Nov. 26, 1904.3 
F O RE ST AND , STREAM . 
443 
to town "to buy." Here and there among the rest a man 
would sink down in his chair out of sight. In a moment there 
would appear the white bottom of a flat quart bottle above 
the back of the chair, and wiggle around in concentric 
circles, seeking a center, the dark fluid within agitated 
considerably by ascending bubbles that burst in spray 
sparkling in the lamp light. Then the bottle would curve 
down over out of sight, and pretty soon the man who 
went down would come up again smiling. 
A couple of ladies were across the aisle, and one seat 
further back from the cotton buyer and me. "Will you 
lend me your knife ?" one asked me. She wanted to peel 
apples. . . 
We were whirled along, not very fast, passing sawmill 
towns and railroad stations that were twenty feet above 
the level of the ground. Marked Tree, the famous saw- 
mill town of the Arkansas Swamps, was a-blaze with 
electric lights from dynamos in one of the big sawmills— 
a town built on stilts, and one side of it owned by Ritter, 
who came there a $i.2S-a-day man, and now runs a store 
and most of the place, after a very few years of business 
dealings and much fish-netting. 
Bvyond this was Pickett, nine miles distant; and at 
Pickett I came out on a platform the edge of which was 
a jumping-off place 15 or 20 feet high. Here some other 
men got off, and Mr. Mitchell met us, and some fussing 
around by the light of lanterns followed as baggage was 
looked after. We all went down a flight of stairs and 
the baggage was slid down two inclined peeled saplings. 
At the foot were rails, and on them a hand-car with seats 
along each side and handles to work it by. On this piled 
all hands, and almost everybody grabbed the handles. 
The car began to click and wriggle, and clump over the 
iron rails. One felt the butted air cold on his face, while 
a big lantern reflector light showed the rails leading along 
on top an embankment between two forests ; very dense 
and dark the depths seemed, too. After a time a light 
was discovered far ahead. By and by that proved to be 
a light in a window— the club house of the Hatchie 
'Coons. •< 
The Hatchie 'Ccon Sunk Lands were the result of the 
New Madrid earthquakes, and that is where the name ot 
the club came from, but there is an analogy between the 
club house and 'coon trees, for both have their dens pretty 
well up in the air to be above the overflow, and, for the 
needs of the users, are comfortable, as they should be. 
We went up a flight of many steps to get to the living 
level and there, in a large room, was a fire-place, roaring 
red and warm. On the walls were deer heads, some birds 
and other things which he had mounted for himself or 
others The style was different from that followed by 
eastern taxidermists— at least Adirondack ones— for the 
deer heads were very short-necked— only an inch or so be- 
hind the ears— but natural. In the ears had been placed 
metal plates, preventing the curling down so aggravating 
in some work. On the mantel were some medicines in 
bottles— "chill cures," and things good for the stomach- 
ache, chiefly. The water was imported from Memphis in 
order to avoid possible contamination m the St. Francis 
water In summer and till freezing weather acetylene 
oas is burned throughout for light, and a gasolene pump 
supplies water for various sanitary purposes ; but m mid- 
minter these are not kept going, lest they freeze. 
Across the back of the room were many cots with heaps 
of bedding on them. It had been nearly a month since 1 
had slept on anything softer than a layer of quilt on 
boards, and I was irritated to find that the springs and 
mattresses of the iron single bed simply mademie wake- 
ful I got only half a night's sleep because I was too 
comfortable. I was dozing in the morning just before 
daybreak when Mitchell roused us cut. After breakfast 
the paddlers, or hired men, appeared, and the tour went 
away, sitting in cane-bottomed chairs m small boats 
while a paddler stood up behind poling them into the 
mazes of St. Francis Lake, each sportsman with a gun, 
hU i nt took a walk out on the bottoms after a while, and 
had my first look from close to the ground at the swamp 
lands The trees were tall, the ground mealy the leaves 
cloth-like the twigs rotten. One could see a long way m 
place* the trees and brush alone obstructing the way 
By looking close I could see that the ground undulated 
slightly, and, forewarned, could see that there were differ- 
ences in the timber growths on the waves and in the hol- 
lows The man who knows the bottoms goes by the tree 
o-rowths, having no mountain range to guide his footsteps 
I suppose the swamp hunters to be better woodsmen than 
bill men for this reason. They are obliged to observe 
small things, as the hill country man is not to so great 
an extent The sun and the compass were my only 
guides, and I had to keep watch of them all the while. I 
could not get on a ridge and follow t for an hour straight 
away, though what is called "ridges" were there m plenty. 
