

I took the chair he proffered, and he placed his own opposite and having gently reminded me of the love and respect the members of the Donner Party bore their captain and his wife, earnestly and feelingly, he told me the story as he had related it to Mr. McGlashan.

Then, before I understood his movement, he had sunk upon his knees, saying solemnly,

"On my knees before you, and in the sight of G.o.d, I want to a.s.sert my innocence."

I could not have it thus. I bade him rise, and stand with me in the presence of the all-seeing Father. Extending my upturned hand, I bade him lay his own right hand upon it, then covering it with my left, I bade him speak. Slowly, but unhesitatingly, he spoke:

"Mrs. Houghton, if I had murdered your mother, would I stand here with my hand between your hands, look into your pale face, see the tear-marks on your cheeks, and the quiver of your lips as you ask the question? No, G.o.d Almighty is my witness, I am innocent of your mother's death! I have given you the facts as I gave them to the Fallon Party, as I told them at Sutter's Fort, and as I repeated them to Mr.

McGlashan. You will hear no change from my death-bed, for what I have told you is true."

There, with a man's honor and soul to uncover, I had scarcely breathed while he spoke. I watched the expression of his face, his words, his hands. His eyes did not turn from my face; his hand between mine lay as untrembling as that of a child in peaceful sleep; and so, unflinchingly Lewis Keseberg pa.s.sed the ordeal which would have made a guilty man quake.

I felt the truth of his a.s.sertion, and told him that if it would be any comfort to him at that late day to know that Tamsen Donner's daughter believed him innocent of her murder, he had that a.s.surance in my words, and that I would maintain that belief so long as my lips retained their power of speech.

Tears glistened in his eyes as he uttered a heartfelt "Thank you!" and spoke of the comfort the recollection of this meeting would be to him during the remaining years of his life.

Before our departure, Mr. McGlashan asked Keseberg to step aside and show my husband the scars left by the wound which had prevented his going to the settlement with the earlier refugees. There was a mark of a fearful gash which had almost severed the heel from the foot and left a troublesome deformity. One could easily realize how slow and tedious its healing must have been, and Keseberg a.s.sured us that walking caused excruciating pain even at the time the Third Relief Corps left camp.

His clothing was threadbare, but neat and clean. One could not but feel that he was poor, yet he courteously but positively declined the a.s.sistance which, privately, I offered him. In bidding him good-bye, I remarked that we might not see one another again on earth, and he replied pathetically, "Don't say that, for I hope this may not be our last meeting."

I did not see Keseberg again. Years later, I learned that he had pa.s.sed away; and in answer to inquiries I received the following personal note from Dr. G.A. White, Medical Superintendent of the Sacramento County Hospital:

Lewis Keseberg died here on September 3, 1895; aged 81 years. He left no special message to any one. His death was peaceful.

THE END