Santa Fe daily New Mexican., 1897-10-22

than the other At first she regarded
me with terror and cried:
1T is horrible for you to hound him
sol"
1 assured her that I was bounding no
one.
'sOh, thought you were the spir-I
mean-I-oh, but it was standing ex-
actly where you arel" she exclaimed.
IT suppose So" I agreed, "but you
can see that | am not the young man
spirit However, l am familiar with
this whole case, madam, and if | can
be of any service in the matter l should
be glad if you will inform me. am
aware that our friend is prosecuted by
a spirit, which visits him frequently,
and I am positive that through you it
has informed him that the end is not
far away and that our elderly friends
death will assume some terrible form.
Is there anything that can do to avert
the tragedy
Thewoman stared at me in Mortified
silence "How do you know these
things?" she gasped
"That is immaterial. When will the
tragedy occur? Can I prevent it?''
"Yes, yes!" she exclaimed. "It will
happen this very night, but no earthly
power can prevent it.
She came close to me and looked at
me with an expression of the most acute
terror
"Merciful Godl What will become Of
me? He is to be murdered, you under
stand-murdered in cold blood by a
| spirit-and he knows it, and l know it ]!
If he is spared long enough, he will tell
them at the garrison, and they will all
think that I had something to do with
it. Oh, this is terrible, terrible, and
yet dare not say word i'll advance
nobody there would believe in what the
spirits say, and they will think that I
had hand in the murder!"
"Be assured that he will say nothing
about it,, said, "and if you keep your
tongue from wagging you need fear
nothing.
With this and few other hurried
words of comfort soothed her and has
tened away.
For had interesting work on hand
It is not often that one may be in such
a murder as that. ran to livery sta
BILE, secured swift horse, mounted him
and spurred furiously for the reserva-
tion. The hack, with its generous start,
had gone far on its way, but my horse
was nimble, and his legs felt the prick
ing of my eagerness. A few miles of
this furious pursuit brought me within
sight of the hack just as it was crossing
dark ravine near the reservation. As
/ came nearer imagined that the hack
swayed somewhat and that fleeing
shadow escaped from it into the tree
banked farther wall of the ravine. I
certainly was not in error with regard
to the swaying, for it had reused the
dull notice of the driver. / saw him
turn, with an air of alarm in his action,
and then pull up with heavy swing
upon the reins. At this moment I dashed
up and halted.
Anything the matter?" I asked.
II don't know" he answered, getting
down. II felt the carriage sway, and |
see that the DOORS wide open. Guess
my load thought he d sobered up enough
to get out and walk without troubling
me or his pocketbook +"
Meanwhile /, too, had alighted. Then
! struck match, and by it's light we
discovered through the open door the
"load" huddled confusedly Oh the floor
of the hack, face upward and looking
| altogether vulgar, misshapen and miser-
ably unlike soldier. 1t neither moved
nor spoke when we called. We hastily
clambered within and lifted him upon
the seat, but his head rolled about with
an awful looseness and freedom and
another match disclosed CHASTITY dead
face and wide open eyes that stared hor-
ribly at nothing.
"You had better drive the body to
headquarters, I said
Instead Of following I cantered back
to town, housed my horse and went
straightway to bed, and this will prove
to be the first information that was
the mysterious man on horse" whom
the coroner could never find.
About a year afterward received the
following letter-which is observed to
be in fair English--from Stockholm:
DEAR SlR-For some years have been read
ing your remarkable psychological studies
with great interest, ard take the liberty to
suggest theme for your able pen. l have
| just found in library here newspaper dated
| about year ago, in which is an account OF
| the mysterious death Of a military officer in a
| hack.
Then followed the particulars as
have already detailed them, and the
very theme of post mortem revenge
which have adopted in this setting out
| of facts More extraordinary still is his
suggestion that in the dynamite explo-
sion o dog or quarter of beef might as
we'll have been employed as a suicide
minded man; that in short, the man
might not have killed himself at all.
but might have employed presump-
tion Of such an occurrence to render
more effective physical persecution
ending in murder by the living man
who posed as a spirit. The letter even
suggested an arrangement with a spirit
medium.
The only remaining disclosure that
am prepared to make is that my corre-
spondent signed himself Rantarg, " an
odd sounding name, but for all know
it may be respectable in Sweden. --Ex.
change.