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FOREST AND STREAM. 
(jvLY 30, 1898. 
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Calamity* 
"See the calamity!" 
The exclamation came with a shout from an irreverent 
small boy that did not know he was "hooting at" the 
minister and one of his chief supporters, meekly and 
gladly following the example of an apostle. 
Calamity is a name more or less locally applied to a 
two-wheeled canoe cart, towed behind a buggy, on 
which in this case bounced a crate folding canoe and 
a bundle of blankets; while in the buggy bounced our- 
selves and the grub and kit. Literally bounced, for 
the road was rough and the horse of the kind that makes 
a long road short. 
Twenty-eight miles that morning found us hailing 
Uncle Solomon before midday for stabling for the horse 
and transportation for the dunnage over the remaining 
eight miles, six of which was tote road, to the lake. 
A hearty host and a hearty meal are good companions 
for hungry travelers, but we lingered little, desiring to 
be far on the way to camp before long shadows fell. 
That team was a queer combination, if we include the 
load. A preacher and a tinsmith, crate canoe and camp 
outfit, pulled by a contrary horse which was driven by 
a member of the State Legislature, for such was Uncle 
Solomon. 
For two miles all went smoothly, the smooth road ex- 
tended that far; then we turned to brooks and rocks, 
logs and stumps, mud and mire. Patient Uncle Solo- 
mon managed the balky horse finely until half the 
distance was passed, when the beast thought he had been 
bossed long enough, and cut short the matter by running 
against a rock of forbidding height, with the result of 
breaking the shafts and spilling the load. 
Uncle Solomon wisely determined to go home horse- 
back. We unwisely determined to carry in the rest of 
the way. 
Now, that road was crooked and branched in many 
places. We did not know, until experience proved it, 
that Uncle Solomon had taken us on to a wrong branch 
of the road. 
Everything was awkward to carry. We had said in our 
might, "Bother the horse," but he had bothered us in- 
stead. All the fun was in prospective; the only realiza- 
tion just then was the sweat of our brows as we slump- 
ed and stumbled along. That was an elastic road. It 
stretched out. 
Just as shadows were merging into blackness, we 
caught sight of water where we did not expect it, and 
turning away from the trail, found ourselves alongside of 
a small duck pond, through which the outlet of the lake 
we sought flowed; but that lake was miles away. 
Heavy clouds were sweeping over the sky, and rain 
was beginning to fall. Fortunately we had struck the 
pond at a clearing made by the wangan camp of the 
spring river drivers, and a pile of camp wood and the 
tent poles they had left made it possible for us to be 
quickly sheltered and enjoying a rousing fire, while we 
prepared a hearty suppen. 
Fifteen minutes' work took all the roots and stumps 
out of our bed, and we cut brush enough and dried it 
piece by piece in the fire, to make a comfortable shake- 
down. You don't catch experienced campers rolling and 
twisting in discomfort all night unless they are beastly 
lazy. 
It rained all night, but we did not know it until the 
next morning. From the time that Ad. blew out the 
lantern until daylight we were in SAveet, restful obli- 
vion. 1 '!.,•'{* 
To stretch the canoe, joint the rods and paddle to 
where the stream swirled into the lake was but a few 
minutes' w T ork. How the trout did bite! A dozen satis- 
fied us for the present, and they were hardly done swim- 
ming in water before they were swimming in pork fat, 
with just enough butter added, as they were nearly 
done, to brown them. 
Glorious fire, sheltering tent, delicious trout, Ai coffee, 
huge appetites. What a combination! 
After breakfast the tent came down and we prepared to 
go up stream. A flat-bottomed folding canoe, but 12ft. 
long, is not much good to pole up rapids, as we found 
out by experience. 
The first plunge we tried succeeded in plunging us head 
first into the deep pool at its base, from which we were 
compelled to rescue fry pan and kettle by diving for 
them. The grub firkin and bedding floated. 
