Suddenly a coffin stood near a tree at the Ponderosa, the spread of the Cartwright family. Nobody had seen who had put it there. The first one who saw the coffin was Mitch Cartwright. He rode around a bit with his Caramel in the company of his shepherd dog Cody. As curious as the boy was he stopped his horse and he dismounted.
“Come Cody. We are going to check out that coffin”, he said to the dog.
Carefully they crawled to the coffin. At first it was an ordinary coffin but Mitch and Cody didn’t trust it. Arrived by the coffin Cody sniffed at it and he began to bark loud.
“Down Cody”, said Mitch.
Cody tried to pull his little master away from the coffin but Mitch fought back as hard too. Suddenly the coffin went open. Mitch was frightened to death and went back with his dog. A strange man raised and looked at the couple.
“Who…Who are you?”, the young Cartwright asked.
“I am your worst nightmare! You woke me up and now I shall haunt you and have to kill you”, the man spoke with an icy voice.
“You ain’t the Grim Reaper, are you?”, asked Mitch.
A false laughter sounded across the field. Quickly Mitch got up and ran as fast as he could to his horse. The boy mounted on and gave his horse the spurs. Cody ran away too.
At the Ponderosa Adam Cartwright said to his daughter Pam, “Where is your brother? And don’t say in his skin because I really don’t believe that anymore.”
“He has gone for a ride with Caramel and Cody”, she replied.
“He is alright, ain’t he?”, Adam asked for the security.
“Yes, but he wanted to be alone. Besides, Cody is with him, ain’t’ he?”, was the counter-question of Pam.
“Yes, but the problem with your brother is that he is very curious and often forgets the time”, said Adam.
Pam didn’t react at it to big relief of her father. Suddenly they saw Mitch and Cody riding up the yard in a big hurry. Adam stopped Caramel at once and lifted off his son from it.
“Daddy, there is a coffin near the old oak. Cody and I went to it and suddenly it went open. A strange man came out of it”, Mitch told gasping.
Adam and Pam looked at him amazed.
“A coffin? Here at the Ponderosa? Impossible”, said Adam.
“Excited”, said Pam.
“He said that I had woken him up and that he must kill me now. Besides he is my worst nightmare according to him. And I don’t even have a mother-in-law”, said Mitch.
Adam smiled for a second but became seriously again right away.
“Do you still know exactly where that coffin is?”, he asked.
Mitch nodded.
“We are going to it”, said the oldest Cartwright boy.
“But daddy, there is really a scary man in”, reacted Mitch.
Adam looked at his son.
“You ain ’t going to tell me that you are afraid?”, asked Adam.
Mitch nodded. Adam understood that there was more the matter with the mysterious coffin because normally Mitch wasn’t cut out rough.
But the young Cartwright didn’t want to show his true colors and said, “I am going along.”
They mounted on their horses and with Cody the threesome rode to the spot where the coffin stood closed again.
Adam found it strange too that the coffin was there suddenly. He didn’t trust it either. Adam drew his revolver and went to it carefully. The twins followed at safe distance. Carefully he knocked at the coffin. It remained deadly silent. Mitch and Pam looked at each other amazed. Adam put his revolver back in the holster, looked at his children and crawled to them.
“Mitch, that coffin is just empty”, said Adam.
“Not when I saw it for the first time”, replied Mitch.
He noticed that his father didn’t believe him.
“Must we open the coffin then?”, suggested Pam.
That wasn’t needed because the coffin went open by itself. Again the scary man appeared. Adam tried to protect his children but the creep flew to the twins.
“Leave us alone!”, yelled Mitch.
The creep laughed false and kept bothering the twins. Adam drew again his revolver and shot at the creep. It was a direct hit because the ghost fell down on the ground Amazed by this action of their father the twins remained at safe distance but not Cody. He ran to it and sniffed at the ghost. Then he barked loud. Adam came to it too. He examined the ghost and discovered that it was Jack Taylor. Mitch recognized the look of his father and his curiosity overconqured his fear.
“Come sis”, he said to Pam.
They crawled to their father and dog.
“Daddy, who is that?”, asked Pam.
“Jack Taylor, an old enemy of grandpa. He disappeared many years ago trackless”, replied Adam.
“But a ghost can’t walk. Or is he just trying to scare us?”, asked Mitch.
“I think the last. He always tried to take our land from us but fortunately he never succeeded that. We bring the body to Virginia City and tell the sheriff everything”, said Adam.
Pam looked around her then and discovered something strange.
“Daddy, Mitch, the coffin is gone”, she said.
The Cartwrights looked around them and got up then. But at the moment when Adam and Mitch wanted to lift up the body of Jack that was gone too.
“Let’s go home quickly because it happens to be Halloween as well tonight”, said Adam.
They mounted on and rode home quickly where nobody has missed them.
Adam knew that no one would believe them and urged his children to tell nothing about the incident. The twins promised that right away.