Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1890-06-28

utloTt
), Hardly four feet in depth had been dug
away when the spade struck something
! solid. 1t sounded like the root of tree
/; but, on being raised, it proved to be a
small box containing few trinkets-
!: among them three pipes, worked tobacco
: pouch, silver watch and chain, a pistol
several knives, and what evidently had
been photograph In nickel frame.
The men began todig again and brought
to light much larger box. which We al
once pulled up eagerly out of the hole
, We began to think that the Indian was a
treasure-inder instead of a water-witch
but when we had removed the lid of the
box We found that it contained portions Of
a human body.
"Whar's that ar redskin ~ exclaimed
one of the men, for it was evident that a
crime had been committed and naturally
the first thought to strike us was that the
Indian who had pointed out the spot so
accurately might likely enough have been
at least an accessory to the deed. But as
We have said, he had disappeared as soon
as he had struck his rod into the ground.
For my part l thought he had shown
some signs of awe, and that as he had
passed me he had muttered, 'Manitou !.
Manitou, The Shadow"
II was perhaps well for him that he had
thus withdrawn himself. In the first mo-
ments of disgust and suspicion the men
might have handled him roughly.
But when the news of the discovery
spread to the camp, and the trinkets were
handled, several men recognized them
one man one thing, one man another-as
having belonged TO Will Keane. And
then people fell to discussing his sudden
disappearance and to doubling that old
/ story of his brother now debased
hanger-on of the camp, who said that he
himself had driven him over the ridge to
the Fork.
They sought out Henry Keane, with
doubt fast turning to suspicion. And that
suspicion at once leaped to certainty For
/ he made no attempt to deny his guilt
Needless to recount a painful story of
| brotherly love ouenched in rising flood
of jealousy; of long-stifed anger vented
| in sudden and blind fury upon the uncon-
sciously-otiending man rather than upon
= the erring woman; and of the budding
away stealthily by night OF the relics Of
| the crime in the well that Win Keane
| had just begun to dig but was never to
complete.
! But as the selfconvicted fratricide drew
! to the end of his confession he suddenly
lifted his head; wild light almost of in
sanity, cleaned in his eyes, and a shudder
seemed to haunt his voice, as he said:
"But one night, when the first snow had
fallen | looked out at midnight from the
cabin door. The moon was full and high
the center of the valley was bright as day
nd thara 0Ner 10 crot yrharo ha xrac w
ing dead, | saw, stretched out upon the
snow, the shadow. The shadow of man.
| And one night my wife saw it, too. Then,
though she did not know, think-God
help me =" (his voice fell )-"sometimes |
| think-she guessed"
He made no appeal for his life no at
tempt to evade his doom. In few hours
. he had suffered the extreme and summary
penalty of Western law.
And / remember how white-haired
Judge Rush, looking back at the old syca-
, more, said:
Boys, he's what call 'effectually bound
over to keep the peace"
There was a mystery about the discov-
cry of the crime, and | was determined to
sift it to the bottom.
The divining-rod in the hands of the
Indian had been the means of bringing
the CHASTITY deed to light.
Did he know?-had he seen
He was more communicative with me
than he would have been with any other
man, for we had both been long on friendly
terms; but from his broken English |
gathered nothing but the reason for that
| passing agitation of his at the moment
when, after stickiningg the diving-rod in
the ground, he had so hurriedly with
drawn
| He had been startled on noticing the
=; spot which the rod had indicated For it
was spot that he honored with a mixture
of superstition and reverence.
! 1t seems that the valley at the head of
| the Mule Horn had, since it was cleared of
timber, been known to this tribe as the
| 'Valley of Manitou," or the valley of
the Shadow" because when the valley was
covered with snow and the broad full
moon looked down upon il shadow lay
upon the open hat-a shadow which was
unnatural-the shadow of Manitou. The
valley lies due north ana south, and the
cliffs which wall it in are so high and pre-
cipitous that the moon shines in upon it
only for an hour or two each night; and
when it crossed the meridian at no great
altitude, and shown obliquely, then this
shadow was thrown in broad line up the
ravine; but when the moon was full and
passed high overhead, the shadow was
! concentrated as the orb approached the
zenith, until there became wildly out
! lined, in the deepest purple upon the
! brightly-lit snow, the form of a man
stretched at full length. And it was to
! the spot where this shadow fell that the
rod, in broad daylight, had pointed.
| had now heard so much about this
shadow, openly and by inference, that l
! became possessed of desire to see the I'M
canny thing for myself.
'Look here" / said, when found that
my Indian friend had nothing more to re-
veal; "the next snow that falls we will go
| up there together and spend the night-at
the full moon"
He consented.
We had not long to wait. Just before
! the moon was full, the snow came down.
| A day later l appointed to meet my friend
at the gap" by the stream, where we had
first meet, and in the afternoon | started
| Half way there met the new proprietor
coming down with well-flled sack on his
back
''Goin' to spend day or two in camp
he explained; lonesome UP there, it is,
these sort o nights, with nobody to talk
to-" and on he went, as so many Of his pre-
decessors had gone before him.
At the appointed spot | met the Indian,
ana together we walked up to the hut.
All was calm and mantled in the purest
white save for the background of the gray
cliffs over which the gaunt pines peered
from above. The solitude of the place
was to me more oppressive than had ever
noticed it before Almost it seemed as if
the world had cooled las someday perhaps
it may and that we two were the sole rep
resentatives Of two long-forgotten races of
men upon the once populous globe. And