As the stream came down too much to permit us to 
go up in the canoe, we found the driver's path on the 
right bank and carried for half a mile. From here all 
was easy. We passed over one lake, then through a 
thoroughfare of dead water, and found ourselves at last 
where we had expected to be last night, in the old log 
camp near the spring brook. This camp was sheathed 
with splits and had a shingled roof, almost a palace in a 
wilderness. 
After a day of successful fishing and a night of rest, 
the longing to explore came upon us, and we determined 
to run the stream and lakes to Chase's Mill. 
A late start brought us to the original duck pond 
just in time to see a buck of respectable size taking his 
bath and lunching on the tender weeds along the water's 
edge. Before he saw us we had drifted so near him that 
he stood astonished for an instant and then, telegraph- 
ing his heels that the case was urgent, my! how he did 
make the water fly! 
Just below the pond we found rapids down on a line 
until darkness compelled .us to camp. This was easily 
done, in a beautiful thicket of fir and cedar, intermingled 
with white birch. The lantern gave us abundance of 
light, and the little axe quickly provided for our com- 
fort. ■ 
Thanks to the man who invented the baker tent! 
Stripping off our wet clothes, we donned the dry under- 
garments that common sense had brought along, and 
while we slept the fire warmed us and dried our clothes. 
Three miles more of navigable stream, from which 
we picked out many a fine trout as we passed along, 
then we took the last plunge into Rockabema Lake and 
swinging to the. landing prepared dinner. This lake has 
some large trout in it. We had no bait pail, but packed 
the trout already caught in the firkin, and with the dip 
net caught a host of red fins and silver chub from an 
eddy near by. Putting the little fellows in the fish basket, 
we fastened down the cover and laboriously towed the 
basket to a good fishing ground some distance from 
the inlet. 
"This is a good place, Ad. Give me a bait." 
Ad. pulled up the basket, opened it, and looked in, also 
looked blank. Every shiner had gone out through a 
strap hole. 
"Calamity. Calamity!" 
We got more bait, and also some fine large fish to 
make the string look big when we showed off at home, 
then ran the remaining two miles of stream; hired con- 
veyance across seven miles of country to Uncle Solo- 
mon's, hitched up the frisky horse, and started in the 
darkness for our distant home. 
The first mile was all down hill. The horse was 
hard bitted and we let him go, with the result that at a 
particularly hard jounce the pole of the calamity broke 
short off and flop went the contents of the cart. 
Did some one have an experience like this early in 
that vehicle's history? And was that the origin of its 
present name? 
Yankee grit came along just as that pole came off. 
Luckily by the roadside we found a crotch that lashed 
into place on the cart and made as good a pole as heart 
could wish. 
Our calamities were ended, but not our ride. The re- 
flector lantern gave us good command of the road. The 
anxious horse drove better and better as he neared his 
stable; good companionship shortened the hours. 
The last experience that night was to rouse up the 
cook and give, order to: 
"Have some of those small trout fried for break- 
fast, sure." Ktaadn. 
The Colonel. 
If is over. 
In the ripeness of time he has passed away to the 
happy hunting grounds. 
He was eighty-five years old when he died, they tell 
me, but who would have thought it? So strong was he, 
so upright and so active to the very last moment, when 
the works of that most mysterious of nature's workman- 
ship, after eighty-five years of unceasing motion, sud- 
denly stopped 'and refused to move further. 
And the old-timer has made his final bivouac to awak- 
en no more until the dawn of that fairer day. 
We laid him to rest in the place of his choice, be- 
neath the wide-spreading branches of a venerable live 
oak, on the very spot where, two and sixty years be- 
fore, he had stood rifle in hand and faced the murder- 
ous Mexicans throughout two long bloody days, in 
defense of the helpless babes and hearthstone of his 
neighbor. 
He had seen life. Yes, there was nothing left in the 
pitcher for him to drink when it was broken at the 
fountain. 
He had hunted the buffalo across the plains of the 
mighty West when they were as thick as the leaves of 
the forests when the autumn frosts have stripped the 
trees of their summer garb. 
He has lassoed the flying mustang, and stalked the 
good red deer, with no one to dispute his lordly claim 
save the savage red man of the plains. 
