But neither Turner’s melancholy advice to the passing one nor the gruff-voiced commands of McAdams availed to stay the torrent of delirium. Only death stilled the weakly raucous voice. And his last words came in a kind of gasping chant, in high, thin falsetto: “In a grave that’s decked with g-o-l-d, He’s sleeping _i-n_ the Klondike Vale to-night!” Turner made considerable ado over laying out old Whipple in seemly guise, fussing about in the tent; while Aleck McAdams took upon himself the grilling task of digging a grave in the hard and rocky soil. The late night was a poor time, and the man was tired. But the two had agreed that an early get-away from that inhospitable barren land was imperative, and McAdams groped about for a nook that offered soil enough for a proper grave, deep beyond the fierce pawings of slinking creatures of the wild. In an angle of the creek bed, yet higher than the marks of the spring freshets, he found such a place, and with a light pick and short-handled shovel, McAdams went doggedly to work. When he reentered the tent, admitting thereto a first faint light of dawn, he found his remaining companion smoothing off a flattened slab of wood. “For an epitaph for the poor old fellow,” explained Turner, fumbling in his coat for his fountain pen. “I know,” nodded McAdams, mopping his face with a grimy bandanna handkerchief. “In a grave that’s decked with gold, he’s sleepin’ in the Klondike Vale to-night! Fine!” Turner gave a grunt of disgust. “Doggerel. The word ‘wealth,’ if you quote the whole verse, is repeated twice. I suppose in the correct version it isn’t, but it’s rotten poetry to stick up on a grave, even in the wilderness.” McAdams looked wistfully at the slab. “Still,” he urged, “it was the old man’s fav’rite joke--knockin’ the gold up here. And that ridic’lous ‘grave that’s decked with gold’--he allus split his sides laughin’ at that. Old man was some joker in his time, too. I been with him off and on a number of years.” “Death and graves are solemn matters, McAdams,” replied Turner pettishly. “As I’ve had occasion to remark before. Mac, you’ve simply got no sentiment. The man was your friend. We’ll give him what decent burial we can, and mark his last resting place with something a little more fitting in the way of verse than that maudlin dance-hall stuff!” “What’ll it be?” asked McAdams, abashed. “I had thought of an epitaph, or a verse, rather, from the tomb of the immortal bard, Shakespeare. It’s a bit highbrow, perhaps, for poor old Whipple. It may protect the mound, though. Even you old sourdoughs are sometimes superstitious.” McAdams leaned down, his hard hands resting on his clay-slippery overalls, and watched Turner as he printed slowly, beneath the name and date, the words: Good friend, for Jesus’ sake, forbear To dig the dust inclosed here; Blest be the man that spares these stones, And cursed be he that moves my bones.