490 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



[Jttly 10, 1890. 



THE LIFE AND TIMES OF OLD JACK. 



A Pioneer Dog. 



A FOK-SUKE STORY. 



" TX7 HY, 'Old Jack,' as you call him, was a dog!" ex- 

 V» claimed my wife. 



"Well, what of that?" said I. "Didn't he have a 'Life 

 and Times?' " 



"O, now, don't be silly," returned my spouse. "Do you 

 suppose that any editor would be foolish enough to print 

 such stuff, even if you were — er — did write it? Any de- 

 cent editor, I mean," 



"Well, that depends," said I, assuming as dignified a 

 manner as I could, and at the same time rubbing up my 

 spectacles preparatory to an attempt on the life of Old 

 Jack. To speak the truth, I was nettled. I never had a 

 friend during all my boyhood years in whom I believed 

 more thoroughly than I did in Old Jack, and now to hear 

 him spoken slightingly of by one who never saw him, and 

 who, of course, knew nothing of his many noble quali- 

 ties, was a little too much ; and so, after my spectacles 

 were duly polished and my pencil properly sharpened, I 

 deliberately turned my back on the offending woman and 

 wrote as follows: 



Old Jack was a dog, it is very true, but then he was a 

 pioneer dog, and that goes a great way with most people 

 nowadays. He never saved any little boy from drown- 

 ing, nor any drunken man from freezing, nor did any 

 other one great and signally heroic act; for he wasn't that 

 kind of a dog. He was what was called in his day a 

 "coon dog;" but surely no coon dog ever made better use 

 of his opportunities, and at the same time established a 

 better reputation for true doghood, than did Old Jack. 



It was a great many years ago when this story opens, 

 and for that matter, a great many when it ends; for Old 

 Jack has been dead so many years that I'll venture there 

 is scarcely a half dozen persons living who have any recol- 

 lection of him outside of myself and an aged aunt who 

 used to live in the family. 



Away back as early as 1832, which was before I was 

 born, my father was a "mover" — moving from Kentucky 

 to the new State of Indiana. Four horses were hitched 

 to the great wagon which held the "plunder," and in 

 which, well up to the front, rode the young woman who 

 was in process of time to become my mother. There are 

 no wagons to be seen nowadays like that one. It had a 

 long, crooked bed, which was fringed all around with 

 chains, that jingled and clanked as the wagon pitched 

 and jolted over roots and stones, making a din that could 

 be hoard for hundreds of yards away. 



The movers had crossed the Ohio River at the then new 

 and promising town of Madison some time in the fore- 

 noon, and had climbed the big hill and crossed the plateau 

 on which North Madison has since been built, and were 

 I do not know how far on their journey (for my mother, 

 who told me this part of the story, never said), when they 

 heard a peculiar noise, and one so loud, that my father, 

 who was riding the left wheel horse, cried "Whoa!" and 

 the team stopped still. 



"What was that noise?" said my father. 



"I don't know," answered my mother, "but I have 

 heard something like it several times, though not so loud 

 as just now." 



"We'll wait till Wiley comes up," said my father. 

 "Maybe he'll know." 



In a few moments Wiley was heard crying "Hooey!" 

 to old Boss and the other cattle, which were moving 

 from Kentucky to Indiana also. 



"Wiley, have you heard any peculiar noises — any 

 noises like the howls of a dog in a hollow stump or in a 

 barrel or anything, this morning?" 



"No sir!" said Wiley, as with his big toe he cut the rim 

 of highland between horse tracks filled with water, thus 

 uniting two little seas by one little strait. 



"Well, we have. Do you know what it is?" and my 

 father looked at the lad as though he suspected him of 

 knowing more than he chose to tell. 



"No sir!" promptly answered Wiley, as with his great 

 toe he continued his geographical feats. 



Wiley was a good boy, as boys went in the days, Mr. 

 Editor, before you and I were' born— better, I dare say, 

 than most of the boys of this day were. I have often 

 heard my mother say 'that bound boy as he was, if you 

 sent him to feed the horses or slop the pigs or salt the 

 sheep you could rely upon him doing it. In all the or- 

 dinary affairs of life he was a trusty, truthful boy. But 

 in the extraordinary affairs, and especially when 'it came 

 to the accounting for strange and mysterious sounds 

 heard while moving, Wiley was not quite so reliable. He 

 was known at least on one occasion to solemnly declare 

 he didn't know whence came certain strange and myster- 

 rious sounds, when it was subsequently demonstrated 

 beyond a reasonable doubt that he did know. 



