222 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[March ig, 1898. 
Just About a Boy — VIIL 
One Saturday in June the boy walked into the shed 
where I was painting a new canoe, sauntered around the 
boat and inspected it with critical eye, squinting aft from 
the bow and "lining- up" the bends. 
"Good job that. Got 'er 's even as one an' one. Ought 
to be a gickaloodin traveler." 
"Ought to be what?" I asked. 
"A gickaloodin traveler. Don't ye know what that 
means?" he answered with a grin. 
"No, I never heard that before." 
"Well, that's the same as good only it's better," he 
replied. "Learnt that from an old I'eller that ust to live 
down on th' Missoury River, name o' Poo Gee. He 
ust to always say "Poo Gee!" ever' time what he felt 
like swearin', 'n' that's how he got his name. Don't 
know what his real name was, er nobody else, I guess. 
Everybody juss called him Poo Gee. He had a lot o' 
names fer things, like gickaloodin 'stead o' good, 'n' 
joistaboonierang- fer a floatin' log. "N' one o' these logs 
'at seesaws up 'n' down in a current he called a joisto- 
cutens, nen a pine timber he called a pine joistus. 
"He's a queer ole feller, 'n' 'bout half crazy, I guess; 
but he knowcd how to fish 'n' hunt all right, 'n' li\ed 
in a kind o' .shanty down there' fishin' fer market..'-' 
"Well, he must be a character." 
"Oh, he's dead now," answered the boy. 
"Say," he said, changing the subject, "less go out 'n 
th' woods 's afternoon, will yeh? I'm feelin' kind o' lazy 
'n' no account like, 'n' want to go somers. Don't want 
to go fishin' 'n' hain't nothin' to shoot, but I juss got 
a ressless notion I want to go out'n th' timber. Tf I 
hook up 'n' come over after dinner, wih yah go 'long?" 
"Yes, I guess so. We might take the rods along and 
lish some too," I suggested. 
"Nope," he answered, "don't want to fish, juss want 
to lazy round in th' shade somers where they ain't no- 
body to bother." 
"AH right," I answered, laughing. "If that's the way 
you feel I'll just go and loaf away a half day too," 
"All right, then. I'll be over about one with the buggy. 
So long." ' 
Then he sauntered up the walk, one hand thrust deep 
in his trousers pocket and his broad hat tilted at a dan- 
gerous angle over his right eye; under the flecking 
shadows of the grape arbor and out of sight, strolling 
lazily, but with the easy grace that is as natural as 
breathing to the outdoor man. 
It is health and unconscious strength that makes the 
springing step and the easy, supple roll in the gait— a 
mark that nature puts on her gentlemen. 
In the early afternoon we drove out into the country, 
past the growing crops, past the shady hedges, past the 
farmhouses where husy housewives hastened through 
their many occupations, ofttimes accompanying their 
movements with simple song, not very musical, it is 
true, but from satisfied minds that helped lighten labor. 
The farmhouse dogs ran out as we passed and fretted 
themselves unnecessarily, barking until we were well 
away from the house. We drove contentedly and un- 
mindful of these things, chatting in a lazy way befitting 
the day and the trip, the boy pointing out places along 
the route where he had had sport with the shotgun in 
other days. 
A butcher bird flitted out of the hedge and across the 
road, alighting on a barbed wire fence. The boy's quick 
eye noted that the bird carried a burden, so he pulled 
up the horse and we sat watching. 
The bird eyed us suspiciously for a few moments, and 
then, satisfied that we meant no evil, deliberately im- 
paled his burden on a barb, flicked his beak with a side- 
wise motion on the wire and winged his way across the 
field. 
"Know what he was doin'?" asked the boy'. 
"No, I'm not up in that fellow's ways," T answered. 
"He's hangin' up his supply o' grub. See, he's got 
a lot o' truck strung along the wire. Whoa, Bill! Less 
go OA^er an' see what he's got." 
We jumped out and inspected the wire, finding two 
mice, some big brown crickets and nearly a dozen 
big grasshoppers, besides some other insects of the beetle 
variety. 
"See, he's layin' in a stock o' grub," said the boy. 
"Now you'd think he'd eat all o' them things after he 
went to the trouble o' ketchin' 'era 'n' hangin' 'em up, 
wouldn't yeh?" 
"Yes, I should think so," I answered. 
