t^Efi. 27, 1904. jl 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
16$ 
the annoyance of wild beasts, the anxiety as to climate, 
the fear of the prowling savage. Yet the work was 
done, and to-day, from the Alleghenies to the Pacific, 
we behold its results. 
Through hard experience these pioneers had come 
to understand life. They possessed a due sense of 
proportion. They saw the things which were essential; 
they scorned those which were trivial. If, judged by 
certain standards, they were rough and uncouth, if they 
spoke a strange tongue, wore odd apparel, and lived 
narrow lives, they were yet practicing — albeit uncon- 
sciously — the virtues — unflinching courage, sturdy in- 
dependence and helpfulness to their neighbors — which 
made America what it is. 
In the work of travel and exploration in that far 
West of which we used to read, the figure which stands 
out boldest and most heroic of all is unnamed. Beard- 
ed, buckskin-clad, with rough fur cap, or kerchief 
tied about his head, wearing powder horn and ball 
pouch, and scalping knife, and carrying his trusty Haw- 
kins rifle, the trapper — the coureur des bois— was the 
man who did the first work in subduing the wild West, 
the man who laid the foundations on which its present 
civilization is built. 
All honor to this nameless hero. We shall meet him 
often as we follow the westward trail. 
Geo. Bird Grinnell. 
Floating Down the Mississippi. 
VI. — Some People of the River — II, 
In the neighborhood of Cape Girardeau one notices the 
first reaches of the great swamp region of the Mississippi 
Basin. Heretofore there have been occasional trees on 
which ivy and grape vines grow, but now there is, on the 
west bank, a considerable stretch of swampy thicket, the 
leaves of which hang on limp stems and the scattered 
trees are embraced by deadly parasites which inevitably 
give an appearance of sadness to the landscape — at least 
so to my eyes, for of all horrible things, a parasite is the 
worst, even though it be fruitful and flower bearing. The 
grace is never so luxuriant as when twining over a frame 
harmlessly, and the loveliest creepers do not spend their 
lives combating with a victim in their coils. It seems 
to me that the feeling of melancholy which is in th'j 
southern climate comes of this feature in nature more 
than from anything else. 
Doubtless there are signs of the South far north of the 
Cap?, for Missouri with its lowlands and its mountains 
contains much that is from the South, and much that is 
from the North as well — an ideal State for those who 
would have two climates in one, but, forewarned by the 
alluvial maps, one looks more keenly about himself as 
he nears the locality at which the geographical change 
takes place. One would know without a map, after a 
time, that he had passed from between the bluffs of the 
upper Mississippi, for he would miss the beautiful — 
wonderfully beautiful — effects given by bare stone of 
rocky cliffs in the distance to the east as seen between 
the branches of waving willows at intervals — ra circum- 
stance the cartographers as early as 1713 did not fail to 
note, but for which modern commercial map makers have 
no eye. 
Thousands of maps showing the Mississippi have been 
made. _ Those by the Mississippi River Commission are 
gratifyingly accurate, and exceeding useful to the skiff 
traveler, even if the channel has shifted through some of 
the towns along the route, and gone to the far side of 
the islands since they were drawn, but they show the 
lines of the bluffs, where the willows and swamps are, 
and name the sloughs and landings. The first explorers 
had none of these, of course, and if any directions at all, 
it was a name and a few lines done on a piece of bark, 
with moons and suns to indicate the time it would take to 
go from one rude landmark to another. Later, the fron- 
tiersman, if he carried anything besides a compass to 
show the way, had rude wood engravings on which the 
picture of a house indicated a town, a picture of buffaloes, 
the prairie, and perhaps a tomahawk to show where to 
keep unusually keen lookout. It may be said that the 
modern fashion of locating scenes by money-order post- 
offices and railroad lines is best; perhaps so, but one, at 
least, did not enter the lower valley without a tinge of 
regret that so much of the old had been buried in the 
shifting sandbars. In a hundred years someone else will 
come down this stream, and seeing wide cultivated fields 
where the maps of 1900 show "lands liable to be flooded" 
to have been, will offer similar regrets as to the things 
that are before my eyes. What wonderful days will those 
of the nineteenth century be a thousand years hence ! 
