on his squaw, before he could do
more than grunt. In the end they went away caring more for the clothes
that had been given them than for the money they had earned.

Before the summer waned, death claimed one of our own brave women, and
immigrants from far and near gathered to do her honor. I do not
recollect her name, but know that she was tall and fair, and that
grandma, who had watched with her through her last hours, told Georgia
and me that when we saw the procession leave the house, we might creep
through our back fence and reach the grave before those who should walk
around by the road. We were glad to go, for we had watched the growth
of the fresh ridge under a large oak tree, not far from our house, and
had heard a friend say that it would be "a heavenly resting place for
the freed sufferer."

Her family and nearest neighbors left the house afoot, behind the wagon
which carried the plain redwood coffin. At the cross-road several fell
in line, and at the grave was quite a gathering. A number came in their
ox wagons, others on horseback; among them, a father afoot, leading a
horse upon whose back sat his wife with an infant in arms and a child
behind clinging to her waist; and several old nags, freighted with
children, were led by one parent, while the other walked alongside to
see that none should lose their balance and fall off.

No minister of the Gospel was within call, so, after the coffin was
placed upon the bars above the open grave, and the lid removed, a
friend who had crossed the plains with the dead, offered a prayer, and
all the listeners said, "Amen."

I might not have remembered all these things, if Georgia and I had not
watched over that grave, when all others seemed to have forgotten it.
As we brought brush to cover it, in order to keep the cattle from
dusting themselves in the loose earth, we talked matters over, and felt
as though that mother's grave had been bequeathed to us. Grandma had
instructed us that the graveyard is "God's acre," and that it is a sin
to live near and not tend it. Still, no matter how often we chased the
cattle away, they would return. We could not make them understand that
their old resting-place had become sacred ground.

About the middle of October, 1848, the last of the volunteers were
mustered out of service, and shortly thereafter the excess of army
stores were condemned and sold. Ex-soldiers had preference over
settlers, and could buy the goods at Government