Page:The Prairie Flower; Or, Adventures In the Far West.djvu/103



"Sam! Sam! look up! speak to me! it's Jim your friend. I did not go to do it. I was mad, or drunk. Sam! Sam! speak to me! for Heaven's sake speak, if only once, and say you forgive mf! Sam, why don't you speak? Oh! I shall go distracted! My brain seems on fire! You know, dear Sam, I would not murder you you my friend my dearly loved friend the playmate of my childhood! Oh. speak! speak! speak! God! speak, Sam, if only once! It was the cursed liquor that did it. Oh speak! if only to curse me f God! God! he don't answer me!" cried the wretched man, turning an anguished, imploring look upon the spectators, as if they could give him ' aid, and then wildly straining the dead man to his heart.

"He'll never speak agin," said one.

"Oh no! do not say that!" shrieked die duellist, " Do not say that! or I shall go mad. I feel it here here in my head in my brain. I killed him, did I? I killed him murdered him the only friend I had on earth? And you all stood and saw me do it. Yes, I murdered him. See! see! thar's blood his blood I did it -ha, ha, ha!" and he ended with a maniacal* laugh, threw himself upon the ground, and hugged the corpse of his friend to his heart.

"Poor feller!" said one, " he'd better be taken into one o' the lodges, for he looks like he'd lost his sense."

"No, no, no! you shan't you shan't part us!" cried the frenzied man, draw ing his deai companion closer to his heart, a.s some of the party sought to carry out the suggestion just made. " No, no! you shan't part us never, never, never! This is Sam, this is Sam Murdoch he's my friend and we're goin a long journey to gether ain't we Sam? We'll never part agin will we Sam? Never! never! 0, never! ha, ha, ha! Thar! thar! he continued, dropping the body, rising to a sitting posture, and staring wildly at some imaginary object: " I see, Sam I see! You're in great danger. That rock's about to fall. But hang on, Sam hang on to that root! Don't let go! Jim's a-comin. God! who j>ut that chasm thar that mountain gorge to separate U*? I can't git across. Help! help 1 or

Sam will die. Yes, he's fallin now! Tharl thar! he's goin down down down ' But heyar's what'll meet you, Sam. Comin! comin!" and whipping out hi knife as he said this, before any one \vas aware what he was about, or had time to prevent him, he plunged it into his heart, and gasping the word " comin," rolled over upon the earth and expired beside his friend.

I had been a silent witness of the whole bloody, terrible scene but my feelings can neither be imagined nor described. Speechless with horror, I stood and gazed like one in a nightmare, without the power to move, and was only roused from my painful revery by Huntly, who, tapping me on the shoulder, said :

"Come away, Frank come away!"

Complying with his request, I turned, and together we quitted the ground, both too deeply affected and horrified at what we had seen to make a single comment.

The mountaineers, with whom such and similar scenes were of common occurrence, proceeded to deposit the dead in a rude grave .near the spot where they had fallen. They then returned to the encampment, to take a drink to their memories, coolly talk over the " sad mishap," as they termed it, and again to engage in their usual routine of amusement or occupation. In a week the whole affair was forgotten, or mention ed only to some new comer as having hap pened " some time ago."

Upon the mind of myself and friend, it produced an impression never to be erased; and for a long time, apparitions of the un fortunate trappers haunted my waking senses by day, and my dreams by night.

CHAPTER XII.

RESOLVE TO DEPART DISCOURAGING OBSER VATIONS FAIL TO GBT A GUIDE SET OUT

UL^'TAH FORT OUR JOURNEY TO UTAH

LAKE KESOLVE TO CROSS THE GREAT IN TERIOR BASIN FIRST DAY'S PROGRESS

CAMP KILL A RABBIT SUDDEN ATTAC1

FROM THE DIGGERS REPULSE AND FORTU NATE ESCAPE.

WE had been a month in Brown's Hole, without having seen or heard anything