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RCn 5, 1893.23THE AWFUL RED GHOSTBI7fg00IcII 1 lir.due-t.*e(ien;olCoIflepaicP-icar,lrIT WAS A MYSTERY THAT TERRIFIED ALL ARIZONA.STRANGEST OF ALL SPIRITSIt Came on People Unawares on the Monn-tains—Killed a Woman and Fought With Cow-Boys—How It Was Finally Laid and Tenderfeet W ere Relieved.From the Ban Francisco Examiner.Auother ghost is laid ; another of the tribe of gaunt hobgoblins that kept the romance of the mysterious southern deserts is gone. Another of the unearthly dangers that the timid Mexican women used to pray against has de-pa rted.Mizoo Hastings, of Oro, was the priest that exorcised this phantom. He has tanned the hide of the R.d (1 host and proposes to make cowboys’ boots out of it. There ought to be some compensation for the cowboys in this, . ^^ . * a.for scores of them have been scared almost to death by the Red Ghost.He first appeared ten years ago, shortly after Geronimo’s disastrous raid through Southern Arizona. A couplo of Mexicans Washing for gold on one of the creeks that in | run into the San Francisco river had their tent thrown down over them and awoke in time to hear the tread of galloping hoofs and a terrible shriek. They got clear of the wreck in time to see something taller than two horses tear into the brush. They told their story at Oro the next day. and people went out to investigate. They found strange tracks in the creek mud and saw where thebrush had been broken down by the passageof some great beast. But the mysterious trail was soon lost among the rocky hills, and that was the last of the Red Ghost for some days.clidcdittele.he»ym•o-aatp-?\vatId-•alngisi-nyofndisois-m-iisedhelie■relorru-llis next appearance was many miles away at a sheep ranch on Eagle creek. The herders were out with the ilocks, and two women with the children were alone in the ranch house. One of them had just gone to the spring for water. The other heard the baying of the ranch dogs and got to the door in time to see something awful tear through the fence and down by the spring. She heard her sister cry out, but did not uarc to go to her assistance. Instead she kept the children indoors and barricaded the cabin until tlie men returned at night. When she told them they took their guns and went to the spring. They found the woman dead, trampled and crushed as though a troop of cavalry had run over her.When the Coroner came up from Solomon-ville the only witness to the apparition testified and tried to describe it. It was red, she said, very tall and ridden by a devil. She could give no clearer description than this. She had only seen it for au instant and then covered up her face and prayed.The Coroner’s inquest resulted in the usual verdict of “ death in some manner unknown to the jury,” and the Coroner’s jury wentor,in-nghome with half on idea that one of the women had been murdered by the other, who had invented the story of the apparition, doubtless having heard of the experience of the miners on Chase’s creek.ouUt,,n’sitsid.Ledngnt After this innumerable stories were ps ! brought in about the mysterious phantom.:t‘cl One man declared that he had pursued it to*the edge of one of the precipices in that country and that the phantom never stopped, but galloped straight across the valley of Uci Black river from one cliff* to another, ha.lf a t° j mile, as easily as if the ground had been underjj(‘ J his hoofs instead of 400 feet below him. This1 I , fellow was positive the Red Ghost had not. Iew i flown, hut had simply galloped over the air,| It happened that the narrator of this adventure was tin*, same man who had told of aI flying bear that he once encountered in the Mogollons. He had also discovered a mountain of solid gold, but had been driven away from it by the Apaches and had never been able to find his way back.It was probably a month before any reliable information about the mystery was received. It came from tin* Salt river country. Si Hamlin, a hunter, coming suddenly to the top f of a ridge, saw' across the next ravine a largo ' animal moving through the chaparral. It was half a mile away from him, but presently it came to a burned patch where he could see it plainly and lu* recognized it as a camel. There are camels in Arizona, descendants of a bunch turned loose by the government after an unsuccessful attempt to use them for carrying soldiers’ supplies across the desert. But this particular camel was more than a simple ship of the desert. The hunter could see plainly upon its back a burden. He did not have long to study the phenom* non, forthe camel soon reached the edge of the clearing and disappeared in the timber. Si said that the burden ou the camel’s hack looked to him like a man, but he wasn't sure; and there was a general idea that Si was lying, until a report came from tho valley of the Verde that tho camel had been seen there. By this time everybody in the territory had heard of it. of course. Fantasia Colorado, tho Mexicans called it, and the translated name hung to it. It was a splendid name to scare tenderfoots with. it,?y’sthe ind i m-yOWionhe►ultdu-iveghtok I meDr.8 Ofup-it! Two prospectors on the Verde got a shot at* Vf , it. They saw' it in the early morning feeding| on a mesa and crept up to within shooting* distance. They fired together, but thoughI both were good marksmen they failed tobring the animal down. It jumped into thoair at the reports and tore off down the hills.As it jumped something fell from it and thoj prospectors, who followed after, found a man’s head, dry and withered, but with flesh andhair still on it.No one saw the uncanny beast for some weeks after this, but finally it appeared to tlie northward. One of the cowboys belonging to the Anehor-J outfit rode up about dusk to an abandoned branding corral. There was something in the corral, and as lie came up a great red camel hurst out of tho corral. Through force o! habit the cowboy’s riata was out and he lassoed the beast. In about two minutes be wished that he hadn’t. The camel charged him and his horse, which while it knew all about steers, was unversed in the ways of camels. When the horse tried to rear up and pirouette so the charging beast would pass by, as anything in the cow lino would have done, he was caught by the camel on the throat, and camel and man and horso went down together. The camel did not stay to fight, but went off as hard as he could pelt, dragging sixty feet of good rawhide riata after him. When the cowboy got to camp he explained a good deal of the mystery of the Red Ghost. The pack on his back was nearly ary gone, he said, but there was no question it had rjn. | once been a man.■nd. That was the last of the Red Ghost in a* * supernatural capacity. He was probably seen many times, but the pack being gone fromhis back there was nothing to distinguish him from other camels, and gradually the Red Ghost from being a terror degenerated into mstory and then into a tradition.A couple of months ago, however, Mi zooHastings, who has a ranch a little above the in- | gold camp on the Han Francisco, woke up one morning and saw through the window of his cabin a big red camel banqueting in bis turnip patch. Mizoo took a dead restover the win (low sill and blazed awav. He got the camel. When he went out to examine the beast he found him covered with a perfect network of knotted rawhide strips. They had been on him so long that some of the strands had cut their wa$r into the flesh. The camel was all starred up and had evidently bad a very hard time. Now everybody down in that country is wondering w hether the man was tied on there Mazeppa-fashion for deviltry or revenge, whether it was some lunatic’s hideous scheme of .suicide, or merely an uglv piece of humor of somebodywho had a camel and a corpse for which ha had no use.liveIrs,lew)verktrttheirthuch
Newspaper Details
Philadelphia Times
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, US
Sun, Mar 05, 1893
Page 23
Full Page
Clipped by
Anonymous
WI, USA 09 Jan 2022
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