- "Well, he don't," said the boy. "At least he don't 
always, 'cause I've found this kind o' a layout right in 
winter, 'n' everything on the wire 'd be as dry as powder, 
'n' a mouse 'd starve tryin' to live off of 'em. These 
butcher birds, shreeks er shrikes er somp'n like that, 
I b'leeve is the right name of 'em, seems juss to have a 
leanin' too-words killin' things 'n' leavin' 'em stuck 
'round this way. They are .cwr'^ils kind o' birds, any- 
ways." 
The boy went on enlightening me on the ways of 
butcher birds as we circled toward the river. We soon 
went into the gate and through the blue grass pasture, 
where the big walnut trees grew in the sandy flood- 
washed soil of the river bank. 
"Here's a good place. Less stop." said the boy, and 
out he leaped, unhooked the horse, slipped his bridle 
and turned him loose. We stretched at length on the 
dry sand that the last rise in the river had left there in 
the shade of the huge walnut trees, and I filled my pipe 
for a smoke, while the boy folded his hands behind his 
head, elevated one knee over the other as he lay flat on 
his back, slowly chewing a grass stem and looking up 
through the meshed tangle of leaves at the white clouds 
floating lazily across the blue dome. 
"Gee, it's a long ways up to them clouds, ain't it?" he 
said. "'I'd like to go up 'n a balloon er somp'n 'n' look 
down at the ground. Bet it'd look funny fr'm way up 
there, nen a feller could see a nawful long ways too. 
Reckon he coxild :See mo^it to the Missoury River, 
couldn't he?" 
"Perhaps," I answered. "But I rather think he 
couldn't see much even if he could see that far. It is 
about sixty miles to the river in an air litre, and in this 
atmosphere everything would be lost in a haze. In 
the mountain country you can see that far easilJ^ for 
j-ou are up in the air and everything else is too, so the 
haze don't bother much." 
"Say. gee! I'd like to go to the mountains. It must 
be a nawful purty place, nen, gee! couldn't a feller have 
fun ketchin' trout 'n' shootin' deer 'n' things! But it's 
a nawful long ways, 'n' I don't reckon I'll ever git there," 
he continued, as the smile faded and a dreamy, far-away 
look came into his bright eyes. 
"Oh, I don't know, it wouldn't be such a long journey 
even with a team and wagon," I answered, "Three 
or four weeks would take you from here to Denver, and 
another week would take you right into the hills." 
"Gee! less go:' said the boy. 
"Well, we can think of that later, and arrange for a 
hunt that waj- this fall perhaps," I answered. 
"I'll juss go you." 
The boy was no longer indifferent and "feelin' lazy," 
but was alert and talking like an old woman's tea 
party about the mountains and the great stretch of sun- 
burned plains that met the sky fo the westward of the 
little river. The sun swung across the blue dome and 
the shadows reached from bank to bank across the 
stream before his excitement cooled down enough to 
think of going home. 
When I suggested that we move he tilted his hat 
down over his eye, squinted at the low-hanging sun 
and slowly rose to his feet. Gathering up the_ bridle, 
he whistled to the black pony and .stood waiting for 
him to come up. The pony understood him too, and 
came slowly along, nibbling at a tender bunch of grass 
here and there, reluctant, but knowing that the boy's 
will was law, and soon he stood hitched to the buggy 
and' ready for the homeward drive. 
Back along the country roads we went, the pony suit- 
ing himself as to gait, while we chatted and enjoyed the 
ride, noting the passing landscape and the wild things 
that' were the life of that perfect evening— truly one of 
those "rare June days." El Comancho. 
Camp of Two Cranks. 
■White "Water River, Indiana. 
{Continued from page 204). 
On going down to our wash stand, three or four rods 
below the tent, at a place Avhere we could get down to 
the water without jumping off the bank, we found the 
stream 4 or sin. lower than it was the evening before, 
and considerably clearer, caused, as we figured it out, 
by the stopping of the mill above over night, as_ after an 
hour or so it began to rise agjiitt and get milky and 
muddy looking as before. 
Tom bewailed over the condition of the water, and i 
got in a fcAV bewails myself to encourage him, tdl he 
came near forgetting to put the coffee in the pot when 
we had the breakfast about ready. (Always make your 
coffee at the last, and you have it at its best, as my old 
friend Joe Githens used to -say, "you get the full aurora 
of it.") , . , , 
Tom wound up his bewailing with "no wonder the 
bass won't bite much, when they can't see a minny 3in. 
from their nose,' and we sat down to breakfast with fried 
cat and bass for the main attraction; these fried in the 
extra frying-pan by themselves so we would be sure 
to get the full "aurora of 'em." 
