The Log of a Cowboy: A Narrative of the Old Trail DaysAdams, Andy
General
The Log of a Cowboy: A Narrative of the Old Trail Days
Adams, Andy
Cattle drives -- Fiction; Cowboys -- Fiction; Western stories
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,
and several conveyances would be down from the emigrant camp. The
wagon arriving shortly afterward, we had barely time to lay the corpse
in the coffin before the emigrants drove up. The minister was a tall,
homely man, with a flowing beard, which the frosts of many a winter
had whitened, and as he mingled amongst us in the final preparations,
he had a kind word for every one. There were ten in his party; and
when the coffin had been carried out to the grave, the two
granddaughters of the old man opened the simple service by singing
very impressively the first three verses of the Portuguese Hymn. I had
heard the old hymn sung often before, but the impression of the last
verse rang in my ears for days afterward.
“When through the deep waters I call thee to go,
The rivers of sorrow shall not overflow;
For I will be with thee thy troubles to bless,
And sanctify to thee thy deepest distress.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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