er until darkness without result, the two herds in
the mean time having been so neglected that they had mixed. Our wagon
returned along the north bank early in the evening, and Flood ordered
Priest to go in and make up a guard from the two outfits and hold the
herd for the night. Some one of Scholar's outfit went back and moved
their wagon up to the crossing, within hailing distance of ours. It
was a night of muffled conversation, and every voice of the night or
cry of waterfowl in the river sent creepy sensations over us. The long
night passed, however, and the sun rose in Sabbath benediction, for it
was Sunday, and found groups of men huddled around two wagons in
silent contemplation of what the day before had brought. A more broken
and disconsolate set of men than Scholar's would be hard to imagine.

Flood inquired of their outfit if there was any sub-foreman, or
_segundo_ as they were generally called. It seemed there was not, but
their outfit was unanimous that the leadership should fall to a
boyhood acquaintance of Scholar's by the name of Campbell, who was
generally addressed as "Black" Jim. Flood at once advised Campbell to
send their wagon up to Laramie and cross it, promising that we would
lie over that day and make an effort to recover the body of the
drowned foreman. Campbell accordingly started his wagon up to the
ferry, and all the remainder of the outfits, with the exception of a
few men on herd, started out in search of the drowned man. Within a
mile and a half below the ford, there were located over thirty of the
forty islands, and at the lower end of this chain of sand bars we
began and searched both shores, while three or four men swam to each
island and made a vigorous search.

The water in the river was not very clear, which called for a close
inspection; but with a force of twenty-five men in the hunt, we
covered island and shore rapidly in our search. It was about eight in
the morning, and we had already searched half of the islands, when Joe
Stallings and two of Scholar's men swam to an island in the river
which had a growth of small cottonwoods covering it, while on the
upper end was a heavy lodgment of driftwood. John Officer, The Rebel,
and I had taken the next island above, and as we were riding the
shallows surrounding it we heard a shot in our rear that told us the
body had been found. As we turned in the direction of the signal,
Stallings was standing on a large driftwood log, and signali