When the noon hour came round the movers stopped 

 for refreshments, and one of the first things to be done 

 was to loosen the chains that held in place the immense 

 "feed box" to the "hind-end gate" of the wagon and 

 place it in position for the use of the horses. No sooner 

 was this done and the cover removed than out popped a 

 lithe, active young dog more than half grown. And 

 never did a dog evince greater joy at his liberation than 

 did that one. He leaped up against my father, licked 

 his hands, and whined his thanks after the fashion of all 

 good and glad dogs in all times of the world's history. 

 Then espying my mother, who was busy kindling a fire 

 to boil the camp kettle, he ran to her, and would have 

 displayed his joy in the same boisterous manner had she 

 not said with a stamp of her foot, "Begone! you dirty 

 dog, you!" Then he fled to Wiley, who was not far off, 

 doing his utmost to look astonished at what had hap- 

 pened, and leaping against him he licked his hands, re- 

 ceiving in return a sly pat on the head. And from Wiley 

 he fled at the cows, and driving them a proper distance 

 from the wagon he trotted back in a proud sort of way, 

 and with a sort of here-I-raise-my-Ebenezer air he lay 

 down under the wagon, and from that moment on he was 

 a member of my father's family. 



There was of course muct oh-ing and ah-ing at the 

 sudden and unexpected appearance of the dog, and 

 Wiley was questioned and cross-questioned as only a 

 suspected boy can be; and little by little it came put that 

 he had "fouwf ' the dog at the Ma'dison ferry, and had 



put him in the feed box to keep him from following, and 

 under the pressure of cow driving had subsequently for- 

 gotten all about it. I am thus particular with this part 

 of my story because it is with dogs, much as it is with 

 men, a good pedigree is everything. Still there have 

 been men who mounted up high in the world without 

 any recorded pedigree at all; and I am proud to say that 

 Old Jack was a notable instance of the like good fortune 

 among dogs. 



From the day he became a member of my father's 

 family Jack made bis way in the world. He was, as 

 already intimated, a lithe, active fellow when he jumped 

 out of the feed box; and he ultimately grew to be a 

 medium-sized big dog. His coat was a glossy black, with 

 a white snip down his forehead, with a snowy throat and 

 breast, and also some white on his legs, a white stripe on 

 his belly and a tuft of white on his rather long tail. My 

 father, being an ardent Jackson man, named the dog 

 Andrew Jackson, but that was too great an every -day 

 load for him to carry, and it soon dwindled into plain 

 Jack, which in his old age was turned into Old Jack. 



I suppose that like all other young dogs Jack had his 

 ups and downs during the first year or two that he be- 

 came an inmate of my father's familv. No doubt he got 

 into many a scrape chasing the chickens, tugging at the 

 sheets on the clothes line and digging holes in the yard 

 in the wrong places, and the like; and that he received 

 many a good "licking" for his mischief. And no doubt 

 he and Wiley were fast friends, and Wiley did his very 

 best to teach him how to track possums and coons and 

 other varmints with which the Indiana woods abounded 

 in the pioneer days. But as to any and all of these mat- 

 ters I have no certain knowledge. My knowledge begins 

 with the day my father died, which was on a mellow 

 September day, when I was just twenty-eight months 

 old. I remember the day well, young as I was, for the 

 unusual commotion in and about the house distressed me 

 so much that I ran off, literally "took to the woods," and 

 soon was a lost boy. 



Of course my disappearance created excitement, and it 

 was not long before the neighbors were off in search of 

 me, and when I was found, which was late in the after- 

 noon, I was fairly jubilant at my rescue. Jack was with 

 me — had been with me in all my wanderings, and no one 

 can tell what a comfort it was to me to know that be kept 

 right along at my side all the time. My mother in after 

 years always maintained that it was Jack who had run 

 off, and that I had only followed; but my recollection of 

 that doleful day is such as to warrant the statement that 

 it was I who had run off and that Jack had gone along 

 to see me well out of it. 



After my father's death there were only four families 

 left in the neighborhood, and my mother, abandoning her 

 borne, took me and went to live with a brother at Hope- 

 well. Jack staid behind, I never knew why, but be did, 

 and made his home with the nearest neighbor, Serrill 

 Winchester. 



At the end of two years my mother, being reinforced 

 by her mother and a sister, returned to the old home; and 

 I well remember that when the wagons drove up to the 

 old home. Jack was there and leaping up to my mother, 

 licked her in the face and was not scolded for it either. 

 After thus greeting her, he sprang at me and gave me if 

 possible a more boisterous greeting than he had given my 

 mother; and from that moment on till the day of his 

 most tragic death, he and I were the fastest of friends. 



