262 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[April 2, 1898. 
Platt-Eye. 
Since the early part of this century the rice plantations 
of the South Carolina coast have been noted for the 
abundance of the game to be found in their vicinity. The 
gleanings of the rice fields attracted myriads of wild 
ducks; the adjacent swamps were the natural homes for 
no end of deer and wild turkeys; the pine woods were 
well stocked with quail; the small hummocks always 
had woodcock in the season; and the ricefield trunks 
enabled the planters to keep the fields in a state exactly 
suited to the tastes of snipe. The Chesapeake Bay peo- 
ple, indeed, bragged immensely over their celery-fed can- 
vasbacks and their salt-water terrapin, but the rice plant- 
ers knew the flavor which rice gives to flesh of mallard 
and teal, and having themselves plenty of diamond- 
back terrapin, they declared that the big, fat, yellow- 
bellied cooter and the soft-shell turtle were better before 
breakfast than the terrapin could be all day; and though 
the naultitude of men and guns have reduced the abun- 
dance of game of all sorts, in all parts of the United 
States, no localities have suffered less than the vicini- 
ties of the rice fields. Universally thrown out of culti- 
Mr. F., coming home from his rice fields, was told 
that Joe and Jack Bush had just killed an ox near his 
cow-pen, and were even then butchering it. Taking his 
gun, he went there, and as he approached he was fired 
on with a load of buckshot and killed. Naturally there 
was a hue and cry among the neighboring planters to 
catch Joe and Jack Bush; but as some time passed 
without their being able to find them, one of the neigh- 
bors, a Mr. Huggins, thought to utilize as a detective 
one of his negroes, named July, who occasionally went 
on a little runaway, as a toper who has acquired the 
habit will go on a spree. An attractive reward was of- 
fered July, and he ran away. Some two weeks after- 
ward he came secretly to Mr. H. at night and told that 
Joe and Jack were hidden in a large swamp, called Kil- 
sook Bay, but that they were uneasy and had planned 
to come the next night to South Island and steal a boat 
and cross to North Island, and thence perhaps to the 
main. South Island could only be reached by one road, 
over a large causeway, and Huggins next day planned 
with eleven of the neighboring planters to ambush the 
road that night at the head of the causeway. 
That something remarkable took place during the 
night with the ambushing party was known to every- 
returning. As it came opposite all twelve again fired, 
but again it passed on. Then they got out in the road 
to look for tracks, or blood, when it was seen returning. 
They faced it in line and all fired again. Through the 
smoke one man saw a figure coming directly on him. 
He jumped out of the road into a shallow ditch on the 
side, and the figure passed on and was seen no more. 
Now this story would have seemed far stranger to 
me than it does had it not happened that between 1861 
and 1865 I had a good deal of experience of the ability 
of a few men watching together at night, and with guns 
in their hands, to see something to shoot. Two men 
' will certainly see four times as much as one man, and 
I think twelve men will see 144 times as much; so if 
we can account for about I-I44th part of the mystery we 
may let the other I43-I44ths take care of themselves. But 
even the i-i44th part was worth looking after, and one 
day, out on a camp hunt with Adam, a man of color, an 
old trapper, and very learned in all the ways of all var- 
mints, natural or unnatural, I asked him: "Adam, did 
you ever hear of Joe and Jack Bush?" "Oh, yes sir," said 
Adam, "I hear of them ever since I been born. They 
scare bad children with them way down till after the 
war; tell them 'Joe Bush catch you.' " "Well, Adam, 
THE INDIANS OF THE NEW ENGLAND EXPOSITION. 
With Mr. Antonio Apache, Superintendent of the Indian Camp. 
Photo by N. L. Stcbbins, for Forest and Stream. 
vation during the war, and their owners impoverished, 
not one-fourth of them have even yet been restored to 
civilization. Off the lines of travel, and with a very 
sparse white population, there is still to be found about 
them not only an unusual amount of the game of former 
days, but also among the colored population many of the 
superstitions and customs of the days of slavery, which 
have entirely passed away in communities where the 
whites have been in greater proportion. It is still not a 
very rare thing among them for a healthy person to die, 
apparently, solely from a conviction that he or she has 
been hoodooed by some expert in this secret art. And 
it was among them that the writer, though born and 
raised and always living in the cotton belt of the South, 
quite recently first heard of the "Platt-eye," a mysterious 
creature whose habitat seems limited to the rice belt of 
South Carolina, and about which the reader will know 
more, perhaps, when he has finished this story. 
