Feb. 4, iQos.j 
fORESt AND STREAM. 
89 
Floating Down the Mississippi. 
Few men on the Mississippi know more or have more 
notions about its phases of life than old man Ander- 
son, with whom I stopped on the sandbar above 
Helena. He started on the Big River in Iowa, and 
fished there until the fishing failed. Then he dropped 
down the river, hunting new waters, until finally, after 
more than a quarter of a century, he tied up in the 
Helena Chute, to catch the "mud rooters" of the lower 
river. A man who succeeds in living twenty-five years 
in cabin boats on the Mississippi is a wonder. Ander- 
son was such a man, a tall, untiring, hard-working- 
Swede. 
His first fishing brought him from $30 to $50 a >veek 
— all game fish. He carried thousands of pounds of 
black bass to the market at Burlington, la., and at the 
last couldn't understand why netting should be' pro- 
hibited. "I had _my good times," he said. "I ust to 
go to market with my fish, und gom back mit two 
quarts of goot viskey, unt drink it oop in von night. 
By golly, 1 vas strong dem days. I could lift dat skiff 
mit von hand. Now I take two hands to change my oars." 
Johns, the Helena fish market man, told me "the old 
man has just burned his life out." One gathers a notion 
of what must have been the old man's constitution 
from the fact that he lived through more than twenty- 
five years of hardest kind of physical work, and the 
draining of countless gallons of beer and whisky. He 
walked erect, big-boned and apparently muscular; but 
the pace had told. His muscles were wasted away. 
Malaria had seized upon him relentlessly. The "Ar- 
kansaw hunger" gnawed his stomach, and food did not 
appease it. "Louisiana shakers" had overcome his 
frame with trembling that made the boat rattle- — a sec- 
ond attack would prove fatal. His whole system was 
a mass of aches and pains. "I guess I have to go to 
Oregon an' catch salmon," he said. "Dis Arkansaw 
country dond agree mit me." 
Uncle Charlie Robertson said of him, "He's just like 
a lot of other fishermen. Malaria keeps sapping their 
strength. They grow weaker day by day without real- 
izing it. Suddenly they drop." 
Anderson had a soap box full of ducks and geese 
which he had killed and packed away in salt. He said 
it used to be no trouble to get all the meat one wanted 
along the river. "We ust to salt down beaver in a bar- 
rel — ducks, wild torkeys, geese, squirrels, deer meat, 
too. Biit der ain't no game any more. I don't know 
what's de matter." There are quite a number of beaver 
along the Mississippi to this day, but they are a shy, 
.crafty beast, which refuses to "shine" by firelight, and 
seldom gets into a trap. They live in the caving banks 
of the river, and come out on the logs, to breathe and 
rest. They eat the willow and other browse with which 
i the river keeps them constantly supplied by undermin- 
ing the banks. There is no need of building dams, nor 
making runways on the bank. It will be a long while 
before the last of them is killed. 
Anderson's boat was moored to the foot of a mile- 
long sand and mud bar. The bar, under the impulse 
of wind and water is gradually working its way down 
stream, and the foot of it is a bluff reef. "Ven de 
vater was up I catch a lot off eels in onder dis reef," 
1 Anderson said, pointing to the almost perpendicular 
slope of mud and sand. Just where the boat lay was a 
wide patch of almost pure yellow sand, ten by twelve 
rods in size. To reach, the upper bar, one must cross 
:a dozen rods of the black, oozing slime, which is "Mis- 
sissippi mud." This mud came down to the water be- 
side the patch of sand, and on a warm day it was not 
possible to get away from the boat, save By skiff. I 
watched the mud thaw out after some freezing nights. 
The stuff was upheaved by the cold, and some pretty 
crystals formed over the surface. But when the melting 
began, the mud quivered and moved like a thing of low 
life. A few million years from now, scientists will find 
beds of Mississippi mud rock. On chiseling it out, 
creatures of these days will be found encased "in mar- 
velously life-like postures" — perhaps a "real man" 
reaching out through the stuff', his face horribly con- 
-'torted and his toes reaching down for the hardpan 
somewhere in the depths. 
The river man is in every storm that passes his way. 
In one or other direction, the wind has a clean sweep, 
and it is the cabin-boater's first Isson to prepare for cy- 
clones. 'A flood is nothing, but the wind has no mercy. 