Right away after our return I remember to have learned 

 that Jack had acquired a great reputation as a "varmint" 

 hunter. The neighborhood to which we had returned 

 was called by the name of Shiloh. This was the name 

 given to the church organization, whose log meeting 

 houfe stood within sight of our house on my father's farm, 

 The territory of the neighborhood extended about two 

 and a half miles from east to west, and was in width 

 about one mile. A road traversed the entire distance the 

 long way and the meeting house was located about the 

 center. A dozen families in round numbers had moved 

 into this neighborhood and it constituted the hunting 

 ground of Jack. He visited every cabin in the circuit of 

 the neighborhood except two, which gave rise to the say- 

 ing, that "Jack hated Methodists and despised. Whigs ;" 

 for the one cabin was Methodist and the other Whig. 

 Jack was a Presbyterian — outwardly at the least. I don't 

 think he knew or cared about the decrees, infant baptism, 

 or any other of the tenets of the church, and he was cer- 

 tainly somewhat lax in his morals, for he would as soon 

 hunt on Sunday as on a weekday, a practice that no true 

 blue Presbyterian of ShLoh would for a moment tolerate 

 in a man. William Young was the Methodist who had 

 built his cabin within the sacred precincts of the Shiloh 

 neighborhood, and to William Young's cabin Jack was 

 never known to go ; but then William was never known 

 to go to the Shiloh meeting house, and I think that ac- 

 counted for the go-by Jack gave to his cabin. He knew 

 all the men and women and children who attended the 

 Shiloh church and he constituted himself the special pro- 

 tector of their hen roosts and corn fields — all except the 

 one lone Whig of the settlement. Why Jack withheld 

 the light of his countenance from our estimable Whig 

 neighbor I am sure I cannot make out. I very well re- 

 member that I used to hear the members of bis party 

 spoken of as "nasty, stinking Whigs," and I confess that 

 there was a time when callow I supposed there was a dif- 

 ference in odor between Whigs and Democrats, and know- 

 ing as I did the keenness of Jack's scent, it seemed very 

 reasonable to me that he should avoid the Whig's cabin, 

 But now that I know the phrase was used in a Pick- 

 wickian sense and meant nothing, I am utterly unable to 

 account for Jack's demeanor toward that Whig. He not 

 only attended our meeting house but he visited at my 

 mother's, and no good reason was ever assigned so far as 

 I know for Jack's mistreatment of him and his. We al- 

 ways contented ourselves by saying, "Jack hated Metho- 

 dists and despised Whigs." 



If I have not said it already, I say it now; the woods 

 were alive with foxes, raccoons and opossums, and the 

 drifts along the streams fairly swarmed with minks, all 

 of which animals preyed upon the poultry, while the 

 coons in addition were little less destructive to green 

 corn than so many pigs. I have heard old men tell of 

 hearing the coons in the cornfields "smacking their 

 chops" on the young corn in the ear, with a noise like 

 that made by hogs eating, and it is a well known histori- 

 cal fact that in the early settlement of Indiana the coons, 

 with the aid of the squirrels, would often destroy entire 

 fields of corn. 



As to the poultry, between the animals already men- 



tioned it ran a sorry chance. Among my earliest recol- 

 lections is the "barking" of the foxes in the thickets sur- 

 rounding the fields. One of the commonest night alarms 

 was the squalling of some poor luckless hen, as she was 

 being carried away bodily by a night prowler to be de- 

 voured in the woods. At such times all was excitement, 

 not only in the roost, but in the family at the house, and 

 if Jack was home he of course joined in the chase that 

 was sure to follow, and the mischief doer had to move 

 lively or he was in turn a victim himself. 



While the depredations hinted at by the vermin of the 

 woods were being carried on at all the homes in the 

 neighborhood, it is a singular fact that Jack was the only 

 coon dog in it. Old Jesse Young, a noted hunter who 

 lived at the extreme eastern end of the neighborhood, had 

 two dogs, both of them excellent to run down wounded 

 deer, and they had on more than one occasion shown the 

 courage to tackle a wounded bear, but they were both 

 strangely indifferent to the smaller and more pestiferous 

 animals of the woods. 



Jack was in no sense a deer dog. I verily believe he 

 would as soon have thought of running down a sheep as a 

 deer. Show him the track of one and he would give you 

 a reproachful look and trot off the other way. Once he 

 so exasperated a hunter who wanted him to run down a 

 deer he had wounded, that Wiley Harrell, who was by, 

 always claimed great merit, to himself for having pre- 

 vented the hunter from shooting the dog in revenge for 

 what he declared to be his cowardice. Nor was he any 

 better for bears. I remember that a wounded one was 

 once chased through the neighborhood by old Jesse 

 Young, and all the dogs, Jack with them, were brought 

 out to hunt down the beast. But he showed at the very 

 outset that he had no stomach for a tussel with a bear. 

 He not only refused to track, but went straight home. 

