The great West. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1889-18??, 1893-09-08
PREsENcEUoF MIND.
A Yarn Told by an Expert Fabricatss
and Prevaricator.


and Prevaricator.
A number Of the guests in an up
town hotel were gathered in the par
Tor relating experiences, says tho"
New York Herald.
One. dark youth, who had a.
countenance unusually frank and
open, had maintained an air Of re-
spectful silence and interest through
out the evening. He was the young,
est member of the group, and had not.
yet been heard from. 1t was known
that he was from Arizona, and ON
the presumption that he had the pre-
vailing Western habit Of exaggera~
ton he was urged to contribute to
the entertainment.
Il started out early one morning
on horseback to ride into Tucson,
thirty-fve miles away" he 3egan,-
seeing that he was obliged to tell a.
story. "About noon 1 dismounted
near creek to water my pony and,
give him a short rest. I lay down,
and put my hat over my eyes to take
a nap. When l woke, two honrs-
later, my horse was nowhere in sight.
l was twenty miles from settlement
l started out toward my destinations
and had gone eight or nine miles
in the sand hills when I suddenly
perceived how calm everything was
l knew it presaged a storm. The AR
was stiff1ing and the heat rose inA
great palpitating waves above the
ground. There was no chance of es-
cape. There was no possible shelter
nothing but a few scraggy clumps>
of sage brush few inches high.
ITO be overtaken by one of these
sandstorms would, l knew, mean
most certain death. For the first
time think in my life knew what
solitude was. I experienced the aw-
full sense of loneliness such as tray
elers describe who have been lost in
the desert. The silence was some
thing awful 1t was suppressed, in
tense and almost articulate. The
sky grew suddenly black and shut
down over the plain like an inverted
Opaque bowl. The impenetrab2e
darkness was almost material 1t
fairly smothered me. The rumbling
overhead seemed indefinitely pro-
longed. Until you have visited the
sand hills you can never know what
an electric storm is"
'.But what about the phenomenon? ''
asked one who feared that the MARIA
tor had digressed from the originab
story.
"Well, as I was about to say" con-
tinued the truthful-eyed exaggerator,
1.-The storm burst down in all it's fury
in less time than it takes me to tei2
it. The thunder shook the very
foundations of the earth. The light
ming was binding. 1 thought 10Y
time had certainly come. In the
agony of despair threw myself down
on the sand, hoping that by some
miracle l should be spared. A colo
perspiration simply enveloped me-
My courage forsook me. Suddenly I
looked up and saw streak of Light
| ming which to my overwrought izs-
agination looked like an awful hu-
man monster making straight for
me-"
"Heavens" exclaimed a sympa-
thetic listener, "what did you do?''
"Do?" answered the self-sufficient
exaggerator, ''why, the easiest thing
in the world! My presence of mind,
which had been off on a vacation,
suddenly returned to my rescue. In
that awful moment, which seemed
prolonged for my special benefit. I
cannot tell you all the means of es-
cape from that electrical demon that
we're presented to my mind. / de-
termined to offer myself to doom to
| lefy the lightning. There was bns
one chance in million for me- I
clutched at it. I told u lie, crawled
| under it and was saved"