but--well, you see, about a month afterwards I was in Phoenix again,
and one night I saw the Prospector and the lunatic taking a drink at a
bar together. A little later the Prospector passed me without seeing me.
He was walking arm in arm with a stranger, and as they went by I heard
him say, 'If I had the money I never would think of asking any one to go
in with me. He calls it the "Mound of Eternal Silence...."'
"They passed on, and their voices were lost to me in the distance."
[Illustration: TIXINOPA.]
STORY OF A BAD INDIAN.
Malita was a half-breed, the daughter of an old squaw man. She had spent
several years at the Indian school in Phoenix, and had proved herself
an apt pupil. Later she went to work on Simmons' Ranch. She was a very
pretty, healthy looking girl, and one day Morgan Jones, the hunter and
trapper, asked her to marry him. She went with him to his cabin near the
Reservation and settled down.
Jones was a devil-may-care sort of chap, who, when he had a little
money, came to the straggling one-horse town near the Reservation, drank
considerable whiskey, and amused himself by running his pony up and
down the one street, firing off his gun, and shouting at the top of his
voice. This was Jones' idea of a good time, and his method of
contributing his share to the sanguinary ornamentation of the embryo
metropolis.
Malita made Jones a good wife, and attended to his creature comforts to
the best of her ability, and when Jones returned to the cabin in an
inebriated condition she soothed him, and put him to bed, looking upon
such incidents as a matter of course. For a year or more they lived
contentedly, and a little boy was born to them.
On the Reservation lived an Indian named Tixinopa, a splendid specimen
of a savage athlete, and the most noted runner and hunter in his tribe.
Like many of his race, while hating the white man, he loved the white
man's fire-water, and it made him surly and quarrelsome. He was a
natural leader, and often, at night, he spoke with fiery eloquence of
the wrongs of his race, sowing the seeds of unrest and rebellion.
Tixinopa was the only cloud which disturbed the domestic horizon of the
Jones family. He haunted the vicinity of the cabin, and was continually
asking Malita for whiskey and tobacco when Jones was away, until at last
Jones intimated to him gently that his presence was, to say the least,
undesirable. Being a child of the woods and hills, he did not have at
his command a large vocabulary of diplomatic phrases to enable him to do
this politely, in fact, he was blunt.
In describing the interview to Malita afterwards he said:
"I told him if he cum around here any more I'd smash his head, an' he
grunts an' draws himself up this a-way, and looks ugly and says, 'he's a
big Injun,' and I told him to go to hell!"
For some time Tixinopa kept away from the cabin, but one day he
appeared and demanded whiskey. He was half drunk, and his bloodshot eyes
blinked at Malita as he swayed unsteadily in the doorway.
"No, Tixinopa, there is no whiskey."
Tixinopa's eyes grew ugly. "You lie, you half-breed squaw; but be it so,
I will take the boy away until you remember where it is."
So saying he lifted the baby by the arm and swung him on to his
shoulder. The child cried out with pain from its twisted arm. Malita's
heart sunk with a dreadful fear.
"Give the child to me, Tixinopa, do not be so rough; see, you have hurt
him."
[Illustration: MALITA.]
She tried to take the boy, but Tixinopa pushed her away roughly and she
fell to the ground. Up she sprang and threw herself upon him, trying to
get the boy, and in the struggle she scratched his face slightly, so
that the blood came. With a curse he struck her full in the face with
his clinched fist and she fell as if dead, and lay with her hands
twitching feebly.
"Take your half-breed brat," he hissed, throwing the baby roughly on the
ground beside her. He turned to walk away, but something in the
motionless form of the child caused him to look again, and he saw that
his little head lay doubled under his arm in a way that could only mean
one thing--a broken neck.
Malita rose unsteadily to her feet and looked about in a dazed way until
her gaze rested upon the little body of her dead baby; the next instant
she was striking and cutting at Tixinopa, screaming like a mad thing.
The attack was so sudden and fierce that, trained athlete and fighter as
he was, Tixinopa received a deep cut on the shoulder and a slight one on
the arm before he succeeded in grasping her wrist, and twisting the
knife from her. Then, seizing her by the hair, he drew her to him and
drove the knife twice into her breast, throwing her to the ground, where
she lay gasping her life away in broken sobs.
