ed to his conscience as a grave digger, Mr. Barney Bree had made
an unusually deep sepulcher, and it was near sunset before Mr. Doman,
laboring with the leisurely deliberation of one who has "a dead sure
thing" and no fear of an adverse claimant's enforcement of a prior
right, reached the coffin and uncovered it. When he had done so he was
confronted by a difficulty for which he had made no provision; the
coffin--a mere flat shell of not very well-preserved redwood boards,
apparently--had no handles, and it filled the entire bottom of the
excavation. The best he could do without violating the decent sanctities
of the situation was to make the excavation sufficiently longer to
enable him to stand at the head of the casket and getting his powerful
hands underneath erect it upon its narrower end; and this he proceeded
to do. The approach of night quickened his efforts. He had no thought of
abandoning his task at this stage to resume it on the morrow under more
advantageous conditions. The feverish stimulation of cupidity and the
fascination of terror held him to his dismal work with an iron
authority. He no longer idled, but wrought with a terrible zeal. His
head uncovered, his outer garments discarded, his shirt opened at the
neck and thrown back from his breast, down which ran sinuous rills of
perspiration, this hardy and impenitent gold-getter and grave-robber
toiled with a giant energy that almost dignified the character of his
horrible purpose; and when the sun fringes had burned themselves out
along the crest line of the western hills, and the full moon had climbed
out of the shadows that lay along the purple plain, he had erected the
coffin upon its foot, where it stood propped against the end of the open
grave. Then, standing up to his neck in the earth at the opposite
extreme of the excavation, as he looked at the coffin upon which the
moonlight now fell with a full illumination he was thrilled with a
sudden terror to observe upon it the startling apparition of a dark
human head--the shadow of his own. For a moment this simple and natural
circumstance unnerved him. The noise of his labored breathing frightened
him, and he tried to still it, but his bursting lungs would not be
denied. Then, laughing half-audibly and wholly without spirit, he began
making movements of his head from side to side, in order to compel the
apparition to repeat them. He found a comforting reassurance in
asserting his command over his own sh