Saturday, August 5 As Sarah rides along with the wagon train she is approached by a friend - Frank - from a portion of the train that had split off to travel on its own. Her friend has news:
'Frasier was shot and killed day before yesterday evening.'
'Oh Frank; how did it happen?'
'Hosstetter did it, but I think he was not much to blame'
Frasier is the man who spoke to Cash, Neelie and I, as we were watching the wagons ferried across the Missouri River, whose son ran away from his mother, and home, to come to his father, and go with him to Montana. Frasier had teams and wagons for freighting and Hosstetter some capital to invest in freight, to take to Montana. Frasier advised the purchase of flour, and he would freight it to Virginia City for fifteen dollars per cwt. He said flour was worth fifty and sixty dollars per hundred in Virginia City. (So it was in the Spring of 1864, and as high as seventy-five and one hundred dollars per one hundred, which was the cause of a bread riot in Virginia City.)
No doubt Frasier was honest in his advice, and would have invested in flour for himself. He charged more freight than was right, for ten and twelve cents is the prevailing price; but then Hosstetter should have found that out himself.
When he found he had been imposed upon and learned that flour is retailing at Virginia City for $15 per hundred, he was angry, dissatisfied, and perhaps quarrelsome. Frasier was no doubt very aggravating. They had quarreled several times, and the evening of the 3d, Frasier was heard to say to Hosstetter in a threatening tone:
'You may consider yourself lucky if you ever see Montana. You need not expect to get any of this flour. It will take it all to pay the freight.'
It was getting dark, and Fraser stood with one hand on a wheel as he talked. He then got into the wagon and out again, with something in his hand, which Hosstetter thought was a revolver in the gathering darkness. He came back to the wheel where he had been standing when he made the threat, and Hosstetter thought he had come to shoot him, and fired twice, as he thought, to save his own life, Frasier fell, shot through the brain, and died instantly.
Then it was found he had a hatchet in his hand and had come to tighten a tire on the wheel, which he had found loose when he laid his hand on it. Frasier's eldest son of fourteen years is here. There are five children and their mother at home. Hossteter has three children and a wife. Eleven innocent persons to suffer, no one knows how intensely, for that rash act.
Frasier's son knelt beside his father's dead body and placing his hand on his breast, he swore a fearful oath that he would have but one purpose in life until his father's death is avenged. Oh, what a shocking ambition for so young a boy."
Later in her diary, Sarah describes the trial of Hosstetter:
"...The men from these four trains elected judge, jury, prosecuting attorney and lawyer for the defense, and have tried Hosstetter for murder. The jury brought in a verdict of 'Not guilty.' He shot in self-defense, as Frasier had threatened to kill him."
Sarah's diary entry a day later notes that a squad of soldiers came and took Hosstetter to a fort near Green River (Wyoming) for an official trial. However, she does not reveal the outcome of that trial.
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