Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 2.djvu/175

Rh needed my help very much. They said John Nicholsdaughter was dying, and it would be necessary to bury her during the night. Mrs. Shaw was chief speaker. She said she was aware that all the men and boys were probably tired; but there was a great difference between them when asked to dig a grave, when they needed sleep. They told me where to find a pick and shovel, and to bring them near Nichols' wagon, as they must go there now. I did so, and found a girl, just budding into womanhood, drawing her last breath. Four or five good mothers were around the rear end of the wagon. Through the space between I saw the calm, pure, marble-like face, as the last breathings, with a slight struggle, left the upper portion of the breast and neck motionless. From my eight years in the coal mines, I had seen men and boys maimed, crushed, or burned by machinery, falling roofs, or fire damp, but nothing of that kind affected me like this death scene.

My opinion as to the causes of the death of this girl and Mrs. Seabren, who died on August 4, and Mrs. Frost, who died on the twelfth, was not worth much then or now, but by the aid of Rev. Mr. Parrish's dates, I am giving it fifty-six years after the event, which is, that exposure to the almost constant rains the twenty days and nights we were held by the swollen Black Vermillion and Big Blue, was the cause. In our traveling family of ten, Rees and Captain Morrison's oldest daughter had severe attacks of "camp fever," as it was called.

We dug Miss Nichols' grave in loose soil and stones, near where she died, and buried the body. As dead brush and wood were plentiful near, we burned some over it to kill evidence of what we had done, that the grave might not be violated.

On August 16 we did not reach the Sweetwater, as