 He was not going to be ripped up by an enraged bear- 

 not he. Wise dog! 



For he who fights and runs away 

 May live to fight another dav. 



Jack never fooled away his time, nor wasted his 

 strength, barking after squirrels, running after rabbits, 

 nor digging after chipmunks. Nor was he much of a 

 farm dog, as that term goes now. He could watch a gap, 

 just as a born woodsman could settle himself down to 

 steady toil ; but does he ever do it? Jack could worry a 

 pig, or chase a cow or a horse, but he seldom did, espe- 

 cially if old Mink (a homely, good-natured old feiste, 

 whose very existence would long ago have been forgotten 

 but for Jack's good company he happened to get into), 

 was about, and he usually was. At such times it re- 

 quired rather a peremptory command by some one in 

 authority to set Jack on. Mink might bark and snap, and 

 snarl and blather around to his heart's content, for what 

 else was he fit for? Let him chase the cows, and swing 

 by their tails and be kicked at; Jack didn't care. He 

 was not going to wear himself out in doing the work of 

 a common drudge, when the woods were full of game, 

 and the hen roosts and green corn needed protection so 

 badly. It is very true, however, that if Mink happened 

 to be from home, Jack would show prudence as a watch , 

 dog. He would look after the rascally pigs and the mis- 

 chievous cows, and if company came, he would run down I 

 a chicken with considerable zeal; but he evidently dis- ' 

 liked all such work and thought of nothing but rambling 

 in the woods. 



All canine hunters, I suppose, experience pleasure in ! 

 the chase, but is it not rare that one should find his great- ) 

 est pleasure while hunting alone? It is an every day oc- 

 currence to find dogs that will hunt with their masters, , 

 or in packs, but Jack always went on his hunting expedi- 

 tions alone. He never hunted while in the woods with 

 man or boy, nor for that matter did he ever hunt in , 

 company with any dog, save with Mink, and bis hunting : 

 with him was confined to a very limited range around 

 home. It always seemed to me that even around home, 

 Jack tolerated Mink much as my uncle used to toler- t] 

 ate me when he went squirrel hunting. I could go, but i| 

 I must keep close to his heels and carry the dead squir- 

 rels. He did the hunting. 



Jack's method, I am thinking, was not in the usual j 

 dog line. He would he around home and sleep the same j 

 as any other dog till the desire to go a-hunting came , 

 over him, which was usually well along in the afternoon, 

 when he could be seen to rise to a sitting posture, prick , 

 his ears forward and listen and look and work his flexi- 

 ble nostrils as though he heard, saw or smelled something 1 

 unusual. This is a well known habit with all dogs, and 

 it may be that some one of their senses is impressed with 

 the more or less near presence of an object or objects of 

 which man with his duller senses can know not"' ing. 1 

 But I never thought that Jack on such occasions heard, 

 saw or smelled any thing out of the usual run. The dei 

 sire to go hunting had come over him and that was his 

 way to get ready. Possibly he examined the place he 

 was in in the manner indicated to ascertain whether oH 

 not any game was there, or it may have been a sort ofl 

 mechanical act, just as we sometimes see a man, who, i 

 while setting out on a hunting expedition, will every once 

 in a while bring his gun to shoulder as if game were ! 

 actually at hand. Be this a»4t may, after listening and 

 looking and smelling a proper length of time, the dog] 

 would trot off down the path, cross the stile and enter the 

 highway, and thence go straight to a neighbor's house, 

 It might be the nearest or it might be the furthest, but 

 he stuck to our Presbyterian settlement, ignoring, aB- 

 above stated, the Methodist man and the Whig. This 

 was not his universal custom, but it may be said to have 

 been his u^-ual one. The neighbor's cabin to which he 

 thus usually went served as a sort of base of operations 

 as well as of supplies. Being well known to every man* 

 woman and child in the neighborhood, his advent never- 

 caused fear or wonder. The children were always glad 

 to see him, for be was noted for his gentleness, while 

 their fathers and mothers were no less glad because he 

 was looked upon as a sort of protection to their property f 

 Of course he got his supper. Hospitality was the rule in 

 Shiloh as wellas elsewhere in the new State of Indiana in 

 that day. A stray dog whose ownership was unknown 

 could hardly pass by without receiving a crust, much 

 less a dog so well known and in such high favor as Jack. 1, 



At dark he went forth alone to the woods and the hunt,!' 

 began. Often he caught his game on the ground-rmorel 

 often, no doubt, than was ever known to us. I can re- 1 

 member the frequency with which I and others used tc | 

 find the remains of possums and coons half buried by* 

 rotten logs, in old stumps and in other out-of-the-way t, 

 places on fjhe* farm. Very often, nowever , he carried thfc I, 1 



