DEAD WILLOW BEND. 121 



mink credit for too much common-sense. They seem 

 to know, quite as well as I do, that the average hollow 

 willow is a target for every idle loafer that passes by, 

 and its crumbling trunk becomes as well known as the 

 dusty highway.. Sometimes it happens that clustering 

 shrubbery about such trees hides every vestige of the 

 trunk, and then a safer hiding-place is afforded by it. 

 This is true of our great dead willow here — the tree has 

 a history. 



A year ago I happened here, and found on the creek- 

 bank, near by, a fragment of a man tied up in rags. It 

 was not, as one might suppose, a ghastly sight, and I felt 

 no need to report the remains to the coroner. I slow- 

 ly approached the spot, making almost no noise, but the 

 crackling of twigs was sufficient to reach the ears of 

 this fragmentary man. He roused in an instant, and in 

 all his incompleteness stood before me. 



Rubbing his eyes, he drawled out, " I believe I've 

 been asleep," and then looking up at the sun, added, 

 " Hang me if 'tain't to-morrer." 



" It is to-day, and early in the morning," I replied. 



" The last I knowed, it was moonlight, and I begun to 

 get tired, and laid down my fishin'-tackle, but I didn't 

 know I'd been asleep. You look sort o' puzzled," this 

 dilapidated fisherman continued, "as tho' you didn't ex- 

 pect to find any one here, let alone me. Well, you see, 

 I do make out to get round, if there is a lot o' me 

 gone ;" and the fellow glanced at the stump of his right 

 arm and then at his wooden leg, with the one eye that 

 remained to him. " You're a stranger about here, I take 

 it," was my reply to his remarks concerning himself. 

 6 



