text: Finally you make it over the Sierra Nevada Mountains and begin to descend the far side. On the way you meet the Second Relief travelling out to those of the Donner Party still stranded in the mountains, this group is led by James Reed and William McCutchen. When Reed’s wife Margret sees him she gives a cry of sheer amazement and collapses in the snow. The reunion is a moving occasion and Reed’s children cry as they embrace their father. But one person’s joy is another person’s sorrow: McCutchen learns that his baby daughter Harriet died at Truckee Lake. Reed still has two children in the camps and is anxious to rescue them.
  
  
  You part ways, the Second Relief going on up into the mountains while you and the others go down: coming to where a large stash of provisions has been placed. You are overjoyed to taste good food again and eat. One of your companions, William Hook (Jacob Donner’s stepson) eats and eats until he can eat no more. You are tempted to stuff yourself too.
  
  
  What do you do?
  
  
   
  > You eat moderately
  You are lucky you are able to resist over-indulging (William Hook is found dead the next morning) and a week later you reach Johnson’s Ranch, having passed a third rescue party led by William Eddy and William Foster going the other way. You thank them for warning the people of California of your plight but regrettably have to tell Eddy his wife and youngest child have died. The parties separate and soon after you are overjoyed to reach Johnson’s Ranch, a place of supplies and safety. There you rest for a month.
  
  
  Meanwhile the relief parties continue to bring survivors in. James Reed and William McCutchen return with just three having abandoned more further up the trail. Another man called John Stark brings eleven of these in himself. Finally Eddy and Foster return with five more. They report that the remaining survivors in the mountains: George Donner, his wife Tamzene, their nephew Samuel, Louis Keseberg and Levinah Jackson, have resorted to cannibalism to stay alive. At the start of April William Foster begins organising a final Relief Party to bring in these survivors, if they are still alive. You can either accompany this group or remain safely at Sutter’s Fort.
  
  
  What do you do?
  
  
   