Tixinopa stood for a moment looking at Malita and was quite still. His
arm pained him and he held up his hand and watched the blood dripping
from his fingers. Then he took a self-cocking revolver from his belt and
fired shot after shot into the bodies of the dead baby and the dying
mother. Twice the hammer clicked on an empty shell before he ceased to
pull the trigger, and he slowly turned away, pushing his empty pistol
into his belt. As he did so he found himself face to face with Jones,
but a different Jones than the one he had known. This Jones' face was
white and drawn, and looked years older than the other Jones. The hand
which held a pistol pointed at him shook unsteadily. A minute, perhaps
two minutes, passed, and still the two men faced each other; then an
evil light came into Tixinopa's eyes, and his hand slid slowly towards
the handle of his knife, to be instantly smashed by a bullet from Jones'
pistol. Another shot and the other arm was broken at the elbow. Neither
man had spoken, but now Tixinopa began a low, wild chant. Raised to his
full height, with his broken arms hanging by his sides, he chanted the
death song of his people, the same song which had been sung by his
father, and his father's father, and for generations past by all the
dying warriors of his tribe.
"Tixinopa," the voice was a husky whisper, "for her sake I won't torture
yer as I would like ter,--God give me strength to keep from doin'
it!--but I'm afeared He won't unless I kill yer quick. All I hope is
that if there is a hell, your black soul will roast in it for ever and
ever, amen!"
The muzzle of the pistol was now within a few inches of the naked
breast; still the low, wild chant went on, the bronze figure standing as
if turned to stone. Then another shot and the chant stopped.
* * * * *
Ten minutes later a horseman rode slowly into the desert. To his left,
as he crossed the half-dry bed of the alkali stream, two Indian boys
were skinning a rabbit alive and laughing at its agony. From afar back
on the other side of the valley he heard the strains of the "Star
Spangled Banner" played by the pride of the Reservation--the Indian
band!
A QUEER COINCIDENCE.
"You say," said Doctor Watson, as he rested one arm on the mantel and
looked thoughtfully at the open fire,--"you say there is no proof of the
actuality of what is called telepathy or thought-transference, and
perhaps you are right, but I have several times in my life had
experiences which were very difficult to explain except by some such
theory, and if you care to listen I will tell you one of them which I
have in mind."
Our chorus of approval evidently left no doubt as to our desire to hear
the story, for Watson smiled, and lighting a fresh cigar he began as
follows:
"On the seventeenth of January last year there was a slight wash-out on
the Northern road not far from Chicago, and the forward trucks of one of
the cars on train 61, on which I was a passenger, left the rails, but
luckily the train was going slowly at the time and there was little
damage done except a general shaking up of the passengers in the car as
the forward wheels bumped roughly over the sleepers for a few yards
before the train stopped. The other cars did not leave the track, and
only one man was seriously injured.
"This man had been standing on the platform at the time and was thrown
between the cars and badly crushed. I was close to the end window and
saw him fall, and when the conductor called for a doctor I responded at
once.
"I found the man lying on a blanket surrounded by a number of the
passengers. He seemed to suffer but little pain, and I feared, from a
casual examination, he was badly injured internally, although he was
perfectly conscious; he was bleeding at the mouth, and his legs seemed
to be paralyzed. He asked faintly if I thought he was going to die, and
I cheered him up, as is customary in such cases, but shortly afterwards
he developed such serious symptoms that I felt forced to tell him I
feared he was seriously hurt, and it was quite possible he would live
but a few hours.
"Upon hearing this he became very much agitated, and whispered to me
that he wished to speak to me alone, saying he had something of the
utmost importance to communicate.
"I thought it was probably some message to send to some members of his
family, or some instructions regarding his affairs, but after a few
words I became very much interested. He talked for fifteen minutes, part
of the time being sustained by the use of stimulants. His story, which
was a very strange one, I will repeat as nearly as possible in his own
words. After repeatedly asking me to assure him there was no possible
chance of his recovery he said:
"'It is not necessary for you to know my name, but it is sufficient for
me to tell you that I received a good education in my youth and
graduated with high honors at one of the large universities in this
country. I always had more or less interest in the study of physiology,
and during my college course conducted a series of experiments in
hypnotism, and made some interesting discoveries regarding the
exaltation of the senses, and especially in relation to illusion and
hallucination by the aid of post-hypnotic suggestion.