I could not see them. , , 
The swamps had been burned over in places, and hie 
caused Mitchell to get out one night while I was there to 
save his fence. Some few small twig shoots may be killed 
by these slow fires, but the big trees are not, unless the 
flames get into a hollow and burn the tree inside out. 
Fven this does not destroy the heavy woods, but may 
even T serve as an antiseptic against the fungus rot which 
destroys so many of the trees of the bottoms. One sees 
from the way the fire crawls along the muggy bottoms 
ha™ 'dry" as regards leaves there, is but a relative tern . 
I came to a lot of tall grass, and strolling through t 
took hold of one -of the spears to pull it loose, an 
Adirondack habit partly broken right there It was saw 
£ass and though soft enough to the touch, there were 
Sinters in it hard as thorns, one of which went into my 
hand The reformation was completed some days later 
when I absently took hold of a vine and picked out thorns 
for the next half an hour. The native goes through 
brush elbow and shoulder first, hi* face protected by a 
bJoad-brimmed hat usually, the flap of which comes down 
^rliw^me droves of hogs and their tracks all through 
the woods at times seemed deer-like J do not suppose 
anyone used to following tracks would be fooled by them, 
Wever-blunt, spreading, and short-stepped as they are. 
* bout a mile aid a half from the club house there was a 
bunch of cypress trees with some knees sticking up out of 
the damp ground-root nubs with round tops from a 
couple of inches to three feet high-and in a cattle path here 
I found the familiar deer print, of sharp hoofs and long 
steps. I saw fox squirrels also. They looked enough like 
my Adirondack red squirrels at a distance to make me a 
bit homesick. . . 
It quite takes one's nerve when he realizes he is in a 
swamp a hundred miles long and forty wide, with only a 
hummeck here' and there. I had the tram road, the rail- 
road and the river on three sides of me, and my compass 
to take me south, the direction to hit the tram. Still it 
was nervous tramping. When I was ready to; start back 
I headed south and hit the two-mile tramway square in 
the center. 
That "evening" the hunters came in with from one to 
four ducks apiece. They ate their night meal, and it was 
not late when all hands turned in. The next day was like 
the first, save that I went to Cane Ridge— every place and 
thing has a name in the bottoms. Each locality has its 
Cane Ridge, Horse-Shoe Lake, bayou or slough; its 
cypress brakes and dark corners. Some scratching in 
leaves on the ridge was as near as I came to seeing a 
turkey. That night the train brought some more hunters, 
one of them the secretary of the club. Some stories were 
told of the kind which would seem to indicate that the 
present is less attractive than the past— that times have 
changed, and nobody has any fun these days. The 
younger men did not join in this, but listened. One or 
two guessed that it might be the men who had become 
different, and that there is an old time in some memories, 
but that the times of to-day will be old in the future to 
those who are young now — especially the high old times. 
What stories and things one does hear at a club ! One 
man had fished the whole gulf of Mexico shore line from 
100 miles south of Tampa to the border. Another had 
gone the length of the St. Francis when it was through 
a "wild country" not a somewhat settled one as it is now. 
"The way my wife makes a mint julep, she puts sugar in 
the bottom of a glass and mint on this, breaks up ice fine 
in a napkin, and then pours whiskey over the ice in the 
goblet." "Finest eating in the world is one of those 
loggerhead snapping turtles right out of the St. Francis." 
"First polecats ever were in this region, so far as I 
know, came right last year, and became plenty." "The 
water over to Walnut Ridge is sickly, but looks all right. 
After a dog drinks it he eats mud to take the taste out 
of his mouth." "Most expensive hotel you ever saw, 
and the meanest. Why,' they cut a boiled egg in two and 
serve half in a side dish. They charge fifty cents for a 
meal of that kind." "I used to shoot pigeons off that 
church with a .22 BB cartridge. I don't see why it is, 
but a BB cap will kill a pigeon, but a .22 short or .22 long 
will let one of them fly half a mile. Just the same with 
a snake or squirrel. The BB cap kills them dead." "I 
used to know him well before he got killed." "That's so ; 
I did see something about it. I'll bet it made him sore to 
have to give those ducks up when the sheriff nailed him," 
and so on. 
