Disaster in Rio Grande Valley 59 



administered, but all we knew and did was without 

 avail, and at one o'clock he was gone. Poor 

 fellow, he was kind to his companions, cheerful at 

 his work, and twenty-four hours previously, was, 

 to all appearance, perfectly well, and playing a 

 game of whist with his brother and uncle. 



For the last six or eight hours of his illness all 

 the camp seemed to keep aloof from him, and all 

 the tents on that side of the camp were deserted 

 except Simson's and Harrison's, and those I 

 ordered off. When Hinckley, Liscomb and 

 Walsh came back from Rio Grande City with his 

 coffin, I had prepared him for burial, for his 

 brother was too prostrated with grief to do any- 

 thing. 



At five o'clock fifty of us followed him to the 

 grave. As we thought he would have wished, and 

 knew his friends would prefer, we buried him on 

 the American side, in the grave-yard back of 

 Davis' Rancho. Sadly we walked back with a 

 feeling that this might not be the only case of the 

 dread disease. 



No time, however, was left for thought; as soon 

 as I entered the camp Lambert's messmates came 

 to beg me not to put them again in his tent. I 

 told them I had no idea of doing so, gave them a 

 new tent, struck his, levelled the ditches around it, 

 and burned the withered boughs that had been put 

 to shelter it. This done I went to rest if I could, 



