d. Falling in shortly after with an old hunter comrade, he
told his story, and was only the more deeply impressed by his
recognising without hesitation the scenery of the dream. This comrade
came over the Sierra, by the Carson Valley Pass, and declared that a
spot in the Pass answered exactly his description. By this the
unsophistical patriarch was decided. He immediately collected a company
of men, with mules and blankets and all necessary provisions. The
neighbours were laughing meantime at his credulity. 'No matter,' he
said, 'I am able to do this, and I will; for I verily believe that the
fact is according to my dream.' The men were sent into the mountains one
hundred and fifty miles distant, directly to the Carson Valley Pass. And
there they found the company exactly in the condition of the dream, and
brought in the remnant alive." ("Nature and the Supernatural," p. 14.)

_The Vision of a Fire._

The wife of a Dean of the Episcopal Church in one of the Southern States
of America was visiting at my house while I was busy collecting
materials for this work. Asking her the usual question as to whether she
had ever experienced anything of the phenomena usually called
supernatural, apparently because it is not the habitual experience of
every twenty-four hours, she ridiculed the idea. Ghosts? not she. She
was a severely practical, matter-of-fact person, who used her natural
senses, and had nothing to do with spirits. But was she quite sure; had
nothing ever occurred to her which she could not explain? Then she
hesitated and said, "Well, yes; but there is nothing supernatural about
it. I was staying away down in Virginia, some hundred miles from home,
when one morning, about eleven o'clock, I felt an over-powering
sleepiness. I never sleep in the daytime, and that drowsiness was, I
think, almost my only experience of that kind. I was so sleepy I went to
my room and lay down. In my sleep I saw quite distinctly my home at
Richmond in flames. The fire had broken out in one wing of the house,
which I saw with dismay was where I kept all my best dresses. The people
were all about trying to check the flames, but it was of no use. My
husband was there, walking about before the burning house, carrying a
portrait in his hand. Everything was quite clear and distinct, exactly
as if I had actually been present and seen everything. After a time I
woke up, and, going downstairs, told my friends the strange dream I had
had. They lau