86 
FOREST AND STREAM 
[July 8, 1905. 
substantial affair and dry. The price asked for it was 
$15. The minds of the two with whom I was stopping 
were a unit on one question— they were sure they must 
separate or something would happen. The Gambler was 
losing money playing craps, and the Medicine Man didn’t 
have a dollar. One day they were wrangling, for there 
was nothing else to do. Their voices and temper kept 
getting up and up until the Gambler was on the point of 
leaping at his partner when there was a hail by two men 
from the bank. Instantly the row quelled. The two men 
were invited to enter. One was florid, thick-set and blue 
eyed; the other was dark, thin and Hebraic. 
“Hello, boys !” they greeted. “Thought we’d come down 
and see the ice — right sha^ up yere on the bank.” 
“Come in and warm,” invited the Gambler, and they 
came in. 
A little talk about the ice followed, and then the Jew 
drew a pint flask from his pocket. 
“Take a smile,” he said. My partners smiled. Soon 
they emptied the flask, and then the Jew drew a dollar 
from his pocket. ' 
“I want it filled up again,” he said. The Medicine Man 
seized the bottle and the dollar eagerly, and started for 
the rear of the boat. The florid man followed closely, 
while the Jew edged toward my shotgun which was 
standing in a corner. The Medicine Man _ went to the 
stern, jumped into the skiff and pulled rapidly to a big 
whiskey boat which was anchored there by connivance, 
for it was a “dry town.” close to the shore a hundred 
yards down stream. He returned in a few minutes with 
the bottle full and drank heartily. Then came a surprise 
which took the breath of the three of us river mar. 
“Do you know, gen’lemen,” the florid man said, “I’m 
dep’ty sheriff here — my name’s Hunter, an’ I was sent 
yere to ’rest you fellers fer sellin’ licker. We ’lowed you 
all was a whiskey boat, an’ we ’lowed to catch you, we 
did. An’ didn’t we do hit slick. Look a-yere! Yere’s 
mah gun, a forty-five — ” 
“Hell !” said the Gambler, who had recovered himself. 
“We all has guns, too.” 
With that he drew his revolver and twirled it on his 
thumb and fingers as he talked. 
“Do you s’pose you ail’d ketched us if we’d been lick- 
erin’?” he asked. “Look at these gray hairs — I’m from 
Indi.rn Territory, I am.” 
With that he twirled the gun some more, and shoved 
it into his pocket again. He had created an instant and 
vivid impression. The deputy sheriff and his friend 
watched the revolver go out of sight with a breath of 
relief, and fell to talking about the suspicions which our 
appearance had roused up town. After a time the visi- 
tors went up the bank and then the Gambler turned on 
his partner. 
“If that had been in Indian Territory they’d nailed you 
the minute you took the bottle.” 
“Just think of it,” the Medicine Man exclaimed with 
a shudder, “we’d gone to the fahm, shore.” 
The experience seemed to breed a further feeling of 
unrest and distrust in the two. The Gambler determined 
to break loose and he bought the little cabiii boat from 
the widow. He moved all his things on to it, and took 
the big skiff as well. When he was gone the Medicine 
Man said to me : 
“I’m glad of hit! I ain’t felt safe at all for weeks, I 
know that Gambler. You hearn him tell how he was 
gone from home for ten years? Well, that was after 
he’d killed a man down in Georgia. He killed him with 
a pen knife. I tell you he’s a bad man. Why, up to Pa- 
ducah on this yeah trip, jes’ foh we started, we was into 
a hotel when the landlord had reason to suspect that man. 
The landlord took a gun and come up to ouh room an’ 
he aimed at that Gambler. 
“ ‘Ah’m gwin to kill you all !’ the landlord said, an’ 
with that the Gambler ducked under an’ run in on the 
landlord an’ grabbed that revolver out of his hand. The 
landlord he turned jes’ white. The Gambler jes’ stepped 
back a minute, then he give the gun back to the landlord 
an’ said : 
“ ‘Take yer gun,’ he said. ‘Now shoot ef you all want 
to.’ 
“Well, sir, that landlord he ’pologized, an’ the 
Gambler havin’ just been insultin’ to hisn’s wife, too. I 
tell you that Gambler is a bad man.” 
