<Table> <Tr> <Td> </Td> <Td> Wikisource has original text related to this article: The Cremation of Sam McGee </Td> </Tr> </Table> <Tr> <Td> </Td> <Td> Wikisource has original text related to this article: The Cremation of Sam McGee </Td> </Tr> <P> "The Cremation of Sam McGee" is among the most famous of Robert W. Service's (1874--1958) poems . It was published in 1907 in Songs of a Sourdough . (A "sourdough", in this sense, is a resident of the Yukon .) It concerns the cremation of a prospector who freezes to death near Lake Laberge, (spelled "Lebarge" by Service), Yukon, Canada, as told by the man who cremates him . </P> <P> The night prior to his death the title character, who is from the fictional town of Plumtree, Tennessee, asks the narrator "to swear that, foul or fair, you'll cremate my last remains". The narrator knows that "A pal's last need is a thing to heed", and swears he will not fail to cremate him . After McGee dies the following day, the narrator winds up hauling the body clear to the "marge (shore, edge) of Lake Lebarge" before he finds a way to perform the promised cremation--aboard a derelict steamer called the Alice May . Robert Service based the poem on an experience of his roommate, Dr. Sugden, who found a corpse in the cabin of the steamer Olive May . </P>

Which best identifies sam mcgee's fear in the cremation of sam mcgee