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®l!iliSfi if!
H. C. BILLINGS, Proprietor.
JACK COItBIN’S ADVEN
TURE.
BY OLD COOMES.
N. Y. Saturday Journal.
Ever}’ evening (luting our journey
up the Niobrara liver toward the
Black Hills, we drew upon the inex
haustible supply of our guide, Jack
Corbin, for a story of adventure-
Old Jack had been a hunter, scout
and guide all his life, and so he had
been “through the flint mill,” and
had treasured up in memory the
recollection of many a wild and dar~
ing adventure. And then, he loved
to sit evenings and smoke and teli
them, and we liked to iisten to him
lor he possessed a peculiar vein of
whimsical humor, and threw a droll
pathos and fascinating horror into
his style of narrative that made him
quite enjoyable.
The howl of a wolf near camp one
evening soon after we bad eaten our
supper and taken our places before
the nre to talk and smoke away the
hours until bedtime,causedone.of the
party to make some remark about
the animal, when Old Jack removed
his pipe from his mouth and said:
“I never hear a wolf but what it
brings up a strange, startling event
in my mind, and causes me toshudf
der like a young earthquake. This
war some fifteen years ago, I think.
I war down in the western part of
Nebraska, wkar they war payin’ 8
lammin’ bigj bounty on woll-skulps,
which made wolf-huntin’ a purty
fair business for some of them. Of
course they’d pay nothin’ only on
skulps taken in Jthal county, and
when a man presented his skulps
he had to swear that thej r were tak
en in that county. Thar war a cer
tain pair of suspicious-lookin’ fel
lers that made their appearance at
the auditor’s office so regularly with
piles of skulps, that s’picion finally
riz as to their doin’ a legitimate
business—confinin’ their operations
strictly to that county. Thar war
somo of the authorities b’licved that
these men war wolf-herders—that
is, made a business of breeding
wolves for the bounty on their skelps;
and the more the matter was thought
over the stronger the folks become
in their convictions. Of course, if
they were wolf-herders their dens
war hid away off in the deep recess
es of the distant mountains *whar
they might never be found.
“ However, the sheriff, Dick Hall,
and his deputy and two others con
cluded to make a grand hunt for the
supposed retreat of the wolf-herders;
and they employed me to act as
guide, and away we plunged—over
the prairie and into the deep recess
es of ilie mountains. Of course the
three first days out we done little
but talk and plan, smoke and drink;
but on the fourth day we begun to
think ’bout wolves and wolf-herder,
and Injins, also; for during the day
we were fired upon by someone In
ambush, and I war wounded in the
shoulder. It war only a slight flesh
Wound; and yet I bled like a stuck
pig, and suffered some from loss of
blood. But the boys bound up uiy
shoulder the best they could, and
give me brandy as a substitute for
blood; aud you may bet it required
considerable—cut off the sheriff and
his men’s rations like everything.
“That night we went into bivouac
under aome low scrubby pines earli
er than ‘usual, on account of ray
condition. We lighted a fire, eat
our supper, took a smoke, stationed
a guard and tinned in for the night.
I war excused from duty that nigut,
owing to my hurt and a slight fever;
and so I laid down nigh the fire and
fell asleep. I hadn’t laid thar long
when the crack of rifles and some
horrible yells startled me; and the
next moment a dozen fierce-looking
men charged in upon us, and beat
us down. The next minute we war
bound hand and foot.
“‘Ha! ha! ha!’ laughed the demon
that appeared to be the leader of
the gang; ‘this is ther luckiest haul
we’ve made, bojs. Yon, gents, have
become the hunted and we the hun
ters, and I don’t think you’ll go
kuuting wolf-herders ag’in.’
“This told us that we war in the
power of the wolf-herders them*
selves; and I shuddered with fear.
