upon it, clearly outlined against the gray background of a misty forest.  The man had something strapped on his back and carried a heavy stick—­ obviously an itinerant peddler.  His attitude had in it a suggestion of abstraction, like that of a sleepwalker.  Mr. Cummings reined in his horse when he arrived in front of him, gave him a pleasant salutation and invited him to a seat in the vehicle—­“if you are going my way,” he added.  The man raised his head, looked him full in the face, but neither answered nor made any further movement.  The minister, with good-natured persistence, repeated his invitation.  At this the man threw his right hand forward from his side and pointed downward as he stood on the extreme edge of the bridge.  Mr. Cummings looked past him, over into the ravine, saw nothing unusual and withdrew his eyes to address the man again.  He had disappeared.  The horse, which all this time had been uncommonly restless, gave at the same moment a snort of terror and started to run away.  Before he had regained control of the animal the minister was at the crest of the hill a hundred yards along.  He looked back and saw the figure again, at the same place and in the same attitude as when he had first observed it.  Then for the first time he was conscious of a sense of the supernatural and drove home as rapidly as his willing horse would go.

On arriving at home he related his adventure to his family, and early the next morning, accompanied by two neighbors, John White Corwell and Abner Raiser, returned to the spot.  They found the body of old man Baker hanging by the neck from one of the beams of the bridge, immediately beneath the spot where the apparition had stood.  A thick coating of dust, slightly dampened by the mist, covered the floor of the bridge, but the only footprints were those of Mr. Cummings’ horse.

In taking down the body the men disturbed the loose, friable earth of the slope below it, disclosing human bones already nearly uncovered by the action of water and frost.  They were identified as those of the lost peddler.  At the double inquest the coroner’s jury found that Daniel Baker died by his own hand while suffering from temporary insanity, and that Samuel Morritz was murdered by some person or persons to the jury unknown.

A COLD GREETING

This is a story told by the late Benson Foley of San Francisco: 

“In the summer of 1881 I met a man named James H. Conway, a resident of Franklin, Tennessee.  He was visiting San Francisco for his health, deluded man, and brought me a note of introduction from Mr. Lawrence Barting.  I had known Barting as a captain in the Federal army during the civil war.  At its close he had settled in Franklin, and in time became, I had reason to think, somewhat prominent as a lawyer.  Barting had always seemed to me an honorable and truthful man, and the warm friendship which he expressed in his note for Mr. Conway was