Extract from “The Old Journey”

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Extrafl from "(Uhr (®lb lattnug." By Alfred Lamhuurnr, author of "Our Inland Sea," etc.

OUNTLESS in numbers almost were those silent wit- nesses of death by the way. The mounds were to be seen in all imaginable places. Each day we passed

them, singly or in groups; and sometimes, nay, often,

one of our own company was left behind to swell the

number. By the banks of streams, on grassy hillocks, in the sands, be- neath groves of trees, or among piles of rock, the graves were dug. We left the new mounds to be beaten upon by the tempests, scorched by

the sun, or for beauty to gather about as it had about many of the

older ones. Sometimes when we camped, the old graves would be

directly alongside the wagons. I recall sitting by one that was thickly

covered with grass and without a headboard, while I ate my evening

meal, and of sleeping beside it at night. One remains in my mind as a very soothing little picture— a child's grave, and it was screened around

with a thicket of wild rose that leaned lovingly over it, while the mound

itself was overgrown with moss. 1 fancied that the parents of that child,

were they yet living, would like to have seen how daintily nature had

decked the last bed of their loved one.

How painful were the circumstances attending the first burial in our

train. A woman died one evening, (we were about ten days out) just as

the moon had risen over the prairie, and swiftly the tidings sped through

the camp. Next morning (it was the Sabbath day) she was buried

laid to rest on a low, grassy hill near a stream. Never can I forget the

grief of her chi'dren as the body was lowered into the ground. A net- work of stakes was placed across the grave to keep away the robber

wolves, and a hymn was then sung, accompanied by the plaintive wail-

ing of a clarionet.

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