The Gambler told me that he had escaped from a jail 
in Georgia, by means of a key which he whittled from 
an elm chair splint. With another condemned murderer 
he reached a mountainside, and followed a run or brook 
to escape the trained bloodhounds which were put on 
their trails in the morning. Night after night, for two 
weeks, they traveled by the North star, when they could 
see it. One night they traveled under the clouds. In the 
morning they made camp in dense brush, and when day- 
light came they found themselves in the place they had 
left on the previous evening. They had walked all around 
a mountain in the dark, and happened to make camp 
within a few yards of the one of the day before. 
They stole chickens and ate green corn and picked fruit 
for their sustenance. Once, early in the evening, they 
ventured to hail a negro cabin and purchase a little corn 
pone, but they never ventured to show their faces by a 
fire-place. They traversed a third of Georgia, crossed all 
of Tennessee and finally entered Kentucky, having 
spoken to but one person in over two weeks, and did not 
travel a mile by daylight. 
In Kentuck}’, the native State of both men, the two 
separated and went to work as farm hands. At the end 
of the summer a “smart Aleck” deputy sheriff came and 
asked the Gambler’s employer numerous questions. The 
employer came to the hired man and said: 
“If you all hain’t done nothin’ stay right yere,” the 
man said to the Gambler, “but if you all’s done some 
meanness down in Georgia you all betteh cl’ar out. I 
got a brother ten-mile away — ^you all and me’ll go to 
hisn’s place.” 
“I call that kind of a man a true, honorable person,” 
the Gambler said to me. “I said I’d have to cl’ar out. I 
sent word to mah partner to hike, and I went down to 
my boss’s brother’s, and then I lit out for Texas. I lived 
in Brownwood, Tex., two years, and old Bill Adams, 
who was sheriff there, began to ask me if I’d like to go 
to Kentucky? I knowed he suspected me of some mean- 
ness and I started that night, but he got me next day 
opt to a place where my brother was }yorking, I was ' 
with him three days, and then I got him drunk. He let 
me pull my freight, being good natufed when he’s drink- 
ing. Adams he wasn’t sure about me anyhow, and he 
was going to let me go without a chase, but I had an 
uncle who said to him : 4 •'"'‘“'J? 
“ ‘He — he ! You all ain’t so smart after all — let a flaafii-i 
what’s wanted for a hanging crime git out like that 
“I’d only been gone twenty-four hours then, and thefg^'^ 
was twenty Texas rangers in town that day. Well, 
Adams set them after me. I was as good as gone back to 
Georgia. I hadn’t any horse; it was sandy and prairie. 
They could a followed my track at a gallop, but it come 
up a rain, and while it rained I walked. The water 
washed my tracks out, and in three days I made eighty 
miles. I tell you, I’ve thanked God for that rain many 
a time since then. Why they’d taken me back tO' Georgia 
in no time, if it hadn’t been for that storm, they shore 
would. I was in Indian Territory eight years, and then 
I staked a lawyer and come clear on a new trial in 
Georgia.” 
The Medicine Man and I awaited the passing of the 
ice for what seemed an age — seven days in all — and then 
we started down the river with the boat, while the 
Gambler in his little tub came along, for company’s sake. 
The Medicine Man wasn’t enthusiastic about the com- 
pany. He said over and over again that he hoped the 
Gambler wouldn’t get to liquoring, for if he did some- 
thing would surely happen. We floated for Arkansas 
City, and reached it after dark, rowing nearly three miles 
down the long eddy above the city, lighting our way by 
an acetylene gas lamp which was in my outfit. The lamp 
threw a brilliant light, and as we came in sight of a cabin 
boat, half a mile or less from the post office, great com- 
motion was discernible thereon. They waved a lantern 
at us. 
“Hullo !” they screamed. 
“HullO', yourself !” was our answer. 
“What are you, anyhow?” 
“Cabin boat, huntin’ a landing.” 
“Huh I Thought you was a lost steam packet — come 
in yere.” 
We ran in, and were boarded by the three men from 
the green cabin boat which we had seen up the river at 
Scrub Grass Bend. They were overjoyed, we weren’t. 
. “Now we’ll have some goose shooting- — ” they began at 
once to me. It was late when they finally got out, and 
we 'turned in. In the morning we dropped down to a 
cabin boat town and had a view of Arkansas City, of 
gambling .and man-killing fame. A levee, a couple or 
three steam sawmills, some brick buildings, many wooden 
ones, some distant negro cabins, a rag town for levee 
workers, and a couple of acres of logs in rafts were the 
conspicuous features of the place. I went after my mail 
and found v^at I went after. Then I took a stroll 
around to see the place. It differed little from Helena, 
except that it was smaller and that the white population 
was a little grimier in appearance on the average — and 
well they might be, if the stories one picks up about this 
river town’s life are true. 