He had been hunter, scout and guide when the white- 
winged fleets of prairie schooners navigated the path- 
less plains, long before the civilizing bands of steel 
had heralded the onward march of progress across the 
trackless wilderness. 
He is an honored figure in the panorama of his coun- 
try's history, and while no braggart, he loved to take 
down from his scant shelves a certain history from Ban- 
croft's pen wherein the great writer pays him a glowing 
tribute as a soldier and patriot. 
He was a hunter to the last. 
How often, by the glow of the cheerful camp-fire, have 
1 listened in wrapt silence to the quaint and simple 
stories of the past as they fell from his lips. It seemed 
like an echo of the ghosts of the dead this listening to liv- 
ing words of history, of times almost as remote, in point 
of progress, as the crusades from the reform. 
It sounded so strangely weird and unusual, those tales 
of the days when the telegraph and the telephone existed 
only in the dreams of the inventors; when it took six 
months to cross the plains; when the cap and patched 
ball were the pride of the hunter's heart, and the flint- 
lock still held an honored place in the affections of the 
woodsmen. 
He had kept a kind of diary of the more exciting por- 
tions of his life, and a short time before he died it was 
my fortune to prevail upon him to give me the collection 
of" dingy scrawls, a precious heritage to the lover of old 
portraits of the past. I am going to cull those portions 
that I deem .of most interest to the readers of Forest 
and Stream, and they shall be the subject of future 
sketches. 
As an index to the old Colonel's daring nature, I will 
narrate an occurrence which happened a short time be- 
fore his death. 
He owned a plantation about a dozen miles from 
town, and was in the habit of spending much of his time 
there, as it was on the borders of the San Jacinto cane- 
brakes, the best place in the whole country for hunting. 
He had a pack of about twenty dogs, and half of them 
followed hrrn around wherever he went. One day the 
old man started back to town, attended by a single ser- 
vant and the usual retinue of dogs. While riding 
through the bottom the dogs struck a fresh trail, and he 
could not resist the music of their baying, so, urging his 
old mule to a run he followed, with the negro boy at 
his heels. After two or three miles' chase the hounds 
brought the quarry to bay in a large moss-festooned 
live oak. 
Dismounting, the Colonel managed to locate the ob- 
ject of their ire in a crotch of the tree about 20ft. from 
the ground; it was a big panther, one of the fiercest 
brutes that infest the Texas forests. He was in a quandary- 
as he stood there looking the grinning creature in the 
eyes. He was without arms of any kind, and the negro 
had nothing of an offensive or defensive nature save an 
old spring back jack-knife, and that would be of little use 
against the cruel claws of one of the most active of 
animals. 
However, he could not stand letting the beast get . 
away without something of a brush, anyhow, so cutting 
a long sapling the old man split one end, and by means 
of buckskin thongs, cut from his saddle, made the jack- 
knife fast in the cleft, thus forming a crude spear. He 
then ordered the negro to climb up the tree a few feet 
within reach of the panther and punch him out, but Sam- 
bo claimed he could not climb "wuth a cent." The 
Colonel threatened him with his whip, but terror strip- 
ped it of its potency to enforce his master's commands, 
and he protested that he dared not go where so brave a 
man as the "Kunnel war 'fraid to go." 
This was all that was required to bring the Colonel's 
dander up to the right pitch, and shinning up the tree 
as lively as a youth of twenty, he gave the panther a 
vicious jab in the neck with his rickety spear. 
Now, according to the Colonel's knowledge of the ani- 
mal, as a well-behaved, gentlemanly panther, and accord- 
ing to his calculations and expectations, it should have 
jumped among the dogs and fought a battle royal for 
life and liberty, or succumbed gracefully to its fate, but 
it is always the unexpected in life which happens. 
The panther turned loose all holds, and came down 
upon the astonished Colonel like a bag of bricks. 
The Colonel, taken by surprise and at a disadvantage, 
let go his grip on the tree, and they hit the ground on 
the same spot. 
