The extraordinary weight of the body caused the friends to make a more careful examination, when it was found that the remains were in process of petrifaction. The hair still bore its silken lustre, but the flesh was so indurated as to approach the solidity of wood. The weight of the body at the interment was one hundred and sixty pounds, but at the exhumation it weighed a fraction less than three hundred pounds.
The carbine that was buried with him was in a perfect state of preservation. After clipping off a lock of hair, which is now in the possession of William Learned, musical director of the Gem theater, at Deadwood, the coffin-lid was again screwed down, and the remains taken to Moriah cemetery, where they now repose, in a lot purchased by Charley Utter. An Italian marble tombstone was also purchased by Mr. Utter, which he had erected at the head of the grave in the latter part of August. The inscription on the stone is as follows:
WILD BILL, (J. B. HICKOK,) KILLED BY THE ASSASSIN, JACK McCALL, IN DEADWOOD, AUGUST 2, 1876.
_Pard, we will meet again in the Happy Hunting Grounds, to part no more._
Here let him rest, but the bivouac of an advancing empire will soon dispel the primeval sounds with which he was so familiar. The soughing of the primitive forest in which he lived such a stirring life with his trusty rifle, is mingling with the hum of a more perfect civilization, and will soon be heard no more. The forest birds are drifting westward, and their songs, which for centuries have made musical the deep solitude of that vast region, will be cadenced into the whirr of a different life. The rough sounds of a border settlement, with its dangers and privations, will give place to the melody of a maiden’s voice, and other generations, like the recurring ocean waves which wash out the sand marks on the beach, will destroy the vestiges of the early settlement, and point to Wild Bill’s grave as the spot where sleeps a hero-pioneer--a man whose heart was as gentle as a child’s prayer, and as brave as God could make it. If he had faults they were tempered with so much compassion and affection that we lose sight of them entirely. An appreciation of the services Wild Bill rendered the civilizers and pioneers of the West belongs to those who come after us. “No man is appreciated until he is dead.”