Anders'on was caught on the upper river in a storm one 
night. 'He had a 60-foot three-roomed boat. He 
thought it would ride any kind of storm. That was why 
he had so large a one. It was moored broadside to the 
river bank. It was fitted with fine curtains, clean bed- 
ding—Anderson was always neat, having been a Baltic 
sea sailor — plenty of furniture, a few Swedish books, 
big lamps — a river luxury — a feather bed filled from 
- birds of his own killing, and in fact, everything that he 
wanted, for $50 a week would fit and maintain a pro- 
digious single man boat on the river. One night it 
began to storm. Rain fell, and the wind increased in 
the snappy fashion of some cyclones. Anderson was 
in bed, congratulating himself on his safety, when he 
heard something coming on the far side of the river, a 
long-drawn roar, and a -whole bunch of lightning flashes 
accompanied the thing. It reached the big cabin boat 
and turned it over on its side. Anderson had ten or 
twelve stone jugs of fish oil along one gunwale of the 
boat. These, the bed and all the other furniture of the 
boat were thrown to the opposite side. The jugs broke, 
and the oil spread out on the water that flooded in 
through windows and door. 
"By golly!" Anderson said, "It was a trick gettmg 
out of a up-side-down boat mit two doors to go 
through, and the boat on its side. I tell you I dank 
I was drowned." , • , 
A hundred yards up stream was another cabm boater. 
He had a little bit of a boat— 18 feet long and G^A wide. 
"The wave that rolled ahead of the wind" lifted the 
little boat a dozen feet up on the bank, where the wind 
did not hurt it. The cabin-boater looked to see what 
had become of Anderson's boat. He saw the low sunk 
hulk, and concluded Anderson was drowned, so he 
went to getting breakfast, and had it well under way, 
when- Anderson walked in on him with only his night 
-clothes on. 
Anderson never bought so large a boat again. A 
small boat, properly built, is handled much more easily 
and is stronger in proportion. The best river men of 
the cabin-boat class have tiny craft. "Whisky Wil- 
liams," "Old Doc White," Anderson, Applegate, and 
other notable men have boats less than 20 ffeet long. 
A heavy frame, and sound lumber insures the occupatit 
against trouble with snags and cyclones, and getting 
around has no great terrors. The old fishernlail chose 
to tie up on the low sand bar in shallow water. He 
moored the craft end on to the bank by four lines: oile 
from a timber head in each corner. Heavy stakes, ash 
preferably, were driven deep into the sand, so that each 
line had a stake of its own. The two bow stakes were 
far enough apart to keep the bow from swinging, and 
far enough ashore to hold the bow pressed against the 
fending stage plank. The stern lines kept the stern 
from swinging and helped hold the boat to the bank as 
well. It was safe in any storm not strong enough to 
lift the boat out of water. A cabin-boater says that a 
sandbar is the safest port in a gale, and a caving bank 
the deadliest. 
While I was with Anderson, the water ranged from 
six to ten feet on the gauge at Helena. It was so low 
that most of the chutes were dry, and there were no 
bays in which cabin boats could be sheltered. Ander- 
son always maintained his lonely vigil at the foot of 
the Helena Bar at such times, although he had only to 
go down to the transfer dock (railroad ferry) and find 
plenty of company — Abbey, the Johns, and the transient 
river people. 
"I don't go down der," he said repeatedly. "I tell 
you I seen boats sunk along dat bluff bank in a south 
wind! Seven, eight boats at once; an' de folks stan'- 
ing on de bank. Op here you can't sink — you rub de 
bottom if de water goes down two inches. I rather 
move de boat every day dan sit on de bank von night 
in de rain, I tell you! 
The day I reached Anderson's boat, a river tramp 
was tied in beside him. A strong wind had blown from 
the north for thirty hours. The tramp used a single 
stake to hold his 16-foot boat, and that one loosely 
driven in the sand. In the morning the stake was al- 
most pulled out of the ground. The two extremes of 
river people were there side by side — Anderson, hard- 
working, with his four ash stakes, selected and hard 
driven, and four carefully inspected lines, and the river 
rat with one splintering willow stake, ratty line and lazy 
carelessness. And both men were equally subject to 
malaria and with the same lonely future before them, 
and probably the same unhappy fate. 
There are men on the river too lazy to float with the 
current. The task of keeping their boat in the current 
worries them. One of these called "the Bear," never 
floats in the day time. He casts loose at dusk and then 
goes to bed. In the morning he looks out to see where 
he is. If the wind rises, or the water drives him into a 
caving bank, the Bear must get out and work for life. One 
cannot guess how many of this kind have been hit by 
the coal tows and rolled under, to come;; up "buzzard 
food." 
