True stories of old Houston and Houstonians: historical and personal sketches / by S. O. Young. Page: 198

198 TRUE STORIES OF OLD
"dead" man who was making frantic efforts to escape. The door
of the hearse was latched on the outside so the bum could not
open it, but he was doing his best to do so.
Everybody who saw the thing concluded that the hearse panic
was due entirely to the revival of the dead man and that Rick
was trying to get away in his terror.
Down Main Street the frightful rush came. When a point was
reached about half way between Texas Avenue and Prairie, the
tramp in desperation, kicked the door open and tumbled out,
doing some excellent grand and lofty tumbling after striking the
ground. He picked himself up and started for the sidewalk,
but his appearance had inaugurated a new and genuine panic.
Everybody fled from him. People rushed into shops and stores
and barricaded the doors. Saloons were closed and he could
not get within a hundred yards of those who failed to get in a
place of safety.
Being daylight, the ghost element was lacking, but the bum
was regarded as a dead cholera victim and therefore as a perfect
walking magazine of cholera germs. Some even went so far
as to want to shoot him and have Nolan take him back and
bury him sure enough.
Finally the truth leaked out. Nolan was fired by Mr. Pannell
and the people were so relieved to find that the bum was not
what they thought he was that everybody joined in the laugh.
BURIED TREASURES.
WHEN I was a small boy I had an ambition, shared
largely by other boys of my age, to grow up as rapidly
as possible so that I would be big enough to go out
and dig up buried treasures. That the treasures were there I
never for a moment doubted and my only fear was that some
one would beat me to them. My faith had something tangible
to rest on, too, for at that time it was generally believed that
the great pirate, Lafitte, had buried his treasure, not on Galveston
Island, but somewhere on the mainland. The discovery of
the grave of the wife of one of his lieutenants on the north side
of Clear Lake, not far from where Seabrook now stands, gave
much basis for the belief that Lafitte made Clear Lake his headquarters
and it was generally supposed that he buried his treasures
there. Just why he should want to bury his treasures at
all, no one undertook to explain, but as that was a long accepted
habit, characteristic of all pirates, Lafitte was held to be no
exception and the burial of his treasures was accepted as a fact.
Now, something that gave the buried treasure theory a decided
boost was the periodical appearance in Houston of a most
disreputable looking character, who came from time to time
from no one knew where, to indulge in a ten days' or two weeks'
drunk and then to disappear as mysteriously as he had appeared.
He was a villainously looking Greek or Italian, had but one eye