I now come to a point in my story that is fraught with such grief and sorrow that I would gladly pass over if I could, but my story wouldn't be complete without this sad chapter.

We were slowly climbing Sherman Hill, some of us pushing on the train, some using pinch bars—as we always did where there was a hard pull—when all of a sudden the engine broke down and the train started slowly back down the hill. While the train didn't go very fast on account that the wheels hadn't been greased since we started, as the company was economizing on oil, and the train stopped when it got to the bottom of the hill, yet it was so discouraging and heart-sickening to poor old Chuckwagon that he died almost immediately after this took place.

He had been gradually growing weaker lately, not being able to keep anything on his stomach except a little Limburger cheese since the night he had the skunk dream. He always imagined this dream to be a warning, and had low sinking spells at times, specially when the two sheepmen and Jackdo were all three in the car in at once, and at such times we were obliged to take a prod pole and drive Jackdo and the two sheepmen out the car and make them ride on top till Chuck revived. We made some smelling salts out of asafoetida and Limburger cheese for him to use when he had these fainting spells, as he frequently did when the car got warm and Jackdo and the sheepmen were there. We also found the decomposed body of a dog lying beside the track one day, and gathering it up in a gunnysack would hang it round Chuck's neck at night when the sheepmen and Jackdo had to ride inside, and in that way he would get a little sleep. But if he happened to be out of reach of any of these remedies when one of the sheepmen come near him he immediately began to strike at the end of his nose and mutter something about glue factories.

Poor old Chuckwagon! In my mind I can still see his rugged, tear-stained face as he would piteously hold out his hands for his sack of decomposed dog when one of the sheepmen or Jackdo came in the way-car.

All I know of Chuckwagon's life before he come West was what he told me on this trip. He said as a boy he had worked cleaning sewers in Chicago and after that was watchman for glue factories till he come West, but with all this training had never got hardened enough to stand the smell of Jackdo, Cottswool Canvasback and Rambolet Bill in a way-car.

He died like a hero. When we see he was going, Packsaddle Jack took a prod pole and drove Jackdo and the sheepmen down the track a ways so Chuck could breathe some purer air. Then we gave him a whiff of decomposed dog, propped him up against an old railroad tie and took his post-mortem statement in writing as to cause of his death. We let some cattlemen who had formed themselves into a committee for the public safety up in the New Fork country, in Wyoming, have his statement. We now went to the nearest town, got the best coffin we could and after selecting a place right under a big cliff, we buried old Chuck and piled up a lot of rock at the grave so we could come back and get him and give him a good decent burial on his own ranch. We didn't have much funeral services, but Dillbery Ike made a talk which just filled all our ideas exactly, and here is what he said:

Dillbery Ike's Tribute to Chuckwagon.

Chuck was a good man. While he never joined church and drunk a heap of whiskey, bucked faro and monte, cussed mighty hard at times, yet he always paid his debts. Never killed other people's beef and didn't take mavericks till they was plum weaned from the cows. He believed mighty strong in ghosts and God Almighty; believed in angels, 'cause he loved a little, blonde, blue-eyed girl away up in the mountains in Idaho. He had a strong belief in heaven, but a heap stronger one in hell, 'cause he said there must be some place to keep the sheepmen by themselves in the other world. He never had a father or mother and no bringing up, but lived a better life 'cording to what he knowed than some people who knowed more. He always gave his big-jawed cattle to Injuns to eat, place of hauling the meat to town and peddling it out to white folks. He'd been known to even cut stove wood for married men when their wives were off visiting, and once he gave all the tobacco and cigarette papers he had to a sick Digger Injun and went without for a week himself. He always let the tenderfoot visitor at the ranch fish all the strips of bacon out the beans and pretended to be looking the other way, and when old Widow Mulligan, who ran a little milk ranch, died of fever and left four little red-headed kids he took them all home and took care of them, told them bear stories till they all went to sleep nights in his bed, washed them, fed them and never said a cross word, and even when they drowned his pet cat in the well, let out his pigs, turned the old cow in his garden and stoned all his young Plymouth Rock chickens to death, he just said, "Poor little fellars, they hain't got no mother now," and he guessed they didn't mean any harm, and took care of them till a relative came and took them away.

We figured all these things up and made up our minds that no fair-minded God would send a great, big-hearted, innocent cowman, who never harmed anybody in his life, to a place like hell was supposed to be. Even if God couldn't let him into heaven on 'count of his wearing his pants in his boots, eating with his knife at the table place of his fork, drinking his coffee out his saucer and other ignorant ways, yet He might give him a pretty decent place away out where there wasn't any sheepmen, and if He didn't have somebody handy to keep old Chuck company just let him have a deck or two of cards to play solitaire with and Chuck wouldn't mind.

Old Chuckwagon was mighty fond of white-faced cattle, and just as he breathed his last he sorter roused up and stretched out his arms, with his eyes as bright as 'lectric lamps, and said: "Boys, I see another country, just lots of big grass, with running streams of water, big herds of white-face cattle, and they are all mavericks, not a brand on 'em, and not a sheep-wagon in sight." And them was his last words.

He lay on the sidetrack, poor honest Chuckwagon,
The pallor of death creeping fast o'er his brow;
Said he to the cowboys, "My rope is a dragging,
I'm going o'er the divide and going right now.
"I've often faced death with the bronks and the cattle,
And meeting him now doesn't take so much sand.
For sooner or later with death all must grapple,
And all that we need is to show a straight brand.
"I would like one more glimpse at the side of the mountain,
Before I saddle up for Eternity's divide;
The ranch house, the meadow, the spring like a fountain,
But, alas for poor Chuck, my feet are hogtied."
Down his bronzed hardy cheeks the warm tears were stealing,
At the memory of his cow ranch, so pleasant and bright.
A smile like an angel played over each feature,
And the soul of the cowboy rode out of sight.