Anderson was not talkative — he had lived alone too 
much of his time during recent years; but what he said 
was to the point. His, "I tell you, I give derri tough 
fellers a sharp look when day come along," meant more 
than another man's most vivid description of river 
pirates. Two toughs who went by the name of Stout 
came down the river one time, "killing beef and hogs 
on the way." Anderson and two others were playing 
casino when the two Stouts dropped into their landing 
just below Cairo. It was after dark, and the Stouts 
hung around till the game broke up, and then, one of 
them followed Anderson on board his boat, though it 
was midnight. Grant Stout, he said his name was, and 
he watched the Swede as sharply as Anderson watched 
him. "I dank he meant somedings," the Swede said. 
He -went away at last, and an hour later Anderson 
heard a little grinding sound, like a mouse gnawing. 
Anderson strained his ears, trying to, locate the sound, 
but without avail, for a long time. At last he decided 
it was astern, and with that he got out of bed, un-- 
latched the door and peered into the darkness. As he 
looked, he saw a man in a dugout darting away in the 
gloom, having heard Anderson stirring out. In the 
morning Anderson found that a link of his $35 skiff's 
painter had been filed almost through. 
These Stouts one time stole a church bell up on the 
Ohio. They carried it down to the levee and buried it, 
then went to a prominent merchant of the town, and 
told him they had the bell. "We want a couple of dol- 
lars to get out of town," they said. "You take the bell 
and give us the money." The merchant took the bell. 
A few days later the Stouts went to the merchant again. 
"You give us twenty-five dollars apiece," said they, "or 
we'll tell about your deal." They got the $W and went 
away as cabin passengers on a river steamboat. This 
was the favorite funny story of the Stout boys. One 
of them was afterward killed for card cheating on a 
Government job above Cairo. 
One objection Anderson had to tying in at Helena 
was the "tough fellows" who sometimes come down 
and. attempt to rob the cabin-boaters there. The river 
pirate knows well enough that the lone fisherman on a 
sandbar is watchful, and would give the bad man short 
shift, but on the edge of town it is different. The 
sneak thief can disappear in a moment. Anderson was 
just below the coal fleet at Helena for a while, and 
while there men tried to sneak aboard once or twice- 
one tough fellow especially hanging around with a 
gang. One day Anderson whiled his time away trying 
to catch alligator gars. They bit the stoutest line in 
two, however, and ran away with the largest hooks. 
Finally Anderson took a piece of pork and hooked it 
on to a 6-inch hook, tied it to a quarter inch rope and 
lowered it into the water. Not getting a bite, he took 
two half hitches around the bulkhead and forgot about 
it That night he felt some one step on the boat. Then 
another, and another time the boat ducked under the 
weight of some one, and Anderson listened so hard that 
he heard whispers. Stealthily he rose to his feet, seized 
his shotgun and threw open the door. The stern was 
empty. So was the bow, nor w-as any one in sight. 
Anderson thought it must be spirits until he recollected 
the pork-baited gar hook. A lo-foot gar had come 
along, and when he bit, it pulled the cabin boat down 
like the weight of a two-hundred-pouiid man. 
Anderson's faith in dreams was unbounded. "Many a 
night I saved a big catfish on my line. I dream I liavte 
a piece of meat in my fingers and great big snakfe ctimes 
and takes it out. That kind of scares me, and I wakfe 
up. Then I jumps up and gtets into my skiff and go 
run my line. Many a big fish I save dot way. I find 
dem just pulling off de hook when I dream dat way. 
"I have many dreams. If I dream of fish jumping all 
around, den I know high water coming. Just so, top, 
when I dream of water pouring over a big high falls. 
I don't need de paper for high water news. My spirit 
leaves my body— I go way op de river, op de Ohio, op 
de Mississippi op de Missouri, and see if it rain der 
I knowed about de Charleston earthquake. I vas der. 
I valk along de streets. De houses dey begin to move, 
long cracks go op an' down in de fronts of de houses, 
and den de dust fly op an' choke me. I vake op. Two 
days after dat a man says Charleston was earthquaked. 
I know dot! Den von night I dream dat two trains 
come toward one anoder on de same track. De en- 
gineer he jumps, but he gets drowned. I dank and 
dank. Who vas dat engineer? I know den, it was dat 
big railroad smashup going to de World's Fair. Den 
I dream about a man way up on a high mountain hang- 
mg by his hands, an' slippin' an' slippin'. Five or six 
men run around— I . know den. De President he is 
over all— on de mountain! The men what run, dey the 
doctors. So I knew de President he sick or hurt, and 
he going to fall— he die. So I tell dem. McKinley done 
just dat. It all goes to show dat a man have a spirit 
what go away from his body by itself and study op 
what is doing!" 
