“Mus who?” Charlie asked. “Only rats around here besides the two-legged kind are just plain everyday rats.” The ladies gathered up their papers, went outside, looked over the hills, consulted their maps, and returned to Brown. “Sir, this is Metbury Spring,” one announced, “and for your own information we may add that in no other place in the world is there a rat like the one you have here.” The amazing feature of this incident is that it is true. The rats in some unexplained way had disappeared. The spinsters remained for weeks but failed to find the specimen they sought, but Charlie learned that the first man known to have settled at Shoshone was a man named Brown and Shoshone’s first name was Metbury Spring. Death came to Shoshone that week-end. George Hoagland, prospector, reached Trail’s End. Charlie announced the news to the bench and asked for volunteers to dig the grave. Bob Johnson, another prospector, jumped up. “I’ll help.” The others gave Bob a quick look and exchanged slow ones with each other, because it was known that Bob had not liked Hoagland. “I’ve been in lots of deals with that bastard,” he had often said. “Came out loser every time. Always left himself a hole to wiggle out of.” Right or wrong, Bob’s opinion was shared by many. Herman Jones glanced after Bob, now going for a pick and shovel. “That’s sure white of Bob, forgetting his grudge,” Herman said and all Shoshone approved. I joined the little group that filed up to the cemetery at the mouth of the gulch for the graveside ceremony. We stood about waiting for the box that contained all there was of George. They take death on the desert just as they do any other grim fact of nature. They talked of George and the hard, chalky earth Bob had to dig through in the hot sun. There were mild arguments about whose bones lay under this or that unmarked grave. “Dad Fairbanks brought that fellow in....” “No such thing. That’s Tillie Younger—member of Jesse James’s gang. I helped bury him....” Presently there was a stir and I saw Charlie over where the women were. He had another chore and was doing it because there was no one else to do it. “Usually reads a coupla verses,” Joe Ryan told me. “But somebody stole the only Bible in Shoshone.” The box was lowered, the grave filled and Charlie stepped forward. He held his hat well up in front of his chest and I suspected that he had a few notes pasted in the hat. Those about were listening intently as people will to one who has something to say and says it in a few words. Suddenly I was conscious of mumbling and the tramping of earth and seeing Brown flick a glance out of the corner of his eye toward the disturbing sound, I turned to see Bob Johnson jumping up and down on the earth that filled the grave—careful to miss no inch of it. When he had tamped it sufficiently he stepped aside and muttered angrily: “Now dam’ you—let’s see you wiggle out of this hole!”