ey nodded to Barker
and McLean, quietly waiting there, and began choosing among the open,
weather-drifted graves from which the soldiers had been taken. Their
figures went up and down the uneven ridges, calling and comparing.

"Here," said the Doughie, "here's a good hole."

"Here's a deep one," said another.

"We've struck a well here," said some more. "Put her in here."

The sand-hills became clamorous with voices until they arrived at a
choice, when some one with a spade quickly squared the rain-washed
opening. With lariats looping the coffin round, they brought it and were
about to lower it, when Chalkeye, too near the edge, fell in, and one
end of the box rested upon him. He could not rise by himself, and they
pulled the ropes helplessly above.

McLean spoke to Barker. "I'd like to stop this," said he, "but a man
might as well--"

"Might as well stop a cloud-burst," said Barker.

"Yes, Doc. But it feels--it feels like I was looking at ten dozen Lin
McLeans." And seeing them still helpless with Chalkeye, he joined them
and lifted the cow-boy out.

"I think," said Slaghammer, stepping forward, "this should proceed no
further without some--perhaps some friend would recite 'Now I lay me?"'

"They don't use that on funerals," said the Doughie.

"Will some gentleman give the Lord's Prayer?" inquired the coroner.

Foreheads were knotted; triad mutterings ran among them; but some one
remembered a prayer book in one of the rooms in Drybone, and the notion
was hailed. Four mounted, and raced to bring it. They went down the
hill in a flowing knot, shirts ballooning and elbows flapping, and so
returned. But the book was beyond them. "Take it, you; you take it,"
each one said. False beginnings were made, big thumbs pushed the pages
back and forth, until impatience conquered them. They left the book
and lowered the coffin, helped again by McLean. The weight sank slowly,
decently, steadily, down between the banks. The sound that it struck the
bottom with was a slight sound, the grating of the load upon the solid
sand; and a little sand strewed from the edge and fell on the box at the
same moment. The rattle came up from below, compact and brief, a single
jar, quietly smiting through the crowd, smiting it to silence. One
removed his hat, and then another, and then all. They stood eying each
his neighbor, and shifting their eyes, looked away at the great valley.
Then they filled in the grave, brought a head-board from a