Читать книгу Days on the Road: Crossing the Plains in 1865 - Sarah Raymond Herndon - Страница 19

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Gus screamed, jumped from the wagon, ran to her brother, and raised his head in her arms. All who were near enough to hear her scream ran to them and she said, “John has hurt himself with his gun and has fainted, bring restoratives quick.”

In a few seconds, there were half a dozen bottles, with brandy, camphor, ammonia there, and every effort was made to restore him, but all in vain. He died instantly and without a struggle.

When Mr. Kerfoot knew he was dead, he looked for the wound and found a bullet-hole between his shoulders. Just then one of the boys picked up his gun where he had dropped it and exclaimed, “It was not this gun that did the mischief, for it is cold, and the load is in it.”

On looking around to find where the deadly shot had come from, some one took hold of the gun in the front wagon. “Why, this gun is warm. It must have been this gun went off.”

“Oh, no; it could not have been that gun, for there was no cap on it,” said the boy who had thrown the gun there.

Circumstances proved that it was the gun without a cap that did the fatal shooting. I would have supposed, as the boy did, that it was perfectly harmless without a cap. I have heard it said, “It is the unloaded gun, or the one that is supposed to be unloaded, that generally does the mischief.” No doubt the hammer was thrown back when he threw it in the wagon. On investigating we found a rut in the wheel-track just where he fell. It is possible that when the front wheel dropped into the rut with a jolt the hammer fell, igniting the powder, either by the combustible matter that stuck, or by the flash occasioned by the metal striking together. Mr. Milburn was not opposite the wagon when he raised his gun to shoot, but the wagons were moving slowly and the front one came up with him as he was taking aim, and that was why Gus thought it was his own gun. She saw the smoke rise, he stumbled and fell to his knees, she called to him. “Why, John, what made you fall?”

He looked around at her and said, “Oh, Gus, I am shot.” The last words he spoke.

How hard to be reconciled to such a dispensation when such a little thing could have prevented it, only one step in either direction, or the gun pointed the other way. Why, oh, why, has this awful thing happened?

The poor boy seems to be as heart-stricken as Gus. In her unselfish grief she has been trying to comfort him.

I have read of a minister of the Gospel “who dreamed that he died; after entering the gates of Heaven he was led into a large empty room, on the walls of which his whole life was spread out as a panorama. He saw all the events of his life, and many that had been hard to understand in his lifetime were here made clear, and through it all the guiding, protecting hand of God had been over him.” Perhaps Mr. Milburn is saved from a worse fate.

We were about three miles from Frankfort when the accident happened. We came on here as soon as possible—a sorrowing, and oh, so sorrowful, procession now. It does not seem that we can ever be the merry party that we have been. Winthrop had been riding Dick; he stood there, ready, saddled and bridled when Mr. Milburn fell; Frank mounted my pony and rode as fast as he could go to Frankfort to get a doctor. Mr. Milburn was dead before he was out of sight. We met them as we came. A room has been rented and Mr. Milburn prepared for his last long sleep. The people of Frankfort are very kind, and sympathetic.