Show A STRANGE EXPER experience IVICE very beautiful very inspiring to the christian is the idea of a spiritual life a bright existence in a state where the wrinkles and infirmities oi of age can never creep upon athe the soul sou where no consciousness of a sure end and th thai perhaps near at hand can tramm trammel ones desire to progress where knowledge and experience are realities may accumulate through never endina endiak ages where the pure in heart shall sei od apted forever by evil and where ahm the tender heart need never hesitate taketo tateto to bestow its full wealth of affection or or neither death nor change can snatch away the object of its love some there are who it may be disbelieve a life beyond the tomb but to such as believe corroborative evidence of their faith is always acceptable and interesting it is with this idea that I 1 g give iv e the following strange and somewhat grotesque experience of a fellow townsman it hardly can be called an adventure but mt to the writer seems quite as thrilling as reality and I 1 can testify to the truthfulness the quiet unostentatious honor of this man and woman who declare in words of soberness that the following is true brother and sister morrill were returning to their home in southern utah from a trip to salt lake where they had just been sealed to each other in the lords house it was in the latter end of february 1874 and as the days were short they drove well into the night that they might the more speedily reach their destination every evening the A faithful itaf ul mules jogged bogged on never turning aside or stopping except at the command oil of their driver upon this occasion the man and his wife had as usual tucked themselves well under the wagon cover to keep out the bitter cold leaving the clearn beam to pick their way alone suddenly lit if was noticed that they turned aside arp ther M looked out they were tri traveling close by a bend in the sevier fyfer near what is now known as aurora but then called willow bend about five baies iles south of salina sevier county at tt a short distance from the river bank and just ahead of our travelers was sen a camp fire somewhat shouldering ing and OUr surrounded rounded by about ten or a dozen campers these were very loquacious trad and merry and strati strangely gely uA unmindful mindful of the sharp stinging frost being a stranger i tranger and diffident brother M did not join them but decided to camp just where chere the team had turned out it was ao 86 cold however that having merely to the latter he and his wife re ared wed vred without mak making a fire drawing the wagon cover well down to keep out the intense cold e there they lay all night listening to the W revelry the conversation the jest ahe e shout the laughter of the merry makers ers wondering how they could be in A lih ih nothing to warm them but a Jold enog camp fire now they would toh sounds that bespoke the english tongue spoken by white men then they hear a doggerel that betrayed the indian ian voice and and speech here came a baeseman bAr eman seman singing gaily a song 0 of which the listeners could distinctly near hear every and note and flying swiftly past them rode down to the rivers bank and seemed deemed to be reconnoitering reconnoiter ing the distance there therb came sounds ot of white nien men driving herds of cattle the shouting of the drivers and the patter of the ami animals mals hoofs upon the hard rough frozen ground being perfectly distinct and natural the night was thus passing with every ot of merriment and evidence of active vigorous life the two were I 1 fiote rested listeners almost the whole ight flight and even the mules signified their lB pt terest erest and attention by their whinny ing hig inattention to their food and some times by their frightened efforts to break away at last toward morning the two fell asleep and were awakened by the heavy rattling of wagons as if several pairs might have been coupled together and each pair of wagons pulled by several teams the shout of the driver the crack of the whip and the loud rattling of the heavy wagons over the rough frozen road awakened brother M and thinking that perhaps his wagon was in the way he sprang up and looked out to apologize but lo 10 nothing was there but the frozen river and the willows on its bank the bright sun and the clear calm blue sky astonished he examined his environ ments but there was no little heap of ashes to show sho w that even a camp fire had been made no crushed clods in the road nor on the roadside to tell that here had passed herds of cattle horsemen and loaded wagons not a sign of human footsteps revelry or even of recent existence the snow covered ground exhibited no trace or mark and as the night had been cloudless and crisp the snow had not overlaid over laid any new made track had these been mere phantoms in brother Ms brain his wife and even his mules had bad shared the delusion what then were the phantoms thus both seen and heard beard what could it mean those strange unreal beings whose actions seemed yet so real that the listeners had never dreamed of anything but that they were mortals like themselves as they lay listening to their performances throughout the night As brother M stopped in monroe the following night his licis hostess tess informed him that the night of that strange revelry was as near as she could remember the anniversary of the assassination of a certain young acquaintance of hers who had been by indians in the neighborhood of willow bend and suggested that what brother M had seen and heard was perhaps a weird celebration ot ol that event brother M says that certain he is that to himself and his wife the sight and sounds were real though the morning sun dissipated the revelers and his eyes of flesh saw them no more and his start heart failed to comprehend their meaning RUBY LAMONT ILLE UTAH jan 4 1895 |