The Spruce Street Tragedy; or, Old Spicer Handles a Double Mystery. Cobb Irvin Shrewsbury

legged it for the open country was a caution."

      "Why," exclaimed Webber, "what the deuce was it that frightened you so?"

      "Yes," added Cohen, "what did you see when you looked back?"

      "See? We saw that confounded corpse sitting bolt upright on the rear seat, like any live man. And at the very moment our eyes rested upon him, he started forward, placing one hand on the front seat by my side, and the other on Jim's back, while his great wide-open eyes stared fixedly into mine."

      "Good Lord! I should have thought you would have been frightened," exclaimed Webber.

      "How did it all turn out?" asked Cohen.

      "Why, this way," was the reply. "After running some distance, we stopped to consult. While we stood there, a man with a heavily-loaded wagon drove up and asked us what we were doing on such a lonely road at that time of night.

      "I told him we were taking a dead body to the city for Dr. White, and that it had suddenly started up and driven us from our carriage.

      "He said he couldn't swallow that story. We swore it was true. Then he asked where we had left the carriage. We told him about half a mile ahead. 'Come on and show me, then,' he said. 'I have a rifle and two revolvers here; I guess with those we are enough for one dead man, at least;' so we went forward with him.

      "At length we came to our carriage; the horse had merely gone to one side of the road, and was quietly cropping the grass.

      "The man took a lantern from his wagon, lighted it, and approached the carriage. Then we heard him laugh.

      "'Come here,' he cried, 'and see what started your corpse to life.'

      "We hastened forward, and saw at once that the dead man had not altered his position since we had so abruptly left him.

      "Our new friend then pointed out to us how the wind had carried the ends of the loose robe in which the corpse was dressed on to the wheels. The motion of the wheels had then pulled the robe so that the corpse which it enveloped was raised to a sitting position, and at last drawn forward in the way I have described."