On October 14 Jack and I reached the outlet of Big 
Lake, at the Mississippi Cairo ferry landing. Had we 
known, we could have saved miles by that slough from 
Buffalo Island. The City of McGregor was going over in 
a few minutes, so I crossed on her, and went into Cairo 
with its "Egypt Electric Railway Company" and other 
things eastern._ Cairo is a water-level town, protected by 
a levee, at which, during high waters, there is always an 
anxious watch kept lest a crevasse occur, and the place 
and the houses be floated around among themselves. 
Naturally in a town built on silt, at the junction of two 
such streams as the Mississippi and Ohio, one does not 
expect to see buildings of magnificent appearance — and 
he does not. The residents nod to the stranger and say 
"howdy," and the stores sell anything from groceries to 
drygoods in the country district fashion. At one butcher 
shop I was told a tough piece of meat "was the finest 
clover-fed beef I ever put in my month, and such a kind 
as the blink-blank chap down the street never thought of 
keeping." Three men scurried round to cut a thirty-five 
cent chunk off, and a silver dollar like to have stumped 
the change man. * 
We camped at the mouth of Big Lake slough for tha 
night, and welcomed its unstained waters after the steady 
diet of Mississippi mud. 
In the morning, when we had passed the mouth of the 
Ohio,_ there was a decided change in the appearance of 
the river. The increased depth was probably the cause 
of this, but it may have been the strong wind that sent 
«S scurrying to a sandbank to look around for a place to 
wait. Not finding any, we crept along close to the land, 
and far behind saw a certain D liner skiff, with a canvas 
"hog pen" over the stern. There were two men in it, 
and it was evident that they were coming in our trail, for 
the one at the oars rowed rapidly, pushing instead of 
pulling, and so having an easy view ahead. Not finding a 
place to our satisfaction. Jack and I managed to keep in- 
shore and get on some miles, and toward night reached 
Putney Bend, ten miles from Cairo, where we found S. 
M. Sugg and James N. Poole selling medicine from a 
cabinboat. Sugg is an ex-Rough Rider of Roosevelt's 
Volunteers, and Poole a remarkable river man, wearing 
a white collar. When asked what he was doing, he 
answered that he was doing everybody he could — prob- 
ably a not inaccurate description of himself. He had 
"worked most of the smaller river towns" for years, and 
both men were cheerful over the prospect before them on 
the river, for their medicines were going rapidly in ex- 
change for everything from flour to young turkeys and 
cash. One trading on the river must be prepared to 
accept anything in payment for his goods. Cash is not 
always to be had at the plantation landings, where the 
cabinboats do most of their business. 
We were just nicely acquainted with the medicine men 
when along came a light blue-eyed man, with a coat on 
his arm and a little yellow dog— the whole outfit an ex- 
ample of "protective coloring" for the river bank. He 
went to the houseboat and wanted to join them — "would 
work his way." Refused, he asked me if I didn't want 
someone to pull my boat for me, and my pardner gave 
him no opportunity by saying there was no opening in his 
boat. 
The cabinboat gave him something to eat, and he ate 
so hungrily that it was plain his fare had been hard lately. 
Late in the "eyening" Jack and I made up a lunch for 
him and gave him a quarter, for if he really was in straits 
it was a hard place to be so. 
Jack meantime had taken out his rifle and carried it on 
his shoulder up and down as he did camp work, finally 
putting up a stick and taking lengthy aim punched a char- 
coal spot, "Well, he can shoot, if he does wear glasses 1" 
our visitor said. 
The D liner (an Illinois river type of craft) cam',', 
down at this time, and, as Sugg said, the man "was belly- 
aching about the wind." He claimed to be a fisherman, 
and refused to take the man with the dog on board. The 
dog, by the way, "belonged to my daughter, who was 
twelve years old when she died, and she raised it herself 
on a bottle, so you won't blame me for taking care of 
it." He disappeared and then the "fisherman" in the 
D liner said he wouldn't camp on shore or the main- 
land, but only on islands. Jack, with his all in the Jo- 
boat, was for starting right on, but I refused, and at dusk ' 
we saw the D liner come ashore just around the bend 
below us in response to a hail from our man with the 
dog. It was plain that the men were pardners. 
We went up to the cabinboat, and with our duffle on 
board her, and the boats locked, slept securely enough. 
But it was not pleasant to know that these two genuine 
river rats were in the vicinity. 
