and sudden call instead of perhaps slow tortures of thirst and
starvation! Poor Charlie! the call of death is one that none of us may
fail to heed; I only pray that when I am summoned to the "great unknown"
I may be as fit to meet my Maker as you were.

It was easy to see how the accident had happened; the marks on the rock
and the gun were soon deciphered. He was carrying the gun by the muzzle
balanced on his shoulder, the stock to the rear; on climbing down a steep
place, his heels--his boots had iron heel plates--slipped, he fell with
his back to the rock; at the same time the gun was canted forward, fell
right over, striking the hammer of one barrel on the rock at his feet--the
cartridge exploded, and the charge entered his body just below the heart.
Death must have been instantaneous and painless, for on his face was a
peaceful smile, and he had never moved, for no blood was showing except
near the wound. An accident that might have happened to any one, not
through carelessness, for the gun was half-cock, but because his time had
come.

We buried him between the rocks and the river at the foot of a large gum
tree. No fine tombstone marked his grave, only a rough cross, and above
him I carved his initials on the tree, C. W. S. 30.11.96.

There we laid him to rest in silence, for who was I that I should read
holy words over him? "Goodbye, Charlie, old man, God bless you!" we
said, as in sorrow we turned away. The tragedy had been so swift, so
unexpected, that we were all unmanned; tears would come, and we wept as
only men can weep. A few months past I heard that a brass plate sent by
Charlie's brothers had arrived, and had been placed on the tree by Warden
Cummins, as he had promised me.