it will be crude, but it will be
some solace to her to know we did the best we could."

Every one of us was eager to lend his assistance. Within five minutes
Priest was galloping up the north bank of the river to intercept the
wagon at the ferry, a well-filled purse in his pocket with which to
secure a coffin at Fort Laramie. Flood and Campbell selected a burial
place, and with our wagon spade a grave was being dug on a near-by
grassy mound, where there were two other graves.

There was not a man among us who was hypocrite enough to attempt to
conduct a Christian burial service, but when the subject came up,
McCann said as he came down the river the evening before he noticed an
emigrant train of about thirty wagons going into camp at a grove about
five miles up the river. In a conversation which he had had with one
of the party, he learned that they expected to rest over Sunday. Their
respect for the Sabbath day caused Campbell to suggest that there
might be some one in the emigrant camp who could conduct a Christian
burial, and he at once mounted his horse and rode away to learn.

In preparing the body for its last resting-place we were badly
handicapped, but by tearing a new wagon sheet into strips about a foot
in width and wrapping the body, we gave it a humble bier in the shade
of our wagon, pending the arrival of the coffin. The features were so
ashened by having been submerged in the river for over eighteen hours,
that we wrapped the face also, as we preferred to remember him as we
had seen him the day before, strong, healthy, and buoyant. During the
interim, awaiting the return of Campbell from the emigrant camp and of
the wagon, we sat around in groups and discussed the incident. There
was a sense of guilt expressed by a number of our outfit over their
hasty decision regarding the courage of the dead man. When we
understood that two of his brothers had met a similar fate in Red
River within the past five years, every guilty thought or hasty word
spoken came back to us with tenfold weight. Priest and Campbell
returned together; the former reported having secured a coffin which
would arrive within an hour, while the latter had met in the emigrant
camp a superannuated minister who gladly volunteered his services. He
had given the old minister such data as he had, and two of the
minister's granddaughters had expressed a willingness to assist by
singing at the burial services. Campbell had set the hour for four,