Had the Colonel been alone, I fear me there would 
have been little more to tell, but the dogs were there, old 
Tige, Hector and Tip, and a dozen others of the young- 
er members of the tribe, the doughty champions of a 
hundred fights, and while they loved their master well, 
their untutored canine hearts were too doggily bred to 
stand back and look on while he was having all the fun 
to himself. So when he and the panther struck the 
ground the yelling pack arrived on top, and those that 
could not find a place to grab hold of the panther grab- 
bed each other and their master. 
For about thirty seconds everybody was happy, and 
the air was filled with fur and scraps of clothing, and 
profanity, but after a while the Colonel managed to turn 
loose and withdraw from action, a sadly demoralized 
and much scratched combatant. 
As for the faithful Sambo, he suddenly bethought him- 
self of his wife and babes and growing crops, and left 
for home. 
In the meantime the fight was on, all rules disregarded. 
The varmint tried to get back on the tree, but could 
not climb with his wonted ease while handicapped with 
about fourteen hundredweight of dogs linked to him like 
a string of sausages, so he became resigned to the in- 
evitable and concluded he would as leave fight anyway. 
The scale - of battle swerved up and down on either 
side, now it was the dogs and now the panther that would 
be on top of the revolving mass. Presently old Tige, the 
Colonel's pet pup, withdrew, one of his ears had vanished 
and a major section of his scalp was pulled down over 
his eyes. Fie would fight anything, on earth he could lay 
his eyes on, the Colonel said, but it was a mean trick 
to render him hors de combat by blindfolding him with 
his own hide, and the Colonel could stand it no longer, 
especially as Tige's discomfiture seemed to have its ef- 
fect on the younger dogs. 
Taking his heavy quirt, leaded at the butt, the Colonel 
wound the lash around his waist, and drew close to the 
fight to watch for a chance to get in his work. Then the 
panther turned up on top, and the old man let drive with 
all his might, but unluckily they reversed just at the 
wrong moment, and the mighty blow fell across the spine 
of Tige's only living son, and the spine gave way with 
a snap. But he was more fortunate the next time, and 
managed to plant a disabling blow across the creature's 
hindquarters, which paralyzed its use of the terrible hind 
claws, and the dogs were not slow to recognize their new 
ally and take advantage of his work, and so after a few 
moments' pounding with the quirt and mauling by the 
dogs, the brute became quiet enough for the Colonel to 
cut his throat. 
And then the procession wound its way sadly town- 
ward; the Colonel,- as he afterward put it, looking as 
though he had taken a trip through one of his own 
. cotton gins, and the dogs were minus most of their ears 
and skins. 
The panther was one of the largest I ever beheld, and 
few men would have cared to tackle the ugly thing even 
though backed by a dozen dogs. 
I have the Colonel's memoirs of the more exciting 
incidents of his lifetime. He placed them in my hands 
to satisfy a desire on my part to read something of the 
frontier in early days, and after his death his son kind- 
ly permitted me to keep them, knowing the liking the 
old man had taken to me. 
He had been the friend and companion of John C. Cal- 
houn, had fought a duel at the age of seventeen, and kill- 
ed his man, and in consequence had been forced to fly 
to the then wilds of Texas, and had taken an active part 
in the stirring incidents of Texas history, as well as play- 
ed a glorious game of cunning and skill with the beasts 
of the woods and the plains. 
He was the friend of Crocket and of Bowie, and to- 
gether they had roamed the plains when the buffalo and 
the mustang was as plentiful as the leaves of the forest 
in autumn time, and had lerned woodcraft from the cun- 
ning red man, the children of the woods. 
And so the last of the old-timers is gone, and we will 
soon have to look to tradition alone for our tales of 
what has been. David Llewellyn'. 
Texas. 
Thorns vs. Tacks — "I refuse to give you money with 
which to purchase a wheel," said the stern Darent. "You 
are a thorn in my flesh." - "And you," replied the dis- 
appointed youth, "are a tack in mv path." — Chicago 
News. 
