Shenandoah herald. [volume] (Woodstock, Va.) 1865-1974, 1913-09-19
An OPEN GRAVE.

My, father was one of the Ar
gonauts, or forty-nir ers, as they
were called. He told me this
story when I was little boy.
L was washing for gold the
same as Others he said, and
Jim Barlow, young fellow about
my age was washing alongside
of me. A storm was coming
up, and we concluded it was time
to get under cover when all of
sudden I saw Jim pitch forwald
on his face. AT the same time l
was blind by a flash and heard a
terrific clap OF thunder. When
we picked Jim up he was dead.
That was before the present
methods of bringing persons to
life as they sometimes do now,
and no one had ever heard of
person receiving a dose of cleo
tricity strong enough to kill, and
yet in few hours be perfectly
we'll again. None of us saw any
use holding on to Jim's body
for any length of time. He had
been killed BY lightning and that
was all there was about it. So
we set one of the gold washers,
who was carpenter by trade, to
make a coffin or, rather, a box,
and we buried him under a big
tree that stood apart from other
trees.
Il washed gold up and
down the creek for some time
when one of those earthquakes
they have in Golden State came
along and left great tissues in its
track. A few days after the oc-
currence was passing the place
where Jim Barlow was struck by
lightning. One of the assures
that had been left by the quake
ran right along the foot of the
tree and there was one end of his
coffin sticking out on one side of
the cleft dirt.
Il didn't propose to leave the
body of friend in that condi-
ton. so 1 dug out the coffin, in
tending to rebury it. Either the
quake or something had 1osened
ed the lid, and l raised it. The
coffin was empty.
Il never had such a surprise in
my life. The lid had been nail
ed on-we hadn't any crews at
the time of the burial. The
mailing had been so carelessly
done that several nails had miss
ed striking the box or had gone
through sideways. If Jim had
come to life it would have been
easy enough for him to have
kicked off the lid. But l ques-
toned if he could have broken
through the ground above him,
though we hadn't taken pains to
dig the grave very deep, also the
long storm which followed the
burial must have washed a good
deal of ground off the surface.
but all this was of no i'm
portance. Jim had been killed
and few hours afterward had
been buried. 1t was getting
dark when we planted him, and
the next morning we had all
gone to work farther up the creek.
But. being dead. what had be-
come of the body2 There were
no medical colleges west of the
Rocky mountains, and no one
had any use so far as l can see
for the corpse.
Such mysteries don't interest
a busy people such as we were
out there at that time, and l
didn't spend much time trying
to solve the puzzle. ! got tired
placer mining land, going to a
different location, staked out a
claim.
There was a trail leading by
nv mine, and one day. when l
was sitting on log resting. with
a pipe in my mouth, l heard some
| animal coming up the gulch. In
a few minutes / saw a horse with
| man on it coming lickety split.
Horse and man dashed past me,
the man staring at me wildly,
and you'd better believe right
now, stared at him. His face