Perth Amboy evening news., 1905-03-29
A DEAD FRIEND

a bluff man from Montana, the ma
portion of whose life had been spent
quest of pay rock, who is in Washi
ton on some mining business. mi
over, all Of the superstition that fln(
Judgment In me could be extrad
with the aid of a toothpick.
"And yet l had an experience q
weeks ago in Pittsburg that genera
within me a pretty hefty line of thshD@
ing. I won't say, one way or another,
what I think of it, but I'll tell you the
story from the beginning, just )as it
happened,
Eight or nine years ago I had a
prospecting partner named Cole Rig
ey. We were shopping around the
Kootenai country for several months
.ogether. We built a little cabin on q
small plateau on the slope of n OF
the hills where We had an idea that,
we might light upon some assay dirt.
and we used to hit out in different d.
rections every morning with our tools.
returning to the cabin with the setting
of the sun, both Of us dog tired.
zone August night, a couple of hours
after we had both returned to the cab
in, a heavy thunderstorm came up. I
was in bed, pretty sleepy. when the
storm began, but Cole, my partner, was
sitting up, reading an old magazine by
,andlelight. {T
THE dim light of the candle hurt
his eyes when he had been reading for
awhile on this night I'm speaking Of.
so he closed up the magazine and be-
| gan to talk. l was SO dead tired that
| didn't feel like talking.
" Jack Cole said to me, while the
lightning was flashing and the thuH-
der rolling over the mountains, I won-
der what kind of times they have up
yonder?' nodding in the direction
whence proceeded the terrific reverber-
atoms.
"'Oh, I suppose they have bully
times up there, Cole said /, kind of
cross-like. Lemme alone. 1 want to
get to Sleep
"Cole didn't say anything more, and
after a bit l heard him go to the cabin
door. He opened the door, probably
for the purpose of looking at the STU
perb electrical display over the noun
tains, and let in a blast Of wind that
came perilously near lifting the cabin.
Blame your fool skim I shouted
to him, shut the door! Dye want to
have the shack lifted up into the air
and set down about 400 miles the other
side Of
"Just then there was a binding flash
of lightning, instantly followed by a
terrific pea! Of thunder.
Il don't know how long the shock
put me out, but l 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 dis
persed. 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. r buried the poor old
chap the next morning. stuck a piece
OF box at the head of the grave. and
painted a line or two on il. Then I
quit that section as fast as / could get
- oSN
over the ground. acs
well, Il found some pay rock in the
Colorado hills a few months later. and
since then I've been more or less on
velvet. yessafij.. Z.
About six weeks ago I stopped Off
at Pittsburg on my way to New York,
to see if I couldn't dig up two or three
chaps from that town whom I had
known in Denver. I couldn't find any
IT them, but at my hotel I ran across
u commercial traveller l had known out
west nearly ten years ago. I hadn't
seen him since that time. We had one
or two together and then he asked me
where was going to put in the even
ing. Nowhere in particular | told him.
Well said he. I'm going to take
q a ~spiritualistic seance to-night-the
drst one I 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 wa also the
first thing of the sort that ! had ever
attended. al
eve went to a rather dingy house
m the outskirts of Pittsburg and found
a group of nondescript persons, men
and women, sitting around the parlor,
waiting for the affair to begin. It was
to be a slate-writing seam az the
stodgy, middle-aged woman who was
the medium explained. Then, when
all was 'seti as the dealers put 1t, she
disappeared behind a screen, and we
heard the scratching Of a slate PEN
Gil on a slate. In a few moments the
medium reappeared with the slate In
her hand.
There is a gentleman called
Jack" in the ROOM the medium said,
quietly. 3
We'll, there wasn't anything 50 re.
markable about that. My commercial
traveller friend nudged me and ,whis-