And now underneath his bones moulder."
Just below the heartrending epitaph appeared in bold letters the satisfactory statement—"This monument is pade fer."
On the lonely plains, miles from habitation, a single grave fenced in with barbed wire in a circular corral, I discovered a mate to the preceding epitaph, which illustrates the utter abandon with which the rugged, dashing "bronco buster" regards the perils of riding a bucking wild horse.
"Here is buried my bronco, Ah Sam,
Beside me—I don't give a damn!
While bucking he killed me;
On this spot he spilled me,
And now the devil's I am."
Sometime before parting with my courier, unknown to him we pitched camp one dark night in a graveyard. Barley was an early riser, and, as we know, as superstitious as he was gullible. He was the first out of the tent at dawn. Suddenly he rushed back, exclaiming: "De Resurrection has came, fellows, an' wese de first livin' on earth agin." And with terror in his eyes and voice, dragged Coonskin and me to see a strange sight indeed. There, some forty feet from the tent, stood a towering crucifix with a figure of the Saviour, life size, looking down upon us, while about us were tablets and mounds: the scene was so still and solemn no wonder that my awestricken courier thought the world had come to an end.
On the 24th of June, after a hot and dusty trail across an arid waste, where only occasional patches of buffalo grass and cacti matted the earth in the place of the long prairie grass and flowers we were tramping in a few days before, my weary troop, jaded and hungry entered the little village of Overton.