The sheriff said somethin’ in a defi
ant manner, when the leader again
shot out his terrible threats:
“ ‘We’ll see that you don’t bother
us ag’in; you fellers will make
jist as good wolf feed as deer or
buffalo, seein’ asyer in mighty good
flesh; so yer might as well be savin’
j-er prayers, for in less ’an a hour
you’ll be in the gullets of n hundred
hungry wolves.’
“Heavens, boys!” and Old Jack
appeared to shudder at the recollec
tion of that awful night; “ you may
bet the blood and brandy in ray
veins rolled along heavily and cold
ly. . I tried to expostulate and ex
plain to the demon of the wolf-pens,
but I’ll swear my tongue was froze
—refused to obey the will-power of
my mind. It seemed, howsumever,
that they divined my very thoughts
and war all the barbarous and inhu
man. They put us on some old
racks of ponies, and carried us away
through dark passes aud deep gorges
and finally drew up in a dismal and
horrible place. The snappin’ and
snarlin’ and yelpin’ of wolves told
us that we had arrived at the pens
of the wolf-herders. Arter we war
taken off our ponies, we received the
cheering information that we war to
be at once fed to the wolves.
“‘Great mercy!’ exclaimed our
nervous friend, Lefflcr.
“ Yes, and we war act’ly carried
alive, and bound band and foot, to
a stone fence and thrown over into
the pen whar a hundred grim, guant
wolves war waitin’ foi us. The an
imals rolled to’rds us like a great
wave. Still my tongue was stiff with
horror and my limbs paralyzed.
Several wolves come to me and sniff
ed around me, and then pranced off
to the other boys. I reckoned they
concluded I had too much whiskey
in my system for their appetite; but
they pitched into the sheriff and his
men and began to devour ’em, soul
and body.
“Oh, heavens! never till my dying
day wiil I cease to hear the cries of
them poor wretches ns the beasts
eat and tore their lives away, piece
by piece. The sheiiff lay close to
me. He was a powerful big man—
a perfect type of manhood. 1 could
see liini plainly', for the moon was
shinin’ bright. I could see the ani
mals tcarin'ofl strips of hot, quiver
ing flesh from limb and body. I
could see the tendon and neves lay
ing bare, quiver and jerk. I could
bear the blood gurgling from the
awful wounds, and hear the wolves
lapping it up. I sae’d the white
bones stripped of their flesh, even
while cries of agony warissuin’from
the poor man’s lips.
“Merciful heavens!” cried Down-
MADISON, GA., FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 2,1877.
iy shuddering with horror at the
recital of death and suffering; “them
wolf-herders must have been worse
than fiends incarnate.”
“I don’t know what you’d call ’em
boys; but they seemed to enjoy the
carnival, for they stood outside and
laughed and haw-hawed at every
groan.”
“Great God!’’ exclaimed Hamton,
smiting the ground with his clench
ed fist, while Downly removed the
end of his pipe-stem from his mouth
that he had bit off in the moment of
excitement.
“Little by little,” continued Jack
in a cool, deliberate way, “I saw my
friends devoured. One by one I
heard their cries of agony hushed
as their lives went out in that awful
death. And I kuew my turn’d come
Bood, whisky or no whisky in my
system. The wolves’d had a taste
of human flesh and nothing'd stay
’em. I laid waitin’ for tha ordeal,
not carin’ how soon it’d come and
an be over with; and presently as
a big wolf sauntered up to me and
thrust his nose that smelt sickish
with the hot blood oi the sheriff, in
to my very face. Then he sniffed
around a l.ttle, and finally seized my
arm in his sharp fangs, aud begun
tearing at the limb. But ‘what do
you think happened at this moment,
boys?”
“Someone came to your rescue,”
I answered.
“No, no; the sting of the wolf’s
teeth broke the spell that bound my
tongue aud paralyzed my body. In
an instant I seemed to become pos*
sessed of the strength of an unearth
ly being. I snapped my bonds like
threads and rose to a sittin’ posture;
and then—oh, Jerusalem! I—”
“Foughtyour way out and escap
ed ! Good! good!” cried Leffler, anx
ious to hear the last of the terrible
story.
