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Updated: June 22, 2025
"You, Fred Churchill, go to Macdonald in his safe small gripsack belongs to Louis Bondell important! Bring it out when you come! Got it!" Churchill waved his hand in token that he had got it. In truth, had Macdonald, half a mile away, opened his window, he'd have got it, too.
McMurdo picked up his leather gripsack and was about to start off into the darkness, when one of the miners accosted him. "By Gar, mate! you know how to speak to the cops," he said in a voice of awe. "It was grand to hear you. Let me carry your grip and show you the road. I'm passing Shafter's on the way to my own shack."
He came from the dream shortly afterward, to find himself plunging down the trail at a limping lope. His first thought was for the gripsack. It was still on his back. He was convinced that what had happened was a dream till he felt for his revolver and found it gone. Next he became aware of a sharp stinging of his thigh, and after investigating, he found his hand warm with blood.
Stray and awful odors, drifting from each side the trail, told of the horses that had died in the rush for gold. But he did not mind. He was too sleepy. By the time Long Lake was reached, however, he had recovered from his sleepiness; and at Deep Lake he resigned the gripsack to Burns. But thereafter, by the light of the dim stars, he kept his eyes on Burns.
"I thank you," said McMurdo, and shaking hands with his new acquaintance he plodded, gripsack in hand, up the path which led to the dwelling house, at the door of which he gave a resounding knock. It was opened at once by someone very different from what he had expected. It was a woman, young and singularly beautiful.
No money's comin' in. Th' circus has moved on to th' nex' town, an' left him without a customer. Th' Jew man that loaned him th' bank-roll threatens to seize th' ca-ards on' th' table. Whin, lo an' behold, down th' sthreet comes a ma-an fr'm th' counthry, a lawyer fr'm Ohio, with a gripsack in his hand. Oh, but he's a proud man.
He signed his papers with a shaking hand, he took up and put down again his well packed gripsack, he shook hands with a sort of clinging, appealing grasp, as if he were afraid of being left alone, he giggled and looked profoundly solemn by turns. The officials stood about, indifferent and contemptuous, the men who had been hard and cruel to him, and those who had not been so hard.
"Hadn't you better take a look at it?" he suggested, nodding his head at the gripsack. "Oh, it's all right," Bondell answered. "Did Mitchell's dump turn out as much as he expected?" "I think you'd better look at it," Churchill insisted. "When I deliver a thing, I want to be satisfied that it's all right.
He had slept six hours in that time, and he was twenty pounds lighter than when he started. Face and hands and body were scratched and bruised, and he could scarcely see. He tried to stand up, but failed, sprawling out on the deck, hanging on to the gripsack, and delivering his message. "Now, put me to bed," he finished; "I'll eat when I wake up."
Before leaving Springfield Lincoln had prepared his inaugural message with great care, and placed it in a "gripsack" for transportation to Washington. An odd incident, by which the message came near being lost on the journey, was afterwards related by Lincoln to a friend.
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