While fishing along the rips after breakfast Bill came 
through the corn with his big bucketful of the finest 
kind of chubs and black "riffle suckers," at least twelve 
dozen in all— enough with those we had to last us over 
a week, even had the water been clear. He got his pay 
Tor the minnows, talked fish a while, relieved himself 
of a budget of village and neighborhood gossip that 
he was "bustin' " with, inspected our camp to his sat- 
isfaction and took his departure, turning at the edge of 
the corn to say, "I'm comin' up this way Sunday raornin' 
to shave an ole feller 'bout two mile above, an' then I'll 
come back an' stay with ye till yer ready to pack up 
in the evenin' an' start to town. I'll come up with 
Dais', an' ye know Dais' don't 'low no grass to, grow 
under her feet, so we needn't leave here till after dark 
if ye don't want to. So long," and he was off through 
the corn, and a minute or so after we heard him talking 
to Dais', and then the quick hoof-beats on the pike 
and the rattle, of the wagon, as they went flying toward 
town. 
Bill was a village "charackter, we learned from a 
neighbor, who had seen better days. Four or five years 
before he had been left a snug little fortune of several 
thousand dollars by a relative, but an overfondness for 
"John Barley Corn" and the treachery of pretended 
friends had cleaned him out of his last dollar, and now 
he was "grubbin' " 'round the hotel for his board and 
wash and an occasional quarter maybe; however, he 
was as happy as a lark, and didn't seem to have^a care 
in the world. 
"Bill has a heart in him as big as an ox," said our 
informant, "and is always ready to go out of his way 
to do a friend or neighbor a good turn. Bill knows 
everybody in the village and surrounding country, and 
everybody knows Bill and likes him, but his besetting 
weakness keeps him down, more's the pity, for Bill is 
a good fellow." 
Other Bills there are in the land who are in the 
clutches of "Mister Barley Corn," more's the pity too. 
When Bill had gone I selected a couple of dozen min- 
nows, and putting" them in an extra bucket took my way 
up the stream to fish some likely looking holes we had 
seen the day before as we went up in the wagon, leav- 
ing Tom to fish near the camp and keep an eye on it, 
which he said he preferred to wading the creek a dozen 
times or more without rubber boots; however, he's 
ra:rely in a thoroughly good fishing humor till he's wet 
to the knees at least, and I have known him on one or 
two occasions to slip off a steep bank into a deep hole 
and go out of sight, but come up "a-pufiin' an' a-smil- 
in'," crawl out, build a fire, dry his clothes a garment at 
a time and go to fishing again as if it were a part of 
the regular performance, I poked along up, wading the 
stream now and then when it was shalloAv and only a 
rod or so in width, fishing a hole here and there, without 
getting a symptom of a bite in the most "fishy" looking 
places. 
About a half mile above camp the stream made an- 
other elbow, running squarely against the foot of a 
bluff near the road, at which point there was a long, 
deep, quiet poql, except for a slight current in the cen- 
ter, made by the rush of water at the tail of the riffle 
above, that I -^vas willing to wager had bass in it that 
would run from T to 5lbs. and over, and I was hoping to 
go back from there to camp with a string of 'em that 
would rattle Tom so badly that he couldn't tell the butt 
of his rod from the tip, or when supper time came. Up 
near the head of the pool, on the side of the stream I 
was on, the baUk was 15 or 18ft. high and nearly straight 
up and down, and with no beach along its base to afford 
a toe hold even; this condition due probably to the 
wash of former floods. Nearly at the extreme head of 
the pool was an immense sycamore stump that the 
floods had caused to slide down til! its naked roots on 
the outside were deep in the water; its top being 6 or 
7ft. below the level of the top of the bank. Around back 
of the perpendicular wall I made my waj^ up a gradual 
slope from the sandbar on which I stood, through thick 
bushes and briers, to where I could look down on the 
stump, the point from which I wanted to do my fishing. 
With minnow bucket and rod in one hand, I slid down 
the steep bank till I found a safe footing near the old 
stump, and the ftm was about to begin — in my mind. 
