Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-02-11
FROM "A DEAD FRIEND

L %
what don't know about the occult and
the esoteric and psychical research would
fill the biggest tome that you ever saw In
your life" remarked a bluff man from
Montana, the major portion of whose LIE
has been spent in afest of pay rock who Is
in Washington on some mining business
Moreover, all of the superstition that finds
lodgment in me could be extracted with
the aid of a toothpiek.
And yet l had an experience few
weeks ago in Pittsburg that generated
within me pretty ,hefty line Of thinking.
won't say. one way or another, what
think OF 1t. but I'll tell you the story from
the beginning, just as it happened.
Eight or nine years ago I had pros
pectlng partner named Cole Rigley. We
were shopping around the Kootena1 coun-
Try LOT several months together. We Duilt
Httie cabin on a small plateau on the
Slope or one of the Hills where we had an
loea that we might light upon some assay
art, ana we used to hit out in different
urectlons every morning with our tools,
returning to the cabin with the setting or
the SUM- both of US dog tired.
we We're more than 10 miles from a
railroad and seventy miles from any kind
OF settlement whatever.
-one august night, couple of hours af-
Ter we had both returned to the cabin, a
neaVy thunderstorm came up. I was in
PED pretty sleepy when the storm began,
nut Lore. my partner, was sitting up, read
ing an OLD magazine by candlelignt.
ne was speculative sort of chap, was
n ,' ID, anu Tor such an eminently practical
man he had a queer sort of fondness for
taking about the life to come
Inc dlm light of the candle hurt his
eyes When he had been reading for a while
on TINS night I'm speaking of, so he closed
up the magazine and began to talk 1 was
hal 7 n 10 foil ing
JACK, Cole said to me, while the light
hlng was flashing and the thunder rolling
over the mountains. I wonder what kind
or times they have up yonder? nodding
In the direction whence proceeded the ter
rifle reverberations
Oh, | s'ppose they have bully times up
there, Cole said l, kind of cross-like
Lemme alone. l want to get to sleep
Cole didn't say anything more and after
Dit heard him go to the cabin door,
he opened the door. probably for the pur-
pose or looking at the superb electrical
display over the mountains, and let in a
blast of wind that came perilously near lift
ing the cabin.
Blame your fool skin! 1 shouted to
him. shut the door! Dye want to have
the shack lifted up into the air and set
down about four hundred miles the other
side Of
Just then there was a binding flash Of
light, instantly followed by a terrific peal
OF thunder.
Il don't know how long the shock put
me out. but do know that when I slowly
came to and CROPPED my way to the still
open door the storm had died away, all
OF the clouds had dispersed, the moon was
! SHINING brightly-and my poor partner Cole
Rigley was lying in the doorway, dead as
a nail.
The bolt that had only shocked me had
killed him. l buried the poor old chap
the next morning, stuck a piece of box at
the head of the grave. and painted line
or two on 1t. Then 1 quit that section as
fast as | could get over the ground.
well, / found some pay rock in the
Colorado hills a few months later. and
since then I've been more or less on vel
vet.
about six weeks ago I stopped off at
Pittsburg on my way to New York, to see
II l couldn't dig up two or three chaps
from that town whom l had known in
Denver l couldn't find any of them, but
at my hotel | ran across a commercial
| traveller l had known out west nearly ten
years ago. | hadn't seen him since that
time. We had one or two together, and
then he asked me where I was going to
put in the evening. Nowhere in particular
l told him
well, said he, Tn going to take in a
spiritualistic seance tonight-the first one 1
ever attended-just to see what they do. l
don't take any kind of stock in the game,
but I'm curious to look it over for once,
anyhow. Come on along with me-
Il went with him. 1t was also the first
thing of the sort that had ever attended.
We went to a rather dingy house on the
outskirts of Pittsburg and found q group of
nondescript persons. men and women, sit
ting around the parlor, waiting for the at
fair to begin. 1t was to he a slate writing
seance as the stodgy, mddle-aged woman
who was the medium explained Then,
when all was set as the dealers put it,
she disappeared behind a screen, and we
heard the scratching of slate pencil on q
slate. In a few moments the medium re-
appeared with the slate in her hand.
There is a gentleman called Jack in
the room the medium said, quietly.
well, there wasn't anything remark
able about that. My commercial traveller
friend nudged me and whispered:
own up to your nickname. just to see
what's in it.
so I stood up and told the medium
that my friends generally called me Jack
This, then, is a message for you, said
the stodgy medium, and she passed the
slate to me
I'll leave you to imagine how strange I
felt when l read the slate message, which
ran:
Dear Jack: We have bully times up
here. COLE RlGLEY.
Il suppose I'm as hard-headed and skep-
tical a proposition as any of my neigh
bors, If not more so concluded the bluff
man from the far west, but when I'm
pushed up against queer game like that
the best l can do is to stick up my hands
and say I pass