“No,” continued Corbin, with a
smile; “I rose to a sitting posture
and found our camp-fire burning
brightly before us, and the sheriff
and his men sleeping sweetly around
it, and a coal of fire, having popped
out of the heap of red flames nigh,
was laying on ray arm and burning
through my sleeves to the quick.
This coal of fire was the wolfs teeth
that awoke me. I’d been dream
ing.”
“Confound you!” exclaimed Leff
ler, expressing the surprise and in
dignation we all felt at having our
credulity preyed upon; “I wish your
story’d been true, and it’d been you
instead of the sheriff devoured.”
“Haw! baw! haw!” roared old
Jack; “sing’ler about a story losing
its charms when it tern out to be a
dream.”
And lie resumed his pipe, leaving
us to our reflections.
wm w
In Southwest Georgia large num
bers of farmers are refusing to pay
their guano bills on the grounds
that their crops were injured, and
also their lauds, by its use.
Mr. W. S, Henderson, of Wash
ington county, carried off the pre
mium at the State Fair for the lar
gest yield of corn per acre—he hav
ing made 70 bushels on one acre-
Judge Bartlett is holding Court
in Richmond county this week and
Judge Gibson is presiding at Jasper
county Court.
The South Georgia Conference
will convene in Talbotton on the
12th of December.
The Democratic Executive
Committee
Of Morgan county met pursuant to ad
journment at the Court House last Sat
urday at 10 o’clock, Maj. J. F. Hanson,
Vice President, in the chair, and 11. W.
Baldwin acting Secretary. The returns
from the diffeient election precincts ol
the county, except Ebenezer, of the pri
mary election held on the 20th inst.,
were produced.
The point was made before the Com
mittee that according to the custom of
tlie Democratic party, in its nominations
the colored voters were ineligible, and
that their votes were involved and should
be excluded from the count.
It was resolved, upon motion of Carter
Shepherd, that the vote be counted and
only those votes be thrown out, white or
colored, that were not polled by genuine
Democrats, the Committee having pre
viously to the primary election, declar
ed by resolution, introduced by Colonel
Be id that all bona-fide Democratic voters
were eligible to participate in the pri
mary election.
The result of the investigation was
that five votes were thrown out, of which
four were for McHenry, three for George,
and two for Anderson.
It was resolved, at a meeting of the
committee in the afternoon, that the re
turns from Ebenezer, which had then
come in, should be counted as they
stood, no vote having been deemed in
valid. The result of the count now
stands, according to the finding of the
Committee, 332 majority for McHenry,
aud 113 majority for Anderson.
On motion, the Secretary was ordered
to have proceedings of the Committee
published in the Madison Home Jour
nal.
J. F. Hanson, Ch’m.
H. W. Baldwin, Bee.
Mr. Editor:— ln the Madison Home
Journal, ol the 28th ult.. I find a poem
entitled, “The Stream of Death,” pur
porting to be written by a “young girl”
of this county. The poem is published
at the request of Dr. W. B. Crawford, of
this city, who, in a letter published in
the same issue ot your paper, indulges
in this lofty strain: “As for her ideas
I should say they are her own—Heayen
given and not instilled by any teacher,
ordinary or extraordinary. Centuries
ago it was written poeta nascitur. The
maxim is us true to-day as it ever was.”
Let us examine the title to the author
ship of those “heaven given ideas” claim
ed for the ‘young girl,’ and defended by
the Doctor, in an old edition oi San
der’s Third Reader, (and published long
before any ‘young girl’ ol this county
was born), we find, on page 128, tiie
identical poem, ‘The Stream of Death,’
as published in your paper as before
stated. There is some slight alteration
in one or two places, made perchance by
the Doctor to improve the grammar ol
the young genius he champions into
public print.
