“Comrades,” she said with one of her sweetest smiles, and placing her hand gently upon the head of the dead man lying in the coffin, “I thank you all for coming here, for we are burying to-day a friend, one whom we can all call by that sacred name, a name so often abused. You knew poor Shuffles as he was yesterday, the day before, and always, true as steel, generous to a fault, and a good man as far as he understood right and wrong.
“You know that he was murdered while he sought to do a kindness. But you do not all know that he has a poor mother in the far-away State of Connecticut living upon a farm which she and her three sons were trying to free from debt. The oldest son lies here, dead, and no help will she ever get from him now.
“So it is that I ask you, in your generosity to contribute as you can and will to the purse I wish to raise and send to her. One of our guests here, Buffalo Bill, was the first to volunteer, and most liberally, and he was followed by his comrade in arms, Surgeon Frank Powell, and now I ask all to come forward and contribute their mite, be it ever so little.”
She turned to Buffalo Bill and he dropped a roll of bills into the basket; Surgeon Powell did the same, and then the employees of the Frying Pan and Devil’s Den followed, after which the miners came forward in a steady stream, while, not to be outdone, the Chinese servants “clubbed in” for the mother of the dead “’Melican man.”
“Surgeon Powell, will you please count this contribution and state to the donors just what it amounts to?” asked Bonnie Belle.
The Surgeon Scout obeyed, and answered:
“Gold-dust valued at five hundred dollars, bills amounting to four hundred and fifty; gold pieces, one hundred and sixty, and silver one hundred and forty, with a score of I. O. U.’s amounting to a hundred dollars.”
“I will cash those I. O. U.’s, and that makes a most generous contribution of thirteen hundred and fifty dollars,” said Bonnie Belle.
This ceremony over with, the pall-bearers were called, the body was taken up, and the cortège started for Sunset Hill, Bonnie Belle escorted by Surgeon Powell and Buffalo Bill, and the miners following in fours, while the organ led the way with “The Campbells are Coming,” and “John Brown’s Body.”
Arriving at the grave the hymn was sung by the quartet, all joining in the original chorus written by the miner-poet, with a will that sent a roar of melody down the valley to rebound from the distant cliffs with many an echo.