meant the loss of one who had been almost a mother to us rough and homeless laborers.  Just as we made ready to retire someone knocked on the bunk house door, and thinking that perhaps some wandering tramp had the nerve to bother us at this late hour in the night, we roughly ordered the intruder to be gone.  Instead of going, the knocks continued, and angry at the persistence of the person, we pulled the door open, and to our complete surprise found that it was Mrs. McDonald who had knocked for admission.  Realizing the great honor she was conferring upon us, we politely bade her to enter and asked her to be seated.  She was attired in the dress in which she intended to make the journey on the following day, and its sombre black of deepest mourning, aided by the yellow light of our lamp, transformed the pallor of her haggard face into an almost ghastly white.  We patiently waited for her to open the conversation, of course expecting that she had come to thank us once more for having presented her with the purse.  It was some time before she could find her voice and then in the saddest tone that weaver heard, she begged of us strong men, as the last favor she would ever ask of us, to make for her two more white crosses, the same as stood above the other graves, and to deliver them to her in the early morning, and then, as if this last humble request had completely shattered her nerves, she tottered, an almost lifeless wreck, out into the moonlit night.

None of us uttered a single word, it seemed we had been stunned by the solemnity of the poor widow’s request, but we opened the bunk house door to see that no harm befell her upon her trip back to the “big” house.  To our surprise, instead of going to the section house she tottered over to where Foreman McDonald lay buried, and we saw her pray long and earnestly by the little mound that held his remains; then she arose and wearily dragged herself to the place by the railroad track where little Helen’s garments had been found, and here once more she sank upon her knees in prayer, and then staggered back towards the “big” house, where, just before she entered the gate of the fence surrounding the yard, she knelt a third time to utter a prayer.  While we silently stood and watched and pitied the poor broken-hearted woman, she heavily keeled over.  We rushed to her side to give her assistance, and found she had fainted away, but in her unconsciousness she muttered the words “Joe” and “Jim”, and we readily understood for whom her last farewell prayer had been offered.

We carried her into the section house where we revived her, and then we returned to the bunk house and until late into the night sawed, hammered and whittled those two crude crosses into shape, supposing Mrs. McDonald intended to take them with her into Canada, to keep as a memento of her sad experiences.