hether it was the death agony, they could not tell. Tom put the flask
to his lips, but he could not swallow, and in another moment the death
rattle sounded in his throat.

They waited beside the dead man's body until every sign of life was
extinct. They closed his eyes, straightened his limbs, and folded his
hands upon his breast. Then said Tom:

"Nick, he was too white a man to leave for the coyotes. We must do
something with him."

"You're sure right, Tommy. But what can we do? This sand ain't deep
enough to keep 'em from diggin' him up, even if we bury him."

Tom looked about him and considered the situation a moment. "We'll
have to rock him up in here, Nick, in Dick Winters' mine."

At one side of the wide, blasted out mouth of the deep crack in the
mountain from which Dick Winters had taken his gold, and level with
the bottom of the crevice, there was a long, oval hollow, half as wide
as a man's body. The solid rock had cracked out of it after some
giant-powder blast. They laid the body of Bill Frank in this shallow
crypt and began to pile rocks around it. Suddenly Tom stopped, looked
at Nick inquiringly, hesitated and cleared his throat.

"Say, Nick," he blurted out, "it ain't a square deal to put a fellow
away like this. Somebody ought to say something over him."

"No, you bet it ain't a square deal," said Nick. "We wouldn't like it
if it was one of us. But what can we do? There ain't no preacher
here."

"I was thinkin', Nick," Tom hesitated and blushed a deep crimson, "I
was sure thinkin' that maybe--well, I thought--that you-all could say
something. You know you always can say something. You-all better say
it, Nick." And without waiting for denial or protest Tom took off his
hat and bent his head. Nick flashed a surprised look at his companion,
waiting in reverent attitude, hesitated an instant, and then doffed
his hat, bent his head and began. And the good Lord who heard his
prayer did not need to ask his pedigree, for the Irish intonation
with which he rolled the words off his tongue in honey-like waves told
his ancestry:

"Good Lord, sure and Ye'll rest this poor man's soul, for he was white
clean through. Sure, and he was no coward, and no scrub, neither. But
the other two--Ye'd better let them fry in their own fat till they're
cracklin's. You bet, that is what they deserve, and we can prove it.
Amen."

They built a close wall of rock around Bill Frank's resting place high
enough to reach the o