Here we waited a couple of days. The weather was cold 
and the wind blew bitterly cold. We visited around at 
the cabiii boats, and one night — the last there — we went 
to. Crites’ photograph boat and had a musicale. Probably 
it was as remarkable as most river musicales. Crites 
played a violin, the Medicine Man played a banjo, Crites’ 
assistant played a guitar and I played a mouth organ. 
There were no gaps in the music which other instruments 
could have filled. It was a wonder that the levee didn’t 
roll in on us. The Gambler was up town some- 
where, we didn’t know where, nor did we care. About 
10 o’clock there was a rap on the door and then in came 
the Gambler. He had an ugly leer on bis face, and he 
gazed over the outfit with ironical amusement. I offered 
him my French harp, and he said “Hell.” Crites offered 
him the violin, and he seized it angrily, and then sat 
down on a proffered chair with a twitch. He yanked the 
bow down the strings with a rasping jerk, and sent it 
up with a gentler inflection. Then he fell to playing, a 
fragment of one of those Indian Territory operas which 
he had learned when he was a troupe fiddler. Gradually 
the notes grew softer, and as they became gentler the 
player’s face lost its ugly, drunken leer. In half an hour 
he v/as sociable and sleepy. We started for our homes. 
The Gambler’s boat was fifty yards distant, and ours 
only half as far. When we stepped out doors we found 
the gale sweeping down over the city, and my gas lamp 
showed that our boat was riding the eddy safely. The 
Gambler’s, further out, very close to the current, was 
bobbing on the w^avelets. Out on the river we could hear 
the rasping chop of waves, flung up in the current. 
“It’s an awful night,” the Medicine Man remarked, and 
Crites said it was more than awful. The Gambler stag- 
gered into his skiff, seized the oars, and we entered our 
skiff. My lamp was most useful then, for our boats were 
dark, and invisible on the water, which was the more 
gloomy on account of the distant electric lights. We 
found it difficult making our boat, for the wind flung the 
skiff toward the current in a fashion that required our 
skill and strength to overcome. We boarded our boat 
finally, and then I turned my light on the Gambler’s little 
craft so that he <iould see to get to it. I watched him 
run alongside, make fast and climb aboard, and then 
turned to enter our boat. As I did so I turned the light 
toward the Gambler’s little craft to take a farewell glance 
at it. I caught a flicker of the gas light on the boat, and 
though I noticed that the position of the boat seemed to 
have changed, I supposed it had simply swung on its 
anchor line and gone a little further from us. 
The Medicine Man and I went to bed and the Gambler 
to one of the wildest adventures it is possible for a river 
man to have and survive. When we awakened in the 
morning the Gambler’s little tub was nowhere in sight. 
It was rather late, and the day was so clear and the river 
so smooth, the wind having laid, that we presumed the 
Gambler had run in shore. We looked up and down the 
wharf and saw that the boat was not there. Then we 
shouted over to Crites’ boat and they hadn’t seen the boat 
since dark of the night before. The postmaster hadn’t 
seen the Gambler up town, nor had any cabin boaters 
seen him that day. We wondered if the boat had sunk. 
The Medicine Man was inclined to hope that it had, and 
the Gambler with it. 
Having nothing else to do we pulled up our own anchor 
and started on down the river toward the “Sunny South',” 
about which the Medicine Man was growing more and 
more enthusiastic. 
“We’ll go to Lake Providence and to Vicksburg,” he 
said. “There’s money down thataway, they shore has 
hit.” 
We went around Yellow, Georgetown and Rowdy 
bends, I scanned the trees under the caving banks, think- 
ing to see the wreck of the Gambler’s boat, but my 
glasses did not reveal anything till we came to the chute 
of Island 82 Here we saw a bit of craft moored to the 
left bank of the chute. As we drifted past, without 
recognizing it, a man darted out of the boat and untied. 
It was the Gambler and his boat. He shoved out to us, 
and tried to speak. He was wild-eyed, and so hoarse 
that his voice was a whisper. He was sallow, and he 
trembled from head to foot violently. He went to bed on 
our boat, and hours later he was able to- tell his story. 
He had boarded his boat safely enough, and struck a 
match to light his lamp. Then he took a drink of 
whiskey and sat down to undress. He was in his under- 
wear when he noted that the boat was joggling a good 
deal. The rocking of the boat increased in violence, and 
at last he looked out the front door to see what was the 
matter. He found himself looking into a dense, black 
gloom. 