And it will contribute to that end if I tell how I 
first came to hear of him. It was in the investigation 
of a story of a very strange affair, in the early 20s, which 
still survives, both among white and black, in the vi- 
cinity of its occurrence. , 
A plantation famous in those days, both for its abun- 
dant game and for its great rice crops, was South Isl- 
and, lying between the Santee River and Winyaw Bay. 
The rivers draining the greater part of South Carolina, 
and a wide belt through North Carolina into Virginia, 
discharge into the sea on the two sides of the island. 
So much fresh water permitted an immense area border- 
ing the rivers to be planted in rice, and wherever the 
food is the game is gathered together. The owner of 
the plantation was a Mr. Ford, and two of his slaves, 
Joe and Jack Bush, had for some years been runaways 
and outlaws, living in the swamps, whence they made 
forays to supply themselves with what they wanted, 
either from \vhit« or hhkk. One evening about dark 
body, white and black, by' the heavy firing which was 
heard; but Joe and Jack Bush were not captured, and 
some months afterward, when Joe was killed and Jack 
wounded and captured, as will be related presently, he 
told that he and Joe were indeed coming that night, as 
July had said they would, and that they were within a 
mile of the spot when they heard the firing begin. Nat- 
urally they took another direction and kept themselves 
safe for many months; then, having once successfully 
robbed a trading boat on the Santee River, they incau- 
tiously tried to repeat the operation. But the second 
time they struck upon a decoy boat fixed up to catch 
them, and Jack was finally hanged at Georgetown for 
murder. 
That is the end of the story and of Joe and Jack, and 
now we will go back to the night of the ambush, for 
there is where Platt-eye comes in. The ambushers either 
could not or would not tell, generally, any definite story 
of their experiences. Tradition has it only that they 
saw "something" and shot at it in vain. But I re- 
ceived the following details in a quite direct channel from 
one of the participants, a Mr. A. My informant was 
a Mr. M., who when a boy had been very intimate with 
a son of A. This son died, and young M. sat up with 
the body the night before the funeral. During the night 
he asked Mr. A. about this ambush, and Mr. A. told 
him the story of what happened, as follows: The am- 
bushers were all on the same side of the road, behind 
the scattered tall pines, or crouching in low grass. The 
night was clear, bitt with no moon. About midnight the 
man at the end of the line, in the direction where the 
Bushes were expected, saw a figure passing along the 
road. Pie hailed it, and getting no answer, fired both 
barrels at it. The figure passed on, and all the rest 
fired both barrels as it passed, and all without effect. 
Loading quickly, they got together, discussing how they 
ccfuld have missed, when suddenly the figure was S€«n 
did you ever hear about the planters trying to ambush 
Joe and Jack, and shooting at something which they 
could not hit?" 
"Oh, yes, sir; the colored folks knowed all about that. 
They hearn the guns." 
"Well, Adam, what was that they shot at?" 
"That? Why, that was jest a Platt-eye." 
"A what?" " ] 
"Why, a Platt-eye." 
"Well, Adam, what is a Platt-eye?" 
"Well, sir, you see in them days there was heap of 
mighty smart people among the colored folks, and they 
knowed all about root work; and the Platt-eye was 
something they made to protect themselves against the 
patrollers, 'cause the planters would sometimes patrol 
the roads at night to keep the people from going about 
to other plantations; so the Platt-eye was something — 
it might be like a big bird — to come and light on your 
head and flap you with its wings; or it might be like a 
dog, and come and run between your legs and trip you 
up. But you hit at it, and you just knock yourself; you 
fight it, and you beat yourself almost to death. Then 
it can change itself. First it might be an old sow, and 
after it tangle you all up and make you most kill your- 
self, it might change to a cow and trample all over you 
shameful. That was what one did to a man on the Max- 
well place once, and it pretty nigh ruined him." 
"Why, Adam, are there any about here now?" 
"Oh, yes sir; you see them old-time people, they 
made 'em, and they left them about in places', and they 
stay around there yet. I'll tell you where one stay. You 
know that hole where they digs clay to clay the seed 
rice with, just beyond the Daisy Bank place? Well, one 
stay right about there." 
"Well, Adam, did you ever see one?" 
"Lor', yes, sir; I seen 'em heaps of times; but they 
can't hurt me, 'cause I knows hoAv to do. All you got 
