In their eagerness, many went far in advance of the main train.

There was little concert of action or harmony of plan.

All did not arrive at Donner Lake the same day.

Some wagons and families did not reach the lake until the thirty-first day of October, some never went farther than Prosser Creek, while others, on the evening of the twenty-ninth, struggled through the snow, and reached the foot of the precipitous cliffs between the summit and the upper end of the lake.

Here, baffled, wearied, disheartened, they turned back to the foot of the lake." These emigrants did not lack in health, strength, or resolution, but here they were in surroundings absolutely new to them.