One of Anderson's lost opportunities, he thought, 
was his failure to go to a certain stump in the lumber 
yard of an Iowa mill owner, whose fortune disappeared 
at his death. Anderson dreamed about the stump, and 
failed to go to it after the lumberman's death and find 
the fortune. 
The river people have many superstitions, and dream 
books are important literature of the cabin boats. But 
dreams are not the only signs read. The most interest- 
ing bird story I ever heard was one Anderson told 
about blue herons. 
"One nice warm day, I was in Helena Chute. Dey 
was a lot of cranes der— wery wise birds, dose cranes 
is. Pretty soon I seen a crane coming up de chute 
slow an' easy, but high, like he was going way op nord. 
Den I see anoder crane comin' down de chute. My! 
but he was just a comin'. He flap his wings, an' 
stretched his neck furder ahead dan mos' cranes. Veil, 
dem cranes dey passed one anoder. De nord von squawk 
like he was in a hurry. Den dey began to circle round 
and round, squawking like good fellers. De von from 
dc nord he squawk hard an' short; de odder, he squawk 
different; so I knowed him. De nord von pretty soon 
start off south again. De odder von vent on nord, but. 
de nord von yust squawk again hard, and den dey 
circled roun' some more. Pretty soon dey both started 
avay south like dey was in a hurry. Dat night, woooo! 
De nord vind come sweeping down de river, and in de 
morning we was froze op. Den hard times come to de 
cranes. Dey got so lean in a couple weeks dey vouldn't 
fly from a man. I walked right up to some of dem. i 
tell you, dat crane out of de nord know what he run- 
ning from." 
On the sandbar one could almost imagine himself on 
the shores of a sea. A south wind had a clean sweep 
up the river of over four miles. In the main current 
the waves were thrown up,, yellow capping the surface, 
but Anderson's boat was in the great eddy along the 
west bank above Helena. The water was nearly dead, 
and waves rolled in a foot high, breaking along the 
sloping beach with a low whir that suggested the sea. 
Washing against the bluff reef, they undermined the 
sand and caused it to cave ofi-'. It was easy to under- 
stand how a man with unlimited time could dwell at 
such a place. There were drifts of sand that shifted 
with the wind, and waves of sand and mud that flowed 
with the current of water. The man with a microscope 
or telescope finds unlimited opportunity for looking. 
Anderson's eyes turned often to the window, which he 
threw open on occasion in order to look at the sky. 
"I like to watch the water," he said once. 
The position on a sloping sandbar required constant 
watching of the water marks. High water slacked the 
hues and low water frequently "hung the boat," so that 
it had to be pried off. Ag the water rose, the boat was 
worked around into a little pocket formed by the reef, 
and as it fell, the boat must needs be kept moving back 
toward the point into deeper water. Watching the boat, 
getting the meals and keeping an eye open for ducks 
were Anderson's main occupations. He said that when 
he was alone nights, he played "blind casino" — solitaire. 
I could not but marvel at the opportunity wasted by the 
river men. Fancy what a record of the Mississippi the 
diary of a lone cabin-boater would be! In less than six 
months on the river I made 300,000 words in notes, 
scarcely a line of which could be classed as "scientific." 
On Dec. 29, I started for town in my skiff. As the 
bow turned in the main current, I saw a low white spot 
on the river miles up stream. It was in motion, and 
somehow the thing looked familiar. Very quickly it 
took form, and I saw that it was a rag-top boat. Finally 
my glasses shovv'ed the "double hull," or catamaran 
which Sefior Carlos J. San Carlos came from Toronto 
in. I ran out, and long before I came alongside, I 
could hear the paddle wheel chucking into the water, 
steamboat fashion. My hail routed him from under the 
canvas, and greetings passed. He told how he worked 
for Sam Cole on the 60-foot cabin boat in Ash Slough, 
supposing he was getting $1.25 a day and board. Cole 
charged him for boat, so that he only cleared $4 . a 
week. Cole had paid a carpenter .$2.50 a day for doing 
less work a week, than Carlos did in two days — but 
.Carlos was "easy." 
"But I don't care!" Carlos said. "I got enough to 
see me through now — and I'm going clear to Havana 
now." 
He ran on down stream, and thereafter I heard of 
him at intervals until I reached Vicksburg, when I lost 
track of the cabin boat people and their kind. A won- 
der of the cabin boat people is the fact of their homo- 
