"You are not dead; you are alive and well."
"But I am dead," he said.
"Why, man, you must be mad. Where did you die?"
"At such a battle, and you left me buried on such a battle-field."
"You talk like a madman," they cried; but the man stuck to his point that he had been dead and buried some months.
"Look up your books," he said, "and see if it is not so."
They looked, and found that he was right. They found the man's name entered as drafted, sent to the war, and marked off as killed.
"Look here," they said, "you didn't die; you must have got some one to go for you; it must have been your substitute."
"I know that," he said; "he died in my stead. You cannot touch me; I died in that man, and I go free. The law has no claim against me."