CHAPTER LXIV.
MORE OF MRS. RAMSEY’S DREAM—SHE STARTS TO FIND HER HUSBAND AND FINDS HER HORRID VISION VERIFIED—A TWO AND TWO FIGHT, WHICH RESULTS IN THREE DEATHS, MR. RAMSEY BEING ONE OF THEM—A DESPERATE DEED WITH TERRIBLE RESULTS—MRS. RAMSEY LOSES HER MIND AND SOON FOLLOWS HER HUSBAND TO THE GRAVE.
Mrs. Ramsey, after this raving narrative, became more quiet and told the people standing about her that she had dreamed that she had seen Mr. Ramsey and Mr. Shepherd come upon the horse thieves and attack them; that the thieves had started to flee on their horses; that the officers had followed and fired upon them, the thieves returning the fire. Three men had fallen almost simultaneously from their horses, two of them being the fugitives and the third her husband, who had been fatally shot. Her dream had continued so as to take her out to search for her husband with the hope of meeting him upon his return. Instead of meeting him alive and well she had encountered a covered wagon, which she described, bringing in his dead body, seeing which she had screamed so loud as to awaken herself and others asleep near her.
This was the dream as Mrs. Ramsey told it. It had been so real to her and the occurrences so tangible that she felt that a tragedy such as she had described had occurred, and refused to be comforted by the argument that it was foolish to pay any heed to a dream. Such she agreed was usually the case, but in this instance she felt that she had really been present at the killing of her husband. The conviction seemed to take complete possession of her. No reasoning would shake her belief that she had been a real witness to a tragedy which had resulted in her beloved husband’s death.
Mrs. Ramsey refused to again attempt to sleep or even to retire again that night. The only comfort which she seemed to receive was in the assurance that as soon as day should break she should be driven out in the direction which her husband had taken. “I know I shall meet that covered wagon,” she said, “I just know it, but I want to go, anyhow, and to know the worst.”
According to promise she was allowed to start out from Hayes at a very early hour the succeeding morning, a friend accompanying her in a carriage. They had driven out a distance of fourteen miles without meeting any one, when there began to dawn a ray of hope that the dreadful vision of the dream would prove to have been merely a hallucination, caused by the imperfect action of the brain while asleep. But the poor woman looked eagerly forward for the purpose of getting the first view of that which she most dreaded to see.
Long as it was in coming, the wagon came in sight all too soon. Rising up over the summit of an elevation in the plains and looking down the descending grade she saw slowly coming towards her and her companion a covered wagon drawn by two horses. Throwing up her hands so as to cover her eyes she exclaimed with all the force of positive conviction:
“My God! there’s the wagon.”
She could not have been more positive if she had seen the vehicle only the day before. After this sight she refused to be comforted and only urged her driver to increase his speed, sobbing as if heart-broken as they pushed on.
The woman’s dream had been more than a dream. It had been a real vision. There had been no deception. The vehicle was just as she had described it and in it lay the lifeless body of her husband, just as his wife had said would be found to be the case.
Very strange all this is, to be sure, and yet true to the letter. Let who can explain it.
Inquiry revealed the fact that the shooting had occurred just as it had appeared to Mrs. Ramsey and just as she described it to half a dozen witnesses before leaving Hayes City. The officers had come upon the thieves in the afternoon of the first day out, thirty-five miles from Hayes, just as they were concluding their dinners and preparing to continue their journey. They had mounted when they discovered the officers riding down upon them. The thieves knew Ramsey, and their first thought was to escape from him at all hazards. They accordingly put spurs to their horses which they rode, leaving the others which they had stolen behind. The officers spurred up their horses also, and were soon chasing the thieves across the plains. The two parties were not less than sixty yards apart when Ramsey said to Shepherd, after having summoned the fugitives to halt:
“Well, I don’t see that there is anything to do but to bring them down. You take the one on your side and I’ll take the fellow on my side.”
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Mrs. Ramsey’s vision of her husband’s murder, and also the killing of a pair of horse thieves.
This speech had hardly been spoken when the two thieves turned in their saddles with pistols presented. It was plain to be seen that there must be a deadly duel then and there.
“Won’t you surrender?” shouted Ramsey.
“Never!” was the reply.
“Then we will kill you.”
“Fire away.”
“Give it to ’em.” Thus to Shepherd.
There were four pistol shots coming so close together as to sound like a volley.
One of the thieves, the one at whom Ramsey had shot, reeled and tumbled from his horse dead. The other reeled but did not fall, and Shepherd spurred on after him, not noticing that Ramsey did not follow. After galloping a short distance the second man fell from his saddle mortally wounded.
Turning then for the first time, Shepherd, who was unhurt, discovered that Ramsey had been knocked from his horse. He had been shot through and through, the ball passing near his heart. There was a ranch a few miles distant and Shepherd determined to make an effort to get his friend to it and to leave the thieves where they had fallen. “Dutch Pete” proved to be the man at whom Ramsey had directed his aim. He it was who had shot Ramsey. But Ramsey’s shot had gone straight home, passing through Pete’s heart. The other thief was also mortally wounded, and soon died. Their bodies were covered with stones and left where they had fallen. The stolen horses were gathered together and returned to their owner.
As for Ramsey, he was taken to the ranch referred to and given every possible attention. But after lingering on in great pain he died at 12 o’clock of the night succeeding the shooting—at the exact hour at which Mrs. Ramsey had had her startling and strange dream.
The body was then placed in the ranchman’s covered wagon, and the cortege started for Hayes City, meeting Mrs. Ramsey on the road.
It is useless to attempt to further describe the anguish of the poor woman. She refused to be comforted after her husband’s death, and two weeks after his funeral she was a raving maniac. Four months afterwards her unhappy spirit deserted the flesh and she joined her husband in the world beyond this.
A MEXICAN BANDIT.