"'It had been my earnest desire to occupy the position of professor of
physiology in one of the universities, but failing to obtain a position
of this kind, and having no means of support, I gradually became poorer
and poorer, earning a livelihood as best I could, until I became
discouraged and attempted to make money in a way not quite so honest.
"'The idea suggested itself to me during a series of experiments which I
had conducted with a friend of mine. It so happened that this friend was
paying teller in one of our well-known banks of Chicago, where he is
to-day. He is a thoroughly honorable man in every way, but I found that
he was a good hypnotic subject, or sensitive, as we call it. At first he
could not be considered first class, but he was much interested in the
subject, and allowed me to hypnotize him repeatedly. After a few
evenings he became very easily influenced and one of the best subjects I
had ever had. I could put him to sleep in a moment, simply snapping my
fingers and telling him I wished him to sleep; of course this can only
be done with sensitives who have been repeatedly hypnotized.
"'Under these conditions I succeeded in making him do very many
wonderful things, especially in the way of post-hypnotic suggestions; a
post-hypnotic suggestion is a command given to hypnotized subjects that
at some future time they perform a certain act. In most cases, in waking
from the hypnotic sleep they have forgotten that the suggestion has been
given them, but at the time set they perform the act unconsciously, as
though by their own volition. Not only will they do this, but after the
act is performed they usually sink into a quiet sleep,[1] from which
they awake after passing into the normal sleep, and, as a rule, have
forgotten that they did anything unusual, or that they have been
hypnotized, and take up the thread of thought again at the point where
they first entered the hypnotic condition. They do not remember what
they have done or seen. Their mind is a blank as to all that occurred
during the time they were hypnotized.
[Footnote 1: This is unusual; the subject rarely falls asleep after
carrying out a post-hypnotic suggestion unless commanded to do so.--ED.]
"'For the last two years I have been rather fortunate, in a small way,
speculating in stocks. My capital being small, the amount of money I
could make was, of course, comparatively little; yet I succeeded in
doing very well until about three weeks ago, when, by two or three
unfortunate speculations, I found myself absolutely destitute, and
without a penny in the world. It was then the idea suggested itself to
me to hypnotize Mr. Herrick and make him bring me money from the bank.
This of course was perfectly possible, if no accident occurred, or no
unforeseen difficulty presented itself, which I had not previously
thought of, as the cashier would act simply as an instrument, being
governed entirely by my directions. I asked him in a casual way several
times about the affairs of the bank, and learned one day that the bank
would have an unusually large balance in settling with the
clearing-house. It was the custom for Mr. Herrick to lock up his own
funds, and simply state to the cashier that he had done so.
"'According to a carefully arranged plan, I hypnotized him last evening
and commanded him to take all the money and securities he had in his
possession, after settling with the clearing-house, and instead of
locking them in his vault to put them in a bag, of course taking
precautions to do this when no one was observing him, and then leave the
bank in the usual manner.
"'He was to take a carriage and drive directly to a small, unoccupied
house which is situated on the corner of Blank and 117th streets.
"'It was my intention, as I had gone so far, to go still further. I knew
that Mr. Herrick would bring me the money and securities, and that I
should find him asleep in the house, but what I did not know positively,
and what I feared was, _that he might not forget what he had done when
he awoke_. As a rule, sensitives obey the command to forget, but in the
course of my various experiments I have found sensitives who had a vague
idea of what occurred, perhaps nothing tangible, but still sufficient,
in a case like this, when there would be a great row about the lost
securities, to suggest a possible clue.
