Bismarck weekly tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1884-1943, 1890-08-15
A MIGHT WITH A CORPSE
AN EXPRESS MESSENGERS ADVENT
URE IN THE WILD WEST.

Sox-Made Nervous by Having $780,
900 Entrusted to His Care-The Body
in the Coffin Comes to Life.
In an alley which By an easy descent
leads from lower Broadway to the inferno
of drays, ferries and gamins on North
river q chop house burrows beneath the
confusion of that quarter. In the little
basement room are cobwebs, tallow can
dies, pewter tobies, 'alf-and-'alf and steaks
of hung and "high" meat in the ap-
proved English fashion.
There, late one night, sat a half dozen
workmen from a big express building near
by and the i%nterloper who sets down this
record.
The talk had sunk to the matter of
corpses, which often travel by express,
though never by invitation of the express |
messenger.
During the winter of 1885," said q burly
man with a shock of black hair, II was in
the Wells-Fargo service between Kansas
City and San Francisco. The run was
made upon the Atchison, Topeka and
Sante Fe and Southern Pacific railways,
that join at Deming. On Christmas eve,
bearing eastward, with the journey so far |
done from Frisco, the train drew out of
Yuma, facing the Arizona desert in the
midst Of an astonishing storm of sleet and
rain. Yuma marks the California line,
and there, as we took on the stage COM
pany's strong box, l counted upon the last
disturbance of the night. Until daybreak
the journey lay through alkali stretches,
where at every 100 miles the train rushes
shrieking through a poor, monumental
cluster of huts and halts long enough for
the locomotive to take on water.
"Unscheduled stops, however, were not
lnfrequent at that time, and there hung
within the car q rack Of repeating car
bines, charged and primed.
TRAVELLING WITH 800, 900.
"1n taking account of the Yuma strong
box, weighing nearly two hundred pounds
and 'vouchered' to contain $50, 900 in gold,
l glanced at the carbines. I looked again
when I remembered tina the safe contained
as much more.
Joachim Murilla burned me out of the
car for less than half that, and gave me
the bullet that lanes my back" said the
burly man with a smile. II had hardly a
dollar in the car the night I stood off the
rustlers at Dodge City. I reflected, what
will the company expect o with 500, 900
on my shoulders?
II assorted expressage, listed bills and
o~verhauled the carbines as the train flew
and the storm beat. 1 knew the route 50
we'll that l could call the towns and tanks
as the engine whistled or stopped.
"Toltec,' 1 thought, as at midnight the
hoarse whistle began to sound. I'VE pass
her with u "howdy." No, by George! we're
going to stop
81 opened the door enough to see a Ian
forr, cyyo w w ~ - ,., ,A,x:-. .l 1..y
group on the platform surrounding a box
and evidently preparing to put it on board.
"Tumble it in quick l said.
GA little slow, partner replied a man
on the platform. It's a coffin
"a moment later I was alone with the
corpse in a prison as secure rs q tomb,
while the wheels roared beneath and tbs
storm raved outside.
Somehow l was nervous and couldn't
keep my eyes off that coffin. l fancied that
it moved n was slowly rising up on end,
or that it was preparing an %onslaught;
then that it was about to disclose the dead.
The last of these notions-that the &C.
cupant of the coffin might liberate herself
got hold of me and l couldn't shake it
Off. The box was of unusual size and ex-
~ceptionally i'll made. The wood was rough.
warped and filled with knots and knot
holes. All this might easily nave been due
to the limited facilities of Il desert town,
don't know why, but I couldn't resist
turning it over, face down. 1t seemed to
me to roll horribly.
'"Then 1 imagined l heard a noise at the
car door and at the same moment a move
ment in the coffin. knew it was foolish.
but 1 rolled the stage %co1npany's strong
box, with its 200 pounds of gold, to the
coffin and set it Upon the lid toward the
larger end.
AT A BOX,
"ThenI lighted my pipe. noticed after
ward, though I didn't think of it at the
time, that most of the knotholes toward
the head of the coffin were covered and
sealed by the flat iron bottom of the strong
box.
Several minutes passed, and the engine
had blown its view halloa!' at a wayside
cattle town, when suddenly sounds began
to issue from the box. There was no doubt
about it this time. There was a scuffiing,
a grooming, u kicking against the sides.
ITO say thar | was mortified doesn't ex-
press it. The struggle in the box continued.
l staggered to the gun rack, tore down a
carbine, cooked, aimed and fired it through
the box ten feet away.
Mullleu SnflekS now mingled with the
humping and threshing in the box. Hired
again. The shrieks were redoubled. be-
came frantic and shrieked like a lunatic
myself. while l fired again and again at the
box until the magazine was exhausted, and
then 1 rushed to get another.
"But the pine box was split and torn;
the iron box was slowly crushing it down;
through gaps in the wood blood was
streaming md no sounds whatever issued
from the coffin.
"Finally a long, deep groan escaped from
the box. Plainly it was a mans voice.
managed to tear away the shattered lid.
There was no coffin inside, but only the
body of a man torn with a dozen terrible
wounds.
"He wore the garb of the frontier, with
knife and pistol at his belt, and a loaded
Winchester lay at his side. He was con-
scious and gasped, Raise me upv
"'Don't water at a n g. said the man
with difficulty, and his jaw fell.
"The engine stopped at water tank No.
81, a half hour behind schedule time. Shots
were fired through the cab of the locomo-
tive and the express car as the train dashed
by tank %.
"The dead bandit was buried without
Identification nj namipo opd NJ, o,o