The old Oceola Gun Club is the best known sportsmen's 
club in the bottoms. It seems to have fallen apart these 
days, but the time was when to be a member of the 
Oceolas was to be a good shot, a good fellow, and a man 
who could travel the overflow at night. Some time a 
man will gather up the traditions about old-time Ameri- 
can sportsmen's clubs, and among the things he will look 
for will be the stories wmch can be had of venturesome 
trips by sportsmen into the Arkansas swamps. The do- 
ings of the Oceola Gun Club would tell the story of the 
swamp hunting. There were features of the swamp life 
not found elsewhere, of course. In the first place, 
desperadoes were to be reckoned with; they wouldn t 
steal, but they would kill a man for an "insult." Yet the 
swamp people were most hospitable to strangers, and the 
old-time sportsmen had no trouble with them. Occa- 
sionally, however, men who thought liquor, noise, and 
slaughter necessary, for a good time came, and then things 
happened. One of these parties was put off a tram a few 
years ago, in the days of Barney Mitchell, one of the most 
noted bad men. The train crew dropped the crowd, its 
boats and duffle, in the middle of the swamp because it 
was making trouble for the other passengers. The men 
claimed to be fishermen, but each one had a gun or rifle. 
It was the time of the overflow, and they dumped then- 
duffle into their boats and put out into the swamp, which 
was ten feet deep with water. They were to camp, but 
bad no ax, lantern, beds or substantial provisions— j ust 
guns, ammunition and beer, stuff that was an insult to a 
swamp man if he smefled it. Moreover, they had a negro 
servant. This outfit got into the swamp, became lost in- 
side of an hour, and then for two days yelled themselves 
hoarse, and shot their guns till the barrels were hot. 
Finally Barney Mitchell heard them, and blew his hunt- 
ing horn, and they came to the music, not thankful, but 
disgusted with the country, and angry because help hadn't 
come before. 
There was a steamboat at the Madison Landing, and the 
men asked Barney if it was a steamboat. Then they asked 
which wav the boat was going. They were told to ask the 
captain. They wanted to know how far it would go, and 
under the steady questioning the native ire began to reach 
the safety valve pressure. Finally they asked if the cap- 
tain would take them as passengers ; whereupon, as one 
man, the Swamp Angels said that if he didn't take them 
and their nigger, things would happen. The natives put 
the crowd on board forcibly, and told the captain not to 
let them off for a hundred' miles. A week later Robert 
Mitchell came that way, and some of the swampers slept 
on the floor in order to give him their bed ; it all depended 
on how one took the native. And it depends on 'that to 
this day. . 
Twenty years ago Mitchell, of the Hatchie Coons, made 
a trip down the St. Francis with a companion. It was be- 
fore the levee had fenced off the swamp, and the great 
bayous were nearly all open streams, kept so by the over- 
flows. He came down the Tyronza, which is now im- 
passable because of fallen trees, and entered the St. 
Francis, down which he went to the mouth. Wild turkeys 
came to every sandbar; deer fed on every flat; countless 
ducks and geese were in every reach and bend. The two 
ate venison, duck breasts, wild turkeys, or squirrels as 
they pleased. They had less than fifty cents in their 
pockets, and the few natives they met would have been 
insulted if an effort to repay their hospitality had been 
made. The clearings were fifty miles apart, and there 
was a stretch of a hundred miles without a house in 
sight. Fur-bearing animals — 'coons, "possums, mink, and 
otter and beaver were to be found everywhere; but times 
have changed. 
One sees a greater variety of things in the swamp these 
days than during the "unbroken wilderness" period. I 
found it a strange land compared to anything I had 
hitherto seen, and I felt that it was more interesting now 
than in the early days, when it was only a wilderness. 
Raymond S. Spears. 
Ruminations of November. 
From the falling of the first ripened maple leaf until 
the ground is thickly strewn with crisp, brilliant foliage, 
one harvest succeeds another, leaving the earth at last 
clad in a russet mantle to await the advancing snows of 
winter. Thus, when the splendor of October has van- 
ished, it is left bare and frosted; keen winds sweep 
through the stripped orchards or across the withered 
fields, and no longer does the soothing murmur of in- 
sects awaken the evening quietude. But there still re- 
main harvests to be gathered, and the sap of autumn as 
yet has not ceased flowing. 
Perchance these harvests, however, which are often 
the best and richest of all, are overlooked by man in 
his haste to garner only the crops he has raised from 
the soil, for many of the former may not be harvested 
with the hands or other implements, but are fruits that 
the eye and spirit must gather. He who would reap 
such harvests, therefore, should walk abroad, not look- 
ing at his own meagre landscape of thought, but open- 
ing his inner vision to view the distant horizon and 
seek out the beauties therein. 
