200 What Birds Plave Done With Me 



set aside for Hell's Kitchen, as soon as they got 

 it drained. I suppose the point he was making 

 was that they never could drain it and they never 

 have up to date. 



Those stranger days when Indians were seen 

 daily gliding along the trail that we called a 

 road, and coming out of the marsh with strings 

 of dead pigeons; its visible terrors were enough 

 to raise goose-pimples on a young frontier tender- 

 foot, but it really was the unseen, lurking hide- 

 ousness of the swamp under the curtain of night, 

 all manner of unearthly noises in the sky that 

 settled down to taste the bubbling hell broth that 

 was being cooked by a million flickering lights, 

 that froze a fellow's blood. 



Dr. Barnes coming along this road to see my 

 brother Ted, who was sick, had left his tired horse 

 at home and was just opposite the fifth rail pile 

 when from the next rail pile, a mighty Mountain 

 Lion sprang into the road with a raucous screech 

 that for an instant silenced every other noise in 

 the wilderness, except the beating of the doctor's 

 heart. The stars were out, but there was no 

 moon and the most obvious things about the at- 

 tacking beast were its eyes and tail; the tail in 

 constant motion as the big cat lashed its sides 

 and the green eyes emitting sparks of fire. The 

 doctor thought at first that there were about fifty 

 feet between them, but as the night prowler ad- 



