El Paso daily herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1881-1901, 1898-01-07

who was pr sent, sd.d mortals evsr
wear on their face suc1 q look of be-
Scarcely word was spoken while they
dragged the body back to the open
( grave AID once more covered it with
that Texas soil which cd Hog Wal
Inns had cursed and swore he would not
/ lie dead in. The cattlemen returned
to their various ranches, never dream
ing that they had not witnessed the end
of the strange affair.
On the very next morning Mex
| lean gallop I'd up to the house of Mr..
1hanet and shouted: 1.-THE grave won't
hold him. He is out. He ia hose
againr' Mr.. Thanst u d hsrdly be-
live The fr xniened mao's story, but
| be collected fOu- Or five Of his mel ( b bors
and returned to the mountains for the
purpose of interring for the third time
the remains of the man who had sworn
dead in Texas soil. They found the
body lying only few feet from the
open grave. There Was q great yawn-
| ing crack in the ear.h. The grave
made part of :his crask, which ex-
| tended for a consider able distance
| along the eide of the mountain. After
looking for some mOments at this
mound in the earth, evidently made by
q recent seismic convulsion, the cattle
men concluded that it was useless to
try to make Texas soil contain the
body of q man who had cursed it. They
| induced Mexican to drag the now
+ hideous and repulsive object to q deep
eulch, and then in silence they occupi-
ed few moments in rolling rocks and
! logs upon it. People were only given
two days and nights in which to won
der. " neither .or.not they would ever hear
again of the body of Hog Wsllins. A
tie -rible storm swept over the noun
tains. 1t never occurred to any one
that q volume of water of sufficient .po-
tency to move the corpse from beneath
the rocks aud logs would pour through
I the gulch, but something of tina. kind
| must have happened Two cowboys
found a loathsome object covered with
mud lying against great rock on the
side of a canyon in the mountains.
These some cowboys had only a few
days before helped pile rocks and logs
upon the body of Hog Wallins in this
| same gulch, few hundred yards above
the place where they were now stand
ing, and one of them said, ''Since the
earth he cursed will not hold him, let
ia see if fire will devour him." After
covering the hideous object with grass
and brush they touched mat ch to the
heap and then galloped away.
1t is not known who carved the re-
markable inscription on the great rock
which was blackened by the flames of
the funeral pyre, but it is supposed to
cattle camps of the Rio Grsnde by the
rather misunderstanding sobriquet of
Vinegar Room"
| The old cabin in which the man Wal
Inns lived is still standing and the Mex
leans in the neigh borhood declare that
his ghost can he seen prOwlipg about
there almost any night. The whole
face of the country about the house has
| been dug up by treasure hunters, who
firmly believe that the strange chsrac-
ter left q large sum of gold buried
somewhere near his residence. It is
we'll known that he was very rich
| man, but no one in this country ever
| became in the least familiar with him,
and it is not known whe Their he shipped
his gold to Europe or buried it. He
| came to Texas with the Sunset railroad
| and attracted attention from the be-
ginning from the fact that he always
his belt. He was an ugly, mean,
selfish, gruff man whom every one
| avoided. Among the articles of his
baggage unloaded at the depot were
pair OF andirons-called dogirons in
Texas-that attracted the ate ntion of
the whole country They were feet
high and the upright pieces for holo-
made of solid brass, barnished with
gold The knobs at the top were pure
gold. These monstrous fixtures, the
like of which had never before been
| seen in Texas, weighed over 1000
pounds. He brought with him from
Europe a whole arsenal of firearms,
| consisting of two small brass canron
1,iS fn1S nfo
every make. Several wagon loads of
books were hauled to his cabin in the
mountains. He lived on very familiar
terms with the Mexicars and Indians,
| but it "as seldom that he engaged in
conversation with an American. HI
made several trips to Europe, and upon
one oco aston he took an old Mexican
woman with him, This old woman
says that he had large sums of gold in
his room in Liverpool ard that he once
spent a whole NIGHT counting this gold.
| These Mexicans who lived about him
were all terrorized by him and he was
no sooner dead than his effects dissp-
| ing committed many revolving crimes.
They firmly behev. that he kept
large sum of gold buried somewhere
about his cabin, but the treasures of
the Yukon would not induce one of
them to go near the place after sunset.
ON the day OF his death fierce north
err was sweeping over the mountains,
and he we7t out to look after band of
sheep. He found the herder trying to
drive the flock toward shelter, but the
cold rain and sleet was beating in their
faces and they were unwilling. Old
Waliins, after vainly endeavoriug to
make them move, began to curse the
herder aud threatened to shoot him.
He raved and threw his hat on the
ground and stamp ped it, storming at
Everything: He fually cursed God