"'It was a very cold day, six degrees below, I think, and I had
deliberately intended to leave Mr. Herrick asleep after I had taken the
money from him and let him take his chances, sleeping without any fire
or covering, in an hypnotic condition, with the temperature below zero,
and you can judge what his chances would have been. This scheme I
thought out deliberately, and what seems strange, I had not the least
repugnance against arranging for the death of my friend. After I had
once made up my mind to make him steal the securities his disappearance
seemed to be the only way to insure my safety. Of course no one could
know I was connected with this matter. I would not go near the bank, and
unless he was followed, which was most unlikely, as he had been with the
bank some years and was a thoroughly trusted official, there would be
absolutely no chance of my detection.'"
Watson relighted his cigar, which had gone out, and continued--
"While he had been speaking another train had arrived with a lot of
workmen who were busily engaged jacking the car back on the rails. The
train was about to return to Chicago, so I inquired the name of the bank
and its president, and the address of the house, writing them down so
there could be no possible mistake. I then hastened on board the train,
leaving my patient under the care of Dr. Morse, a local physician, who
agreed to notify me as to the condition of the man later in the day.
"Upon arriving in Chicago I immediately drove to the bank, but found it
closed. I was told, however, that Mr. Bartlet, the president, was
attending a corporation meeting in an office in the same building. I
immediately hunted him up, and, upon hearing my story he hastily ordered
a carriage and we drove to the house as described.
"On our way out we stopped and picked up Dr. Marsh, who as you know is
very much interested in such matters. It was quite a long drive, but we
found the place without difficulty. It was unoccupied, and many of the
windows were broken, and altogether it presented a very dilapidated
appearance, such as the cheap houses on the outskirts of a great city
often do after having been unoccupied for a year or two. We tried the
door and found it unlocked. On the first floor the rooms were entirely
empty, loose papers scattered about, and no signs of any one having
entered the house. Upon going upstairs we found the door on the first
landing at the head of the stairs closed, but not locked. At the back of
the room was a cracked wooden stool and a dilapidated hair sofa, which
had evidently been considered too used up to be of any value. Part of
the cover was torn away, one of the legs was broken, and some of the
hair stuffing was lying scattered about the floor. On this lounge lay
Mr. Herrick apparently sound asleep; his lips blue with cold, his face
pale, and the general appearance of a man half frozen to death. He was
breathing very quietly, however, and his heart action was still fairly
good, although somewhat slow. By his side lay a small bag, which, it is
needless to say, was pounced upon by Mr. Bartlet. It contained some
valuable securities, and a great bundle of bank bills of large
denomination. Both Marsh and I considered Herrick's condition as
decidedly interesting and unusual, and we were both of the opinion that,
as part of the story had proved true, it was very likely the whole would
turn out just as described.
"If this proved to be the case, all that now remained to be done was to
restore Herrick to his normal condition, which might or might not be
easy to accomplish. The first thing to be done was to get him out of
such a low temperature. We tried various methods of restoring
consciousness, but without success. What we did not like was that his
heart action was gradually becoming weaker. We gave a hypodermic
injection of strychnia, and the heart was soon acting in a much more
satisfactory manner. There was no return to consciousness, however, so
taking him in the carriage we drove back to Dr. Marsh's house, and
arriving there we all turned to and did what we could to restore Herrick
to consciousness. Now that he was in a warm room the drawn expression
and the blue look left his face, but otherwise he appeared to sleep as
soundly as ever. The heart was now acting very well, and aside from the
coma the condition of the patient gave us no cause for anxiety. As time
went on, however, and we absolutely failed to waken him, and the heart
again showed signs of weakness, we began to feel somewhat uneasy.
"You see," said Watson, "we did not know what suggestion was given the
patient; these post-hypnotic suggestions are peculiar in their action
upon some sensitives. If, as it is fair to suppose, this man was ordered
to sleep, he should in the natural course of events sleep for a number
of hours and then awake, after passing from the hypnotic sleep to the
normal sleep; but we know very little of the effect on some nervous
systems of post-hypnotic suggestions. Another thing, in many cases the
patient will not waken or cannot be wakened except by the person who put
him to sleep. The reason for this is plain enough. Part of the effect on
the mind of hypnotic suggestion is due entirely to sleep. The skilled
hypnotist commands one of his sensitives to sleep under certain
conditions. The sensitive expects to be awakened by the same voice and
in the same way, and habit and association have fixed in his mind
certain conditions which he associates with the order to awake. There is
no doubt whatever that Mr. Herrick heard what we were saying when we
spoke to him in a loud voice, but he heard it without understanding,
much as a person in a sleepy condition hears noises about him without
trying to comprehend them. It is undoubtedly true that the man who put
Herrick to sleep could have wakened him in a moment, while we, with all
our knowledge and experience, were unable to make his brain regain its
normal condition. We decided to let him sleep; and if, at the end of a
few hours, he did not regain consciousness, we would try again what we
could do to assist him, of course watching the heart in the meanwhile
and using nitro-glycerin or strychnia if indicated.