No doubt the atmosphere which during late autumn 
is almost nightly purified by a hard, sharp frost, quick- 
ens and as it were renews the embers of thought and 
meditation. Moreover, it is a stimulus to health and 
bodily vigor, casting aside any lassitude that might 
linger from (he summer season. A flavor of winter is 
obtained without the colder intensity of a later period, 
while smouldering leaf piles remind one that the time 
has not yet arrived to kindle a perennial fire on the 
hearth, for their pungent scent is alone symbolical of 
the autumnal months. From almost any favorable out- 
look on a still day these thin, blue columns of smoke 
may be seen curling slowly upward, and we often smell 
the fragrant incense of a neighbor's fire, perchance 
many miles distant.. There are few indeed spending all 
or portions of their lives in the country who have not 
raked and burned leaves as systematically as the farmer 
digs his potatoes. For the most part, however, they 
are harvested merely to be got rid of, and their poetry 
and beauty go up with the smoke, unseen. 
Every deciduous tree, from the smallest sapling to the 
oak or beech, whose dimensions awaken admiration and 
wonder, bear an unfailing crop of crimson, yellow or 
russet foliage. What if the leaves did not turn after the 
first frosts, but remained green until they finally with- 
ered and fell? It would be as disappointing as a fiowe'r 
garden without bloom or an orchard that bore no fruit. 
Then surely the life and inspiration of autumn scenery 
would be lost to a great degree. 
After several cold rains, preceded by frosts, the leaves 
fall in golden showers on a breezy day, or still more 
often they float silently to earth, limp and moist, in 
accompaniment with the raindrops. It takes, however, 
but a few hours of clear, penetrating sunlight to restore 
their crisp texture, and the woodlands again rustlc- 
musically at every step. Although the sombre tints of 
November are only enlivened by the warm, red-brown 
foliage of oaks, or richly-colored sumac, there is a new 
beauty in the rugged symmetry of the leafless trees 
which summer has failed to reveal. Their aspect seems 
more inspiring and masculine than during the former 
season, when, as it were, they have a tropical and should 
we say, more feminine beauty. 
On the whole, a fire is considered a better compan- 
ion by many than the sharp winds and gray, chilly 
weather which predominates in late autumn; but de- 
spite this partiality, November 'is nevertheless a most 
desirable month for outdoor occupation, whether it be 
labor or pleasure. The simple pastime of walking is 
enhanced, not alone with physical benefits, but reflects on 
the mental faculties, and arouses hope, ambition and 
aspiration. Both the spiritual and material appetites of 
man are keener; he breathes the thin, rarified ozone and 
assimilates its bracing virtues throughout his system, 
instinctively drawing closer to nature, as though the 
season incurred a more intimate relationship. Neither 
does winter signify that one must remain continually 
sheltered from snows and cold weather, like some hi- 
bernating mammal, not appearing until spring thaws 
are in session; but rather let us leave the fireside and 
gain the open if we would obtain health, hardihood and 
sincerity. 
If returning from a walk on a November evening, as 
a purple mantle of twilight descends over the mountains 
and shrouds the uplands with a misty veil, how at home 
we then feel in the world! The plaintive lowing of kine 
in a distant milkyard has a melodious intonation; we 
hear a belated apple or chestnut fall by the roadside, and 
in the gathering dusk search for it as eagerly as a child. 
The frosty atmosphere breathes an odor of newly 
plowed fields, while across the darkening mountain 
slopes a vapory snow squall drifts by, as though the 
walls of autumn had at last crumbled and allowed the 
winter hosts entrance. At such times we imbibe the 
very spirit of the hour, neither regretting summer's 
vernal beauties nor yet overstepping the snow-bound 
threshold which confronts us. The present fulfills our 
desires, and as the sunset frightens the fading landscape, 
its radiance likewise illumines those real and imaginative 
creations that flow around us in unending continuation. 
During the interval that marks the final decade of 
autumn, the elements display a temperament which 
completely overthrows most weather calculations and 
which no other month, perchance, excepting March, 
can well boast of. Tranquil skies and balmy zephyrs 
recall those lines of Keats addressed "To Autumn," in 
his delicate and refreshing verse: 
"Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, 
Close bosom friend of the maturing sun;" 
