Democratic Sentinel, Volume 13, Number 25, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 July 1889 — TRUTH IN DEATH. [ARTICLE]

TRUTH IN DEATH.

Sat He Regretted It, and Added a Falsehood at Last. We had a man named BurrowsTn our mining camp, and he was without doubt the most notorious liar Nevada will ever shelter. His fame as a liar spread for a hundred miles around, and men used to stop at our camp to get a look at him. He wasn’t a wicked man. and he had no malice about him, but’ he was a natural born liar. He lied about his father, his mother, his wife, brothers sisters, and everybody else, and for every hour in the day he had a new falsehood. He had a claim of his own and was fairly industrious, and so we had no excuse to drive .him out, although his lies were continually kicking up ill-feeling among the men. One day, a lot of earth and rock caved in on him and inflicted fatal injuries, and a number of us knocked off work to be with him in his last moments. You would have thought the shadow of death would have brought a change of sentiment, but it did not. Lying there with only an hour of life left to him, he told us that he had been a pirate on the Pacific and where he had buried a large amount of plunder. We all knew that he was from Ohio and had never seen any ocean; but he stuck to it. One .of the men finally felt it his duty to say; “Burrows, you have only a short time to live. You had best spend that in preparing for eternity.” “I’ve alius been good,” he quietly replied. “Yes, but you are an awful liar, you know.” “Yes, I suppose so. I’ve told a million of them, haven’t I?” “No doubt of it.” “Ana every one has been laid up agin me?” “Very likely.” “And my chance is rather slim?” “Bather.” “Well, boys, it’s my way, and I can’t change at this late day. Just as that cave-in came I struck a nugget as big as my head. It would value up a clean $15,000. If you’ll be kind enough to pull it out and sell it and send the cash to my wife I’ll die feeling better.” He went off soon after that, and we said to each other that he had given us the greatest yarn of all. No one took his claim, which was accounted a poor one, and it lay for three months before one of the boys dug into it one day for the pickaxe buried and forgotten. He hadn’t got the pick when he came across a lump of gold which balanced $13,280 in coin, and every shilling of the money was sent on to the widow, as directed. It got there to find there was no widow, but six months later went to told the truth about his find,but, alas! he repented of it, and lied about having a wife.