Connecticut western news., 1890-02-26
DEAD FOR THREE DAYS.
Startling Experience of g San Francisco
 Barber.

Startling Experience of San Francisco
 Barber.
 Al Many Lives as Cat-A Tonsorial McGin.
 ty Who Falls to the Bottom of a Deep
 Gulch and Was Supposed to bs Dead
 ''I'd better tell you the whole story," he said when pressed for an explana- tion.
 '.In the winter of 1886 was hunting near Grizzly Flat. in Fl Dorado county, with Tom Herland. As you may know that country is all set on edge, and we were in almost the worst part of it.
 "The mountains were covered with frozen snow, and I tell you we had to go pretty easy to keep from breaking our necks. We'll, we were scaling along the sides of a steep gulch, and Tom was hundred yards ahead of me, when I slipped. It was 100 feet 10 the bottom, and I knewT was going the whole distance. l tried to yell, but was going too fast. It was only a sec ond or two before I reached the bot tom. but it seemed long time. saw the jagged rocks below me, and I felt dead sure that when 1 reacneu them it would be all day with me. I knew was torn and cut with rocks while was falling. but every time I hit the bank seemed less conscious. l reached out my hand, and then I struck bottom. I felt my arm break it didn't hurt but felt the shock and then something hit me across the eyes, and that was all. The last sen- sation l remember was q feeling of nausea that was worse than ali my bruises.
 Il had gone out hunting Friday; it was Monday night when 1 found my senses before the fire. What happened in the mean time I gathered after I got we'll. wouldn't believe it for a one way or another. and at last l had to acknowledge that I had been dead more than three days and three nights. ''This is what they told me:
 '.1t seems that Herland did not hear or see me go down the precipice, but after he had gone half mile he shouted for me, and not getting any re- ply went back looking for me. He found my tracks in the snow and fol- lowed them until he came to slide in the snow. That was where I slipped. In going down 1 left a regular trench. He followed it with his eye and saw at the end my body jammed in, head down, among the boulders. He tried to get to me, but could hot without go- ing around a great many miles. He | watched me for an hour, but as l made no motion and the slide where I came down was all bloody he at last con- cluded that was dead. and he left me and went along, We were long way out anA he could not have reached me till after dark. It was night when he got to an Italian goat ranch, where he 1 camped.
 During the night he told the ranch f=ers of my death. They suggested that possibly they could get nay body out, 1 though it would be hard job, and the | next morning they started out with a burro and a lot of ropes. There was no way of driving the burro to where 1 lay; so they tied rope around the waist of the smallest man in the party 1 and lowered him down to me. Hatied the rope around my ankles and gave the word to hoist. They pulled. but my body was frozen to the ground so solidly that they had to quit for fear of tearing my legs out They threw a prospector's pick down to the man in the canyon, and he dug my body nearly clear of the snow and ice. Then he gave the word to pull again. They hitched the burro to the other end of the rope and started him up. They pulled me clear of the frozen stuff, though my coat stuck there, and dragged mo this way by the ankles up the hillside hundred feet or more Then they threw me across the pack saddle with which the jacl1ass was provided, strapped me on like sack 1 of flour and started for camp across f the hills. There was no trouble until l the party reached the river It was frozen over but the ice was quite thin, and they were afraid that the combin- ed weight of me and the jack would be likely to break through, so they unpacked me and drove the burro across alone. Then they tied me to the end of riata again and hauled me across the ice. On the other side they loaded me onto the burro again and began to climb the hills toward the camp. There are lots of ticklish places along that part of the country V and there were lots of narrow escapes
 tOnce the hitch slippedss and I fell off. They packed me on again, how ever and went on until we were with in five miles Of camp. Then they struck just such a nasty place as I went over The burro got scared and baked. They llcked him and poked him until he started on, but he had hardly gone a dozen steps when he slipped and went rolling over and over until we reached the middle of the gorge The fall kill cd the burro, but they cut me loose and hoisted me up to the trail again.
 By that time it was nearly night, and they could not go to camp for an other animal and return for me- While they were discussing what to do they heard the howl of a coyote. They knew that if they left my body on the trail the coyotes would not leave a bone Of me. So they hoisted me up to the limb of small pine tree, out of the reach of the coyotes, and left. The next morning they came up with a pack-mule and brought me into camp.
 1 Herland came to the city to hunt up my people. so they could send up a | coffin to bring me down. They put me in an ice house that day so that would Keep. and lay on the floor there all night and good part of the next day. The weather, however, got warmer, and that must have started my life again.
 ':At about three o'clock in the after noon some man came into the ice house. He didn't stay there minute, but rushed to the cabin where the oth. CT people were yelling that the dead man had moved. He said that while he was in there my leg, which had been doubled up, slowly straighten