As an example of Mather's talents, Silas tells the rather ghoulish story of a mother who kept grieving because she hadn't had a picture taken of her teen-age son before he died. Six months after the funeral, she was still brooding about it, and a relative said, "I'll bet Mather could do it."

The glass-topped coffin was dug up, and Mather, happy over this interesting challenge, ordered it propped up endwise, against a hitching post. Silas, who was there as a helper, ends the tale, "And you know, he no sooner got a good picture than that corpse crumbled into dust. That kind of bothered Mather. He said, 'I don't think I'll take another job like this-- unless I need the money'."

-- from The Great Oildorado (1959)