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Show ALFRED PACKER. 295 Thank Heaven! He now will surely drag Himself and loving, trusting bride, To safety on the further side Of this wild, deep and dark ravine, Now a barrier sure between These lovers and the band which would Upon their loving joys intrude. His bride ? Ah, yes, his bride in truth, This danger shared, weds them, forsooth, As squarely, firmly, as the rite Imposed by priest or law, and quite As holy is, and just and true,- And good enough, they thought-don't you ? CHAPfER LXII. ALFRED PACKER. Looking across the car I recognized Mrs. Charles Adams, and soon became engaged in conversation with her. In narrating incidents connected with her frontier life she related to me the following story of Alfred Packer, the man who murdered and ate his companions while engaged in a prospecting expedition in the San Juan mountains : "One day in January, 1873, while my husband was Indian Agent, there occurred the most surprising and ghastly incident within my knowledge . A cloud, one of the phenomena of the Western wilds, came floating slowly from the mountains and gradually enveloped the whole place. We could scarcely discern objects a few paces distant. My spirits were depressed and I was possessed of the idea that some one in great distress was near me; some one lost in the dense fog and pleading piteously for help. I expressed this presentiment to the men at the |