The Democratic banner. (Mt. Vernon, Ohio) 1898-192?, 1913-08-22
An
Opened Grave
By SAMUEL R. BRANT

! ne lOlu hue IulS slOEy Wueu was
little boy:
81 was washing for gold the same
as Others" he said, "and Jim Barlow,
a young fellow about my age, was
washing alongside of me. A storm
was coming up, and we were conclud-
ing it was about time to get under
cover when all of sudden / saw Jim
pitch forward on his face. At the same
time | was blinded by u fash and heard
a terrific clap Of thunder. When we
picked Jim up he was dead
THAT was before the present meth
DDS of bringing persons to life as they
sometimes do now, and no one had
ever heard of person receiving dose
of electricity strong enough to kill, and
yet in few hours be perfectly well
again. None of us saw any use hold
ing on to Jim's body for any length
of time. He had been killed by light
ming and that's 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.
II washed gold up and down the
creek for some time when one of those
earthquakes they have in the Golden
State came along and left great fis-
sures in its track. A few days after
the occurrence l was passing the place
where Jim Barlow was struck by light
ming. One of the assures that had
been left by the quake ran right along
the foot of the tree and there was the
side of the cleft dirt.
II didn't propose to leave the body of
a friend in that condition, SO dug out
the coffin, intending to rebury 1t. Either
the quake or something had Ioosened
the lid. and / raised It. The coffin was
empty.
II never had such a surprise in my
life. The lid had been nailed on-we
hadn't any screws at the time of the
burial. The mailing had been SO care
lessly done that several nails had miss
ed striking the box or had gone through
sideways. If Jim had come to life 1t
would have been easy enough for him
to have kicked off the lid. But ques-
toned IL 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
good deal of ground of the surface.
"But all this was of no Importance.
| 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, be-
ing dead, what had become of the
body? There was no medical college
west of the Rocky mountains, and no
one had any use so far as can see for
the corpse.
"Such mysteries don't interest 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 of placer mining and, going to a
different location, staked out claim.
"There was trail leading by my
mine, and one day, when / was sitting
| on log resting, with pipe In my
mouth, heard some animal coming up
! the gulch. In a few minutes | saw
horse with man on it coming lick
ety-split. Horse and man dashed past
me, the man staring at me wildly, and
you'd better believe / stared at him.
His face was white as that of corpse
his eyes We're starting out of his head,
and-he was Jim Barlow
"At first was too paralyZed to move,
and when | came to myself he had
passed out of hearing | listened and
thought heard the hoofs of horses
down the gulch. but nothing showed
up, and soon | heard them no more.
II never was much given to being
afraid, but the sight of Barlow. who
had been killed standing beside me,
then shaken up by an earthquake
and tipped out of his coffin. dashing
past me like that unnerved me. My
teeth chattered so that | bit Off the
stem of my pipe. What did IL mean?
las soon as recovered from the
shock concluded to go down. the guich
and try to find out If any one else had
seen the ghost, ! found n man who
had. He described the sight just as
had seen it He also told me that
there had been considerable excite
ment thereabout on account of the es-
cape of horse thief He was to have
been hanged and got away.
This would have explained the mat
ter If it hadn't been that the man
saw was jim Barlow, and Jim Barlow
was dead,
About Il week after this man came
to my cabin and said II friend of mine
wanted me to come down to l..
went with the messenger, who took me
to the sheriff. who had a horse thief in
limbo, The horse thief was Jim Bar
low.
why, Jim'-I shouted, Il though,
you were deadr
II amt dead he said, and l amt
horse thief. These fellows have got
me mixed with another man.