It was no neat gravedigger’s work that the Danite accomplished; he had made a deep, large hole, but the cavity sloped at the sides so that they could step in and out.  Susannah brought her little store and lined the earth first with the garments.

“You may want some of those things of your own, ma’am,” said the Danite.

She paid no heed; when she had made the couch to her mind she signed to him to lay Halsey and the child in it, which he did.  She herself stooped in the grave to clasp the dead man’s hands more tightly over the little one’s form, and her last touch was to stroke Halsey’s hair from off the brow.  She laid the baby playthings at Halsey’s feet; she unlocked the box and took from it all the household treasures that so far she had sought to keep—­some silver, a few small ornaments, a few books, and Halsey’s Book of Mormon, in which was written their marriage and the baby’s birth.  She brought a silken shawl, the one bit of finery that remained from her girlish days.  She covered her dead with it very carefully, tucking it in as though they slept; then she moved away, wringing her hands and heaving convulsive sighs.  The Danite put back the earth.

All the grass was strewn pretty thickly with poplar leaves, gold, lined with white, and after leaning against a tree some minutes looking away from the grave, Susannah began gathering up these leaves hastily, so that when he levelled the earth she could strew the top, hiding the place from the curious eyes of strangers.

“I guess, ma’am, if there’s anything you would like to take with you now, we’d better go into the bush.”

“No, there is nothing, but,” she cried, “I thank you very much, and if there is anything that would be of use to you—­”

When the Danite had first laid Halsey under the tree he had taken a white cloth from the tent and wiped the blood from the coat, that Susannah might not be too much shocked at the sight.  He took this cloth now and tore it till the stained fragment alone remained in his hand.  He thrust it in his breast.

“This will stand for the blood of them both,” he said.  “I guess that’s all I want.”  But when he had started towards the thicket he remembered Susannah’s needs, and went back for a blanket.

The poplar saplings that bordered the creek were still holding a thin gold canopy overhead, and the dogwood was glinting with scarlet.  The other members of the community had gone so far ahead that it was a long time before, making their toilsome way, they came upon their former neighbours.

The fugitives had called a halt where a brook which passed through the bush offered some relief to the pain and fever of those who were wounded.  One of these, a little girl, had already died by the way, and her frantic mother began to reproach Susannah, wailing that if the child had not been saying her texts to the elder she would not have been a mark for the enemy.

The men were cutting down saplings to make place for a camp.  It was their intention to remain, going back under the cover of night to get food and blankets from the houses, if they were not pillaged and burned, going back in any case to bury their dead at the first streak of dawn.