There was no enclosure, but the bare, sloping, sandy place was
sprinkled with graves, marked by heaps of stones,
And in some
instances by rude crosses of wood, some of which had been
wrenched from their upright position by the fierce sand-storms.
There was not a blade of grass, a tree, or a flower. I walked
about among these graves, and close beside some of them I saw
deep holes and whitnened bones. I was quite ignorant or
unthinking, and asked what the holes were.
"It is where the coyotes and wolves come in the nights," said
Jack.
My heart sickened as I thought of these horrors, and I wondered
if Ehrenberg held anything in store for me worse than what I had
already seen. We turned away from this unhallowed grave-yard and
walked to our quarters. I had never known much about "nerves,"
but I began to see spectres in the night, and those ghastly
graves with their coyote-holes were ever before me. The place was
but a stone's throw from us, and the uneasy spirits from these
desecrated graves began to haunt me. I could not sit alone on the
porch at night, for they peered through the lattice, and mocked
at me, and beckoned. Some had no heads, some no arms, but they
pointed or nodded towards the grewsome burying-ground: "You'll be
with us soon, you'll be with us soon."
CHAPTER XXII
RETURN TO THE STATES
I dream of the east wind's tonic, Of the breakers' stormy roar,
And the peace of the inner harbor With the long low Shimmo
shore.
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