8 
FOREST AND STREAM 
January 3, 1914. 
ice to break a channel. Each pushed, rocked, 
shoved, puffed and sweated. No use; yet we 
had no idea of lightening the boat by leaving our 
ducks. No, indeed; not if it took all night to 
get them to camp. When darkness had fully 
settled, a few yards marked all our gain toward 
home. 
As the air began to chill and the ice to stiffen, 
our hope increased. Fredericks went forward and 
stood a-straddle of the bows on the ice, then 
lifted and tugged like a steam engine, while the 
writer, well aft, pushed with his pike pole. There 
was just enough success in this to encourage 
more effort. Several times the boat was gotten 
fairly out and went ahead a few yards, when 
crunch, through it would go again. Twice Freder¬ 
icks, by quickness, fell backward into the boat 
just saving himself from going in all over. After 
working an hour, the gain amounted to only sixty 
feet and both were thoroughly tired, but the ice 
kept getting firmer, so presently we made a con¬ 
siderable run toward home, then there was more 
trouble. Bits of cane and pieces of smartweed 
kept getting under the runners, which checked 
our speed and held us back. This made Freder¬ 
icks hot, so, saying, “I’ll show you,” he stepped 
out, tied one end of the painter around his waist 
and pulled like a drag horse, kicking the weeds 
to one side as he came to them. With the writer 
poling and his partner pulling, good headway 
was made, but suddenly something broke and 
Fredericks went in up to his neck. What he said 
should have softened the ice and melted a chan¬ 
nel clear to the home landing. It didn’t, possibly 
because his mouth was pointed high and his 
words overshot the mark. 
The writer got him aboard and helped him 
empty his boots and wring out his clothes, then 
both agreed assistance must be signalled for. 
“How those home shooters will laugh,” I 
ventured to suggest. 
“Laugh! let them laugh 1 ” snapped the 
drenched and half-frozen Fredericks, between his 
chattering teeth. “We’ve got that air hole cinched 
for tomorrow, and besides have killed more ducks 
today than some of those guys will get all the 
Spring. Let them laugh and be hanged.” 
Reluctantly the distress signal was fired, two 
shots, then one. When it was repeated, answer 
came from Glodo’s and in half an hour he and 
his man Husky were dividing our ducks between 
their two boats and with but little more trouble 
we reached camp. 
Once after this the writer was in much dan¬ 
ger through his fondness for air hole shooting, 
many miles away from American Bottoms 
though.. He was shooting alone in a wide open 
channel between two frozen lakes. The ice was 
thick, hard and smooth as glass. When ready 
to go in, he couldn’t get his boat out of the 
water. He would row hard, run half way up on 
the ice and slide back. It was so deep his pole 
would not hold the skiff while he jumped out 
and pulled it entirely up. A dozen times he 
tried, always with the same result. There was 
no help near, no house within miles, and with 
night not far away, it certainly was a bad fix 
to be in. Then suddenly the body of ice in the 
South Lake broke loose and started, part of it, 
up the channel ahead of a strong wind, closing it 
of course completely as it came. 
For a time it looked like the end, the finish 
of everything, for between the solid ice on one 
side and that drifting on the other, there was but 
little chance of escape. The boat must be 
crushed and its fragments, with the man who had 
been it it. carried under, perhaps never to be seen 
again. Getting excited and rattled was useless, 
so the writer sat thinking what to do, watching 
the ice as it slowly advanced. A plan suggested 
itself and he got as far aft in his boat as possible, 
moving everything in way of ducks, decoys and 
such with him. Shifting its load raised the skiff’s 
bows six inches or more clear of the water and 
held steady, with a paddle, the drifting ice passed 
underneath and gently lifted the boat out and up 
where the writer had been trying to get for more 
than an hour, and in a minute threatened destruc¬ 
tion had become safety; but had the ice struck 
broadside on, or with bows low down, these arti¬ 
cles never would have been written. 
Besides being full of game, the Bottoms were 
a haven of refuge for many escaped criminals 
from St. Louis, Chicago and Southern Illinois. 
The country was a succession of low land, marsh, 
swamp and little lakes from just above Cairo on 
the south to just below St. Louis on the north 
where peace officers, sheriffs and constables had 
no friends among the inhabitants and where those 
for whom they might be searching were given 
every chance they could expect. The writer, 
knowing several fugitives from justice were 
camped near Big Lake, felt a little timid about 
taking a four mile walk through the woods, often 
necessary to get mail and money. 
“Just as safe as if you had a dozen policemen 
along,” Glodo told him. “Those boys are our 
friends and they know we’re friends of yours, 
so they’d as soon think of holding one of us up 
as of doing harm to you.” 
Comforting, but-? Still Glodo spoke the 
truth for when the writer met them, he found 
they were no different from the general run of 
humanity. Treat them right and they’ll do the 
same by you. Rub their fur the wrong way and 
sparks will always fly. 
He was introduced to four of these swamp 
celebrities, one an escaped murderer, two bank 
robbers and a hold up man, at a social gathering 
at Glodo’s. They behaved like gentlemen and 
when time came to go, gave Fredericks and him 
cordial invitations to visit their camp, which were 
afterward accepted and a nice lot of fur bought. 
