SUSTENANCE

Captain Willie and Joseph Elder went searching for rescue wagons that they hoped were near by. With “not a morsel of food in camp” while they were gone, Robert Reeder scavenged for whatever he could find:

I myself have sat by the fireside with Brother Hurren and scraped and singed hair off a piece of rawhide which had been taken off discarded handcarts that had been pulled through the sand hundreds of miles. It was hard, but we would boil and soften it and cut it up into little pieces and put it in our pockets to chew….It helped to keep life in us.