My father said the very word was tantalizing to a lot of men who were
almost dying of hunger. They did not know there was a deer in the
country, or anything else that could be eaten, not even a snake, for
cold weather was so near even they had disappeared. Davis, however,
determined on his hunt, left his comrades, and had traveled only a few
hundred yards until he saw two fine deer standing near. Directly the men
in the camp heard the report of his gun, and as soon as he could reload
they heard a second report, and then a shout, "Come here, boys! there is
meat in plenty." You may imagine it was not long until every one joined
him. They drank every drop of blood that was in the two deer, ate the
livers without cooking, and saved every particle, even taking the marrow
out of their legs. This meat tided them over until they were able to
reach other food.
Never before in the history of the past, nor since that time, did 150
pounds of surplus fat--so considered until starvation overtook
them--prove to be of such great value, and was worth more to them than
all the gold and silver in the Rocky Mountains. When the test came, it
was found to be one of nature's reservoirs that could be drawn upon to
save the lives of twenty-five brave men when all else failed them. Mr.
Davis, as well as the rest of the party, no doubt often wished it could
be dispensed with, as after losing his horse he carried it with great
suffering and fatigue, before they learned its use, and that it was to
be the salvation of the party. We often hear it said that truth is
stranger than fiction, and this certainly was one of the cases where it
proved to be so.
They finally reached home without losing one of their party; but they
all gave the man whom they expected to leave to the wolves in the start
the credit of saving their lives. When Mr. Davis reached his family the
first thing his wife did was to set him a good meal. When he sat down to
the table he said, "Jane, there is to be a new law for the future of our
lives at our table." She said, "What is it, Clark?" He answered, "It is
this. I never want to hear you or one of my children say bread again."
"What then must we call it?" asked his wife. "Call it bready," said he,
"for when I was starving on the plains it came to me that the word bread
was too short and coarse a name to call such sweet, precious, and good a
thing, and whoever eats it should use this pet name and be thankful to
God who gives it, for I assure you, wife, the ordeal I have passed
through will forever cause me to appreciate life and the good things
that uphold it."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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