It seems this poem and another enti
tled “Only” had previously appeared lu
the Index and Baptist, and at the request
of the Doctor, and claimed to be written
by the same ‘young girl.’ But ‘Justicia’
aseusible correspondent of your paper
had too much reason about him or her
as the case may be, certainly not creduli
ty enough to gulp so tiiin a story, ami in
a letter to your pa|ier pertinently inquir
ed, among other things, ‘h it reasonable
to suppose such ideas and such language
could be used by an uneducated girl?’
Upon principle and reason “Justicia’’
exposed the utter weakness of the young
girl’s title, yet the Doctor in the face of
all this, persisted in championing the
young authoress, declaring o( her ideas,
‘I should say they are her own, heaven
given, &c.
When I first saw the poem in your
paper, I thought it was written by I’lic
be Cary. lam still of this opinion, but
have no volume of her poems to ascer
tain from the,n whether lam right. It
is mathematically certain though, or at
least we have recorded evidence to show
that the ‘young girl’ is not the author.
“Ordinary Schoolmaster."
Madison, Ua., Oet. 30,1877.
lucendiaries are burning rail fen
ces in Washington county.
YOL. VII. NO. 44.
WORK.
BY JOHN T. POU.
People talk of hard times; there
are no hard times ; they are only
different or changed from what
they used to be. The philosophy
of hard times is the philosophy of
small things. They are only so
by comparison. We are fools
enough to keep dreaming of that
ante-bellum paradise whose gates
seem forever shut against us ; of
the time when we had to but rub
the lamp of our wishes and there
appeared a thousand ministerings ;
ready slaves stood by for our bid
dings; princely carriages were or
dered to convey us from place to
place ; downy beds supported our
reposing limbs ,* costly tables
groaned for us with the luxuries
of the gods; nectar drinks sparkl
ed to quench our rising thirsts;
and our cornu-copia was forever
full. The gates are shut, yet can
be opened; but only by work;
which is as magical as the Tear
of the Peri. It was work that
reared the wondrous Pyramids of
Egypt and converted her morasses
into gardens: it was work that
made Ciesar demi-god and Rome
the mistress of the world ; it was
work that formed the grand move
ments of the immortal Nepoleon
unsurpassed since the Spirit of
God moved upon the deep and
excited acclamations unheard since
the sons of heaven shouted over
the grandeurs of a newly made
world ; it was work that expelled
the furious savage and made
American wilds “bloom aud blos
som like the rose;” it was work
that broke the rod of English tyr
anny and achieved our glorious
liberties ; it was work that fed the
poor, helped the needy, healed the
sick, gave sight to the blind, rais
ed the dead and redeemed the
world. And can there be a man
that is ashamed to work ? Fool!
he shan’t eat, shall die on a dung
hill and be buried in a ditch.
Messrs. B. R. Riordan and F.
W. Dawson have purchased the
interest of Mr. Benjamin Wood,
of New York, in the Charleston
Nexen and Courier, and will here
after publish the paper under the
firm title of Riordan & Dawson.—
We congratulate these gentlemen
on the prosperity which has ena
bled them to secure this property,
and wish thorn much success m
the future.
A movement of very considera
ble force is reported on foot to
force the President to put Schurz
out of the Cabinet. This step is
one of the remedies proposed by
some of those who met at Secreta
ry Sherman’s house to consult
over pending troubles, and the
means of ending them. Outside
of these gentlemen, the movement
is said to be gathering much
strength.
At a fashionable wedding break
last in London, recently, an ora
tor of the most lugubrious type,
who was beginning to weep copi
ously, took out, as he thought, his
pocket handkerchief, and was
greeted with shouts of unrestrain
ed laughter. He had in his hand
one of his wife’s silk stockings,
which she had asked him to match,
aud which he had forgotten to do.
Gen. Harlan is said to be the
third lawyer who has risen from
the bar directly to tho Supreme
Beach. Bradley and Davis were
the other two.
Senator Gordon has written an
article for the North American
Review on civil service reform.
Corn is selling in somo counties
in Kentucky for $1 per barrel.