On the following morning we ran out to a passing 
houseboat, learned that it was a fisherman outfit on the 
way down to the Obion, some miles below Carruthers- 
ville, where Jack was going, so we kept in sight of them 
for the next few days, sometimes ahead, sometimes be- 
hind, passing the time of day once in a while, and learn- 
ing that the D liner had come out of the Ohio just ahead 
of them. For five days the skiff was either just before 
or just behind us, running into sloughs if we stopped, 
and waiting for us to pass, and then dropping into our 
wake. It went into a rag-boat outfit off Point Pleasant 
on the 2ist, stayed there an hour, and then stopped in a 
slough just above Tiptonville until Jack and I passed by, 
and moving out to the mouth of the slough where our 
course could be watched, if that is what was wanted. 
To be dogged by river rats nearly a hundred miles is 
not a pleasant experience, nor one conducive to good 
temper, especially when one has a note-book full of the 
desperate crimes committed along the river. As for 
instance : 
A few years ago a storeboat owned by one Summers 
was expected to arrive at Reel Foot, a sister of the store- 
keeper's wife having received a letter that it was coming, 
and would be in about a certain date. The date came and 
went by, and no news was heard of them, and then one 
day a boat came down to the landing, and the man 
aboard asked some of the men ashore if they didn't want 
to buy some potatoes, of which he had a number of bags 
full. The men went aboard, found the potatoes to their 
liking, and some bags were purchased. One of the buyers 
was the brother-in-law of the storekeeper, and gazing 
around him, remarked : 
"Why, this looks like Summer's boat?" 
"I bought it of a man named Summers," was the boat- 
man's reply. 
"There's his toolchest, too— buy that?" another man 
asked, and then, suspicion being aroused, more questions 
were asked, terminated abruptly by the storeman grab- 
bing a gun behind the counter and ordering them off. 
"Of course they went, not being armed or nothing." 
Then the boat turned loose and dropped down the river. 
It was not out of sight before word came that Summers 
had been found murdered in the river ; whereupon a lot 
of men with guns ran down the river bank and caught up 
with the boat as it landed just above Carruthersville. 
The man within was captured, and when the sacking on 
the floor was moved, the stains of the crime were found. 
Both victims had been cut to death with an ax— a favorite 
river weapon. The man was sentenced to a considerable 
term in the penitentiary, but escaped. Hs had come t© 
the houseboat "to work his passage." The raurdef was 
done in the bloody miles below Cairo. 
Storeboats are favorite game with the rivef outlaws, 
and the storeboatmen tell fearful 'Cteriett ei the eacpef 
riences of their kind. 
Just above New Madrid Jack and I stopped at 2uth 
Landing, and Robison, a storeboat man, entertained ui 
with some choice selections of river life, beginning right 
at that landing. 
"See those niggers!" he said, just at dusk, "they go 
way out around thataway because of that man getting 
killed up there on those bank steps last spring." 
"How's that?" I asked. 
Well, you see, there was some brothers been to a 
whiskey boat, I expect, and borrowed a board of! tk« 
old man Redmond— he fished for a living— who had his 
camp there, to shoot craps on. It got dark " and th^- 
asked for the lamp of the old man's boy,- who was getting 
supper, and the boy wouldn't, so they up and shot the 
chimney off and tried to get the dog. The old man, down 
after a pail of water here, heard the boy yell, grabbed a 
corn knife that long" [about two feet] "and like to have 
killed one of the boys, till the other shot him, and then 
they put ten or twelve bullets into him. They're out on 
bail now, I expect. And say, there's that case of What's- 
his-name now— I'll ask my wife. Myra, what's the name 
of that man the niggers killed dowh to Bluejay Landing 
—why, yes, you do— that Cincinnati storeboat man— oh, 
yes, Don Bartlett, they got him last April—" 
"My goodness !" said Jack, rising from behind the store- 
boat stove, and going for our skiffs on the trot. He got 
my revolver, and sat the rest of the evening with it in 
his hands, saying, "By gracious, I want something to pro- 
tect myself with !" 
It made the old man nervous, and me, too, to listen to 
such stories at a landing where the negroes go way out 
around in order to aji^oid stepping on the sands that had 
been stained with blood. It gives a sense of realism to 
such stories not found elsewhere, and makes the river a 
very lonely place to the fearful ones. But one takes com- 
fort in the fact that if a man shoots a marauder he is not 
likely to be punished for it, even if murder. But he must 
be careful, else he is likely to be fined for carrying a 
revolver. The second mate of the steamer Stacker Lee 
killed a roustabout at Tiptonville last spring, and he's 
been under bonds ever since to answer the charge of 
carrying a revolver contrary to law. 