The Bottoms had other inhabitants besides 
market shooters, outlaws and game. There were 
snakes, millions of snakes. Not the kind a city 
shooter once saw in San Francisco Bay, which js 
a story worth telling, even if in doing so, we must 
wander away from Big Lake. 
The gentleman in question, wealthy, of high 
standing both in society and his profession, 
whirled up to a sportsman’s hotel one morning in 
his car and bought wine for everybody in sight as 
long as the supply lasted, then switched to whis¬ 
key, gin and mixed drinks. When the writer 
came in from his day’s shooting, the stranger was 
so loaded, it was necessary to banish him to his 
room. There, with a quart of whiskey to sober 
up on, he was kept until morning, when the scul¬ 
ler he had engaged to take him out came. 
It was all sneak boat shooting around there 
and the two of them started just ahead of the 
writer. The morning was very dark and still. 
Naturally the swish of water against the boat’s 
sides and its gentle rocking, lulled the man to 
sleep. He slept only a short time, when with a 
jump that almost landed him in the bay, he 
awoke, tore open a box of shells, jammed two 
in bis gun and motioned his man to slow down, 
whispering excitedly, “I see them, I see them; 
don’t get too close.” 
The guide, using one hand to shade his eyes 
and peering into the darkness, responded, “I 
don’t see nothin’. What is it?” 
“Shsss,” the man said, fiercely; “see them. 
Look at -their eyes shine. Steady now until I 
get them bunched.” 
“What’s the matter?” the oarsman asked, 
now somewhat alarmed. “Ain’t nothin’ there, an’ 
if there was, you couldn’t see it. Lay down an' 
go to sleep.” 
“Yes, there is,” shouted the now frenzied 
hunter, waving his gun above his head. “See 
them! Snakes! SNAKES!!” 
This was sufficient. The sculler, a little rickety 
himself from so much drinking the day before, 
grabbed the gun, took out its loads, threw them 
overboard, then headed for home, where his 
customer, now raving and seeing all kinds of 
pink rats, blue mice and green reptiles, was held 
in restraint until his friends came and took him 
to the city sanitarium. 
No, these snakes around and in the lake were 
real. They began to appear as it warmed up 
and soon were everywhere. Not a clump of buck 
brush, not a floating log or plank, but was cov¬ 
ered with them, particularly toward noon of a 
sunshiny day. They even came into houses, 
crawled into beds and sometimes, along when 
the jug was nearly empty, a few of the locals 
saw them in their boats, or thought they did. 
Glodo’s house was not bothered. A large 
black gentleman cat took care none came around, 
or if one chanced that way, Thomas would send 
him to the place where the wicked cease from 
troubling, with a quick bite back of the head 
and a fierce shake. Still, knowing how every 
neighbor was annoyed, there was an uneasy feel¬ 
ing at night and once when Frederick’s bare foot 
touched a cold gun barrel, placed between his 
blankets for a joke, he got quite excited and 
jumped out of bed with considerable noise. 
Once the writer, going under full steam head, 
was chasing a crippled blue wing, when from an 
overhanging branch, a moccasin, as large around 
as his wrist and nearly four feet long, fell with 
a solid plunk, into the boat. If his snakeship 
wished to run that boat, there was no reason 
to the contrary. Its owner was willing to resign 
and stood prepared to step out over the stern. 
The unwelcome visitor, however, raised his head, 
took in the situation, ran his ugly tongue out sev¬ 
eral times, then with eyes flashing like a gambler’s 
diamonds, climbed over the bows, dropped into 
the lake and disappeared. 
The water in Big Lake was raised by spring 
rains until it made almost an inland sea. Toward 
the end of the season, a heavy blow came up 
suddenly. The writer and his helper were caught 
in it two miles down Lake from Glodo’s. One 
in his little skiff, the other in the freighter. 
The wind raised with the sun, but as shoot¬ 
ing was good and the boats were on a sheltered 
point, its full force wasn’t realized until the boy 
went to pick up some ducks which had drifted 
half a mile or more. It took a muscle-straining 
pull to get under cover again and both felt pru¬ 
dence demanded a return to camp as it was 
blowing harder all the time. 
The two, in the big boat, went to take in the 
decoys. The writer, kneeling as far forward as 
he could get, winding up the anchor lines and 
placing the decoys back of him, and his helper 
rowing against the wind; which is the only way 
to pick up in a gale, for the oarsman can then 
hold his boat steady insteady of drifting, fouling 
the lines and making a general mess of things 
as would be done if he went with the wind. 
It wasn’t such a very bad job, but with both 
of us, decoys, ducks, guns and ammunition, the 
freighter, large as it was, had more of a load 
than safety warranted. This made the writer 
decide to go in his small skiff, the one he was 
dumped out of earlier, as already told. 
“ ’Tain’t safe,” the boy insisted. “You’ll 
drown sure.” 
“Never mind. I’ll take the chances,” he was 
answered. “Only you stand by to help if I 
swamp.” 
The run home was through the trough, ap¬ 
parently very dangerous, but it proved as fine a 
ride as one could wish, that is for the little boat. 
(Continued on page 28.) 