"At that moment Herrick suddenly spoke, at first huskily and then in a
loud, clear voice, shouting, 'Yes, yes, I hear you; I am awake.' Then he
sat up, asking in a dazed way, 'Where am I? What does this mean?'"
"As he did so the old-fashioned clock in the hall struck the hour of
seven."
The queerest part of this story is suggested by a letter received from
Dr. Morse the next day, which read as follows:
DEAR WATSON: You asked me to write you about the injured man, and
I do so now to tell you he is dead. He died a minute or two before
seven o'clock last evening; I know the hour exactly, because I was
watching him at the time, and for some moments he had been
whispering and muttering to himself, but all I could catch was
something about, "I withdraw my command;" when, suddenly raising
himself, he shouted, "Wake up, wake up!" and fell back dead just as
the clock in the church-yard struck seven.
I should be much interested to hear whether his story was true or
not. Drop me a line about it when you have time.
Very sincerely yours,
F. MORSE.
STORY OF AN INSANE SAILOR.
"That pocket-piece of yours," said the doctor, "reminds me that I have
an interesting one of my own; perhaps you can tell me what it is." He
took from his pocket a silver coin and handed it to Jennings, as he
spoke. One edge had been flattened, and a hole pierced in it.
"Ah! an old Spanish piece," said Jennings, "evidently of the time of
Pope Leo Fourth, sometime in the sixteenth century. A very interesting
piece. Where did you get it?"
"There is a curious story connected with that coin," meditatively
remarked Dr. Watson; "perhaps you would like to hear it."
[Illustration: ONE EDGE HAD BEEN FLATTENED AND A HOLE PIERCED IN IT.]
We had been dining with Watson and were now comfortably seated in the
library before an old-fashioned open fire. It was snowing outside,
making the warm, bright study all the more cheerful by contrast.
"Perhaps you remember," said Watson, "that during the winter of 1886 I
devoted much more of my time than usual to the Insane Asylum. I was very
much interested in testing the value of hypnotism for insane patients,
especially mild cases and those having illusions and insistent ideas. I
had been quite successful in one case--a woman who had tried to starve
herself to death under the impression that the devil commanded her not
to eat was greatly benefited by post-hypnotic suggestion. Suggesting
that the devil would not come any more induced pronounced hysteria, but
when hypnotized, and told that the devil commanded her to eat, instead
of to abstain from food, she took nourishment readily, and soon
developed an extraordinary appetite.
"An immediate improvement in her condition was noticeable, and as her
general bodily health improved, the illusions became less and less
frequent, and she was discharged from the asylum as cured in less than
three months."
Watson paused and gazed meditatively at the end of his cigar. "Ever
tried to hypnotize an insane person, Jennings?"
"Not that I remember."
"You, Morris?"
"Can't say that I have."
"Hm! Well, sometimes you succeed, and sometimes you don't; more often
you don't. There was one patient, a man by the name of Allen, who had
been a sailor. He was subject to fits of extreme melancholia, and at
times was positively dangerous, as he imagined some one was trying to
poison him.
"I never succeeded in hypnotizing him, although I tried repeatedly.
However, I saw him every day, and as his general health improved, his
attacks of melancholia became less frequent. He seemed grateful to me
for taking an interest in him, and often talked with me about his early
life and the out-of-the-way countries he had visited. Shortly after I
was called away and did not return to the asylum for two weeks, and when
I did go back I found that Allen was dead. He had cut his throat one
afternoon with a large pocket-knife and made a mighty clean job of it,
too.