The Obion River houseboat passed Bessie just before 
dark, and on the following morning the wind drove her 
ashore for shelter, opposite New Madrid, and we fol- 
lowed, overtaking her, because Jack wanted company to 
Carruthersville, as I was to leave him at Tiptonville, in 
order to take a look at Reel Foot Lake aqd the Sunk 
Lands. The wind increased after we put out on the fol- 
lowing morning, but Jack and I refused to remain behind 
the sandbar just below the dull, bat historically interest- 
ing. New Madrid, having stopped behind the one at Hick- 
man, and breathed sand for hours because of the wind, 
so we crossed to the caving banks on the west side, and 
followed them to what seemed a fine chance for a cut-off 
of miles. Water was just pouring through a chute. 
Just the day before we had run Winchester "Chute, com- 
ing out where Island No. 10 used to be, scraping our 
keels on its historic sands, but this seemed so much bet- 
ter than that narrow and shallow place that it seemed 
worth risking; so in we went. Jack in the lead. 
When Jack began to use a pole and push and grunt and 
swear, I tied up, and after a while waded in to help tow 
through the quicksand. A long hour we passed there, 
but I happened to find a channel and only scraped the 
bottom once with my boat. The old keelboatman said, 
"Never take a chute on a falling river." It's good advice 
for modern skiffmen as well on the mighty river— unless 
he's anxious to know quicksand bars from the inside. 
The days, on the river had not been without their physi- 
cal effects upon Jack and me. The coffee to which I 
was not used upset my stomach, and it took time to get 
in focus for the grease which Jack put into even fat fresh 
beef for a pot roast, of which we had several, but by quit- 
ting thecoffee for strong lemonade — to Jack's disgust ! — and 
standing over my frying pan with ceaseless vigilance, in 
order to keep lard from my share of the beef, I was able 
to keep fairly in trim until Jack invested in some "Black- 
berry Tonic" at Robison's houseboat. I 'tasted the stuff 
to_ the extent of a teaspoonful, and Jack drank the rest, 
with the result that we were both knocked endwise, the 
"tonic" being just enough to upset systems that had come 
to be nicely balanced by the hardship and different kind 
of strain to what they were used. I was ready to go in- 
doors for a while, and Tiptonville, a cotton town, the 
only river gate to the Sunk Lands of Tennessee, offered 
an opportunity to rest and settle down preparatory for 
the swamp lands of eastern Arkansas ; so there I stopped, 
vyhile Jack went on the twenty odd mile's to his destina- 
tion at Carruthersville with the Obion River houseboat. 
Almost the Ust thing he said to me was : 
"I'm going/to have me a boat next spring, and I'll lire . 
on the river next winter. That's the kind of a life for 
an old man like mie. I can repair watches, tinware, and 
do little bits qf carpentering and mechanical work." In an 
open Jo-boat the river life had riot been overly hard; that 
in a houseboat would be perfectly comfortable, without 
a doubt, for old Jack, especially in a boat such as he 
would make. 
A river man is oftenest made in just this way; he starts 
down the stream looking, in good faith, for work, dis- 
covers a life so cheap, comfortable and laborless in the 
homes of the cabin people whom he meets that his heart 
yearns for it; so he saves and buys himself a cabinboat, 
or builds it, and a new inhabitant of the river appear*. 
Raymond S. Spears. 
More Cases of "It Just Happened So.** 
In Forest and Stream of February 13 there is an edi- 
torial entitled, "Crockett, Scott and the Coon." It shows 
that to Scott and not to Crockett was originally applied 
the coon story, but that it somehow was credited to 
Crockett, and to Crockett it will doubtless stick for all 
time. In the same issue — and only four pages beyond it 
—Mr. Wm. J. Long illustrates the correctness of the edi- 
torial contention. Again, when Mr. Brown precipitated 
the trouble about the red gods, and claimed that Kipling 
was "all off" in his line about "a couch of new pulled 
hemlock," and that such a couch wasn't fit to sleep on, 
and was never the choice of an experienced camper-out'-^ 
•r words to that effect— one had but to turn back a pag« 
•t two in that very issue to find an innocent correspond- 
ent describing his welcome camp bed made of that identi- 
cal material. C. H. Aum. 
All communications for Forest and Stsbam: mmst bt 
directed to Forest and Stream Pub. Co., Neva Yottk, to 
receive attention. We have no otitex oMee^ 