I hooked on a big chub and cast out in the gentle cur- 
rent a few yards from the bank and let the line run off 
the reel till the^ minnow was 150ft. away, down toward 
the bluff, and then reeled in cpiietly and gently till the 
minnow was almost directly under me along "the sub- 
merged roots of the stump. This performance was re- 
peated a dozen times or more without a strike. 
"Curious," I said to myself, "if there are any bass in 
the stream from source to mouth they ought to be right 
here in this pool," and then I cast across toward the 
further bank several times, and away down and across 
to near another great stump anchored out in the stream 
with water all around it — a famous place for a big bass 
to harbor. No strike, after covering nearly every avail- 
able square yard of water in the pool. Then I "still- 
fished," with a cork on the line, along the mass of roots 
beneath me, where the water was loft. deep, till I was 
tired of holding the rod, and with all this patient careful, 
conscientious fishing I had failed to get a solitary 
nibble. 
I had started in to paralyze Tom with astonishment 
at the string of bass I would take out of that hole — but 
I didn't. "The de'il take the luck and the bass," I said 
to myself — probably these were not the exact 
words — and I reeled up. pulled up the minnow bucket 
from the water where it had been hanging by a piece 
of strong twine, climbed to the top of the bank with the 
aid of a friendly bush and headed uo stream again, thor- 
oughly disgruntled and chock full of disappointment 
for a few minutes, for never was there a likelier looking 
piece of water for a big bass, and never had an old 
crank fished it with more care and anticipation. 
I waded across the stream a .short distance further up 
and fished a few minutes in a less promising hole and 
didn't get a bite, but I didn't care much, for I was get- 
ting used to hard luck and poor fishing, or both, as the 
case might be. 
A few rods further along the stream swung around to 
the right, toward Yankeetown. and I followed it alon.g, 
wading a good part of the time and fishing a little 
occasionally in a strip of deep water here and there, till 
I came to the outflow of the tail race of the flouring 
mill. 
Here was a mighty enticing looking place for bass, 
and I hoped to make up for the time wasted below, but 
a half hour's careful fishing failing to get a strike or any 
sign of one. I went back to the ford, and following the 
dirt road out to the pike took the back track for camp, 
nursing a large notion that I would haA^e to begin all 
over again and learn how to fish for bass. 
When I got to the loAver end of the big pool, which I 
could overlook from the road 40 or 50ft. above it, and 
which I could have jerked a stone into, I set my face 
resolutely against its allurements and passed sturdily 
by and down the hill looyds. further on to' the stream 
below, splashing heedlessly across it at divers riffles and 
shallow places, to save distance, looking hardly to the 
right or to the left, till I reached the camp in a frame 
of mind that was little less than "overpowerin'." And 
yet after thinking it all over I was not so much dis- 
appointed after all; I had really enjoyed the tramp, even 
though I had failed to stir a fin, for it was a perfect day, 
soft and hazy and dreamy, and the woods and hills alon.sr 
the river were resplendent in their October dress of red 
and gold and russet brown. Verily, to quote again, 
"It is not all of fishing to fish." 
"Tom was fishing at the lower ripraps, but set his rod 
when he saw me and came up to camp. I was looking- 
for it and it came. 
"What luck. Hickory?" 
For answer I pulled my fish stringer out of my pocket, 
still unrolled, and laid it on the table, and then the" 
graceless rascal sat down on a camp stool and rocked 
himself back and forth with his hands on his knees, 
and laughed till I felt like pitching him over the bank 
into the river. Looking at it from Tom's point of view 
I had to join in the laugh, and when we got through 
we built a fire, made a hasty pot of coffee, ate a cold 
bite and went down to where he had left his rod, and 
the "snickerin' cuss" pulled up out of the murky water 
a string of five fair-sized bass, and reaching for an- 
other stringer near by lifted out on the rocks a couple. . 
of catfish, one a "yaller cat" of about i54lbs.. and the 
other a channel a trifle heavier than the other one, and 
then he chuckled some more. He had been "a-layin" 
for old Hickory" for many moons, and now that he had 
"wiped his eye," so to speak, on two different days he 
was tickled to the core. 
I left him sitting on his rock that he said he had stuck 
to all day. and with rod and minnow bucket followed 
the path along the bank through the bushes to a point 
20 or 30yds. below, where the stream widened and got 
deeper, and went to fishing in just about the right humor 
to jerk the jaw off the first thing that bit — bass, cat, 
carp or mtid turkey. I put a very small cork on th^ 