■‘Where’s them electric lights ?” he asked himself, and 
then, by way of an.swer, he saw a distant white haze 
above a few white sparks. His anchor, on a taut line, 
had worked out of the mud and he was a couple of miles 
from the city, his boat pitching in the waves of a freez- 
ing gale. With that he grabbed up his whiskey bottle 
and drained it to the last drop, then got into his skiff, 
bare headed and in cotton underwear, tied a line to the 
cabin boat and to- the skiff and began to- row. 
He didn’t know how long he rowed, but the first he 
knew he heard a roar louder than any previous ones of 
waves and growing louder. With a dismay he saw that 
he was being driven into a caving bank, among the gray 
snags of a thousand plunging trees. One jabbed . at the 
skiff and this the man seized. 
“I shore thought the strain would pull me in two,” he 
said, “Hit pulled my wrist till hit swelled up now.” 
The cabin boat was swung into a sort of dead water, 
and eased the strain somewhat, and then he took a turn 
around the branch he had gripped and went to bed, from 
which he was routed at intervals by the scend of drift hit- 
ting the sides of his craft. In the morning he dropped 
down to the chute, and tied in there, a sick man. Now 
he was with us again. “And he’s liable to die with us, 
too,” the Medicine Man said privately. “It’d be jes’ my 
luck to have him die on to my hands. I had a woman 
die on to me one time when I was in the lower river. It 
just seems thouHi I can’t have no peace nor comfort no 
more. I wish I’d gone down the river now, stid of down 
that chute.” Raymond S. Spears. 
The Deity of the Woods. 
Look ! ye young men and maidens 1 summer girls and 
vacation ramblers ! collectors of autumn leaves, and 
all who love to rove in the by-paths and recesses of the 
forest. The earth is full of tieauty ! Go forth and see. 
It is our own fault if we fail to appreciate its charms. 
Even the laborer who works in the public and private 
parks ought to get enjoyment out of his shovel. Thereby 
he learns to be content with his lot. He will have no 
“grievances.” He makes the best of his occupation while 
it lasts ; and should he see an opening at any time to 
higher grades of employment, he looks forward to the 
realization, as the hopeful in this life look forward to 
the promised joys hereafter. He receives a perennial up- 
lift from_ the whispering leaves and waving branches 
around him, and draws lessons from their falling and 
unfolding. 
Woods reflect the character and features of the Creator 
just as the handiwork of friends who- love us, be they 
maiden, wife or mother, reflects the spirit which animates 
their deft and busy fingers and lights up their kindly 
faces with pleasant smiles. Soulful expression of re- 
gard — in color, pattern, lines of usefulness, and sugges- 
tion — are they not exquisite ? Did we but notice a moiety 
of the natural beauty around us we would dwell con- 
sciously in the Creator’s presence all the time. We are 
bound to discover in due course that the God of Nature is 
the God of Love. Otherwise we shall flinch when he 
shakes the earth with tremors and splits the clouds with 
his lightnings. We shall “have fear where no fear is.” 
The “works of the Lord are glorious and mighty in 
operation.” Those who trust in Him can always feel the 
warmth of His, sympathetic hand, even when the grip is 
painful. 
It is because we are drawn to nature’s heart, to the. 
Deity of the Woods, that we are moved to plead for for- 
est reservations. Men who undertake to “subdue the 
wilderness” are apt to destroy more than they can restore 
or compensate for. They may, indeed, enhance the beauty 
of a circumscribed area like a public park by artificial 
embellishment, but it is always at the expense of larger 
plundered or devastated areas. If we denude the moun- 
tain sides in wanton avarice, we may reap no small ad- 
vantage for a season ; but a grievous reprisal comes when 
the floods destroy the cultivated low lands and fill up the 
navigable waterways and harbors. Could men but learn 
to respect,- not only the deities of the woods, but the 
rights and claims of the many lesser denizens, furred and 
feathered, who occupy their leafy precincts, they would 
become conservative by impulse and inoculation, and not 
continue to wantonly destroy. 
Then, forsooth “w'ould all the trees of the woods re- 
joice!” — Ps. 96:12. Charles Hallock. 
Plajnfifd, Mass. 
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« S 
^ Take inventory of the good things in this issue 
^ of Forest and Stream. Recall ivhat a fund 7 vas o 
^ given last week. Count on ivhat is to come next D 
Q iveek. W as there ever in all the world a more P 
Q abundant zveekly store of sportsmen’s reading? ^ 
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