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THE fl °mrs collection i —i0-a-0‘»‘9‘—0—0'm‘0’*9—-0‘»’0—0—0-—0-»‘0-»-0—0—9-»'0—0'»‘9-* 9 *. 9 ^ 9 +. 9 +. 9 *.0*.0*.0+.0+.0+.0-*0-»0‘+0~9~O~9—0~0-+0-~0-~0'*0’*9‘»9—0~0*-0-~0~9—9’+0-~0~0-~9.-0—»~9-~0~9-»0~0-~0~0~0-+0'*-9~0~0-~0~0~0-~9~0~C—0~0>*9~0.~0.-0«-0~.9-.0+. 9 M (<4, V'-.A-a „ /'~'x° i i’t (><A IS ^.-va I y i Ancient O. Modern Romance Majestic “Father of Waters” By HELEN GRAY. Writterrfor 7>he Sunny South EFORH the days of Watt and Stephenson, and those other great thinking giants Tvhos-- minds trended in the direction of quick loco motion, the rivers of the earth "were of infinitely greater Importance to man kind than they are today. Down to within some three score years ago, water craft carried on abund antly more of the com merce of the world. ’Tis the shriek of the steam engine, heard in every direction, that has caused steam boat life, like the dew on the mountain, to m-eit away, and rivers to become ob solete things. Of famous rivers that have played a part in the history of our sphere, com mercially and otherwise, may he men tioned the hoary Euphrates, the Nile, the Thames and the castled. Rhine, the blue Danube, the Jordan and the Rubi con; these of the old world. LONELIEST AND LONGEST. Of the now, we have the Orinoco and thd Amazon, Humboldt's river, the Hud son and the James; the Potomac and the York; the Missouri and the Ohio; the Cape Fear and the Mississippi, way- wardest and loneliest, and longest stream of all. Xo river of the new world has been so invested with mystery and ro mance as this, onr central stream; the “grciat sewer” of the Mississippi valley, poetically and appropriately yclepped by the Indians "Great Father of Waters “ History tells us that the first white man to look upon the earth's longest river—longest only when considered in connection with its main branch, the {Missouri; for tne Amazon disputes this claim—was Hernando De Soto. Spanish cavalier, wbo, with his little hand of discouraged followers, came upon the river on an April morning in the year 1542. at a. spot near where is now the city of Memphis. it must ‘have presented a fair picture. Shimmering in the sunlight, to these searchers for gold, for at no point on the river is the scenery nobler than on the Chickasaw bluffs. De Soto did not long survive his dis- •©••■ ©■•■© 0 ••• • .»■ © 0 -o. •.«. • e e o A Typical Plantation Home on the Mississippi. House in Which Jefferson Davis Was Married, near Natchez, Miss., the Howell Home. Nearly Fifty Years It Has Been in the Possession of the Irvine Family. cover.v. Tarrying but a while to build themselves pirogurs, these fidgety adven turers set s>ai! down stream; whore their brave leader expired mar where the Red river debouches into the Mississippi. Cradled in a casile, the knightly De Soto dies a pitiahle death, and is buried by bis comrades beneath the waves of the stroa m. It is partly believed that the explorer, Cabeoa de Vaca. whose descriptions show decidedly a Munchausen trend, may have glimpsed the river before De Soto did. From its lovely source in Itasco lake, where, ice bound, it sleeps during t'he winter months, to the blue Mexican gulf, the Mississippi river numbers 2.616 miles. From the source of the Missouri to the gulf it numbers 4.200 miles. The first to make a long voyage on the tortuous stream, was the Sicur de la Salle, in days when its banks were peo pled with Indians. Before him came good Father Marquette, and Joliet, the fur trader. He descended the stream from the falls of St. Anthonj*. Rut let us make our bow to the “Great Father” from the sea, as did Bienville; and Iberville, the first' to approach this way. Of the river's three mouths we will choose to enter through the one known as the South Pass, which the genius of one Captain Eads, a St. Louis- ian of modern fame, has improved so mightily. We gaze intently at the cu rious embankments, called levees; and the fine old mansions half hidden be hind them, relics of a romantic day. Sugar plantations, and some orange groves occupy our attention. Our imagination takes flight a bit as we steam to the Crescent City along '.he ‘‘Golden Coast,” as this part of the dver was called when fortunes were nothing rare. Sailing these waters in lays of yore, did the Barataria pirates. In 1813 smuggling and piracy were rife in the river, and Grand Terre, the island Home of the privateers, boasted beaiti- i.ill ) gardens, and well-cultivated fields, under the discipline of the brothers Lafitte. Wonderfully clever were these Barataria pirates, who could hoodwink the officials of Xew Orleans, and win favor under Jackson at Chalmette. COOL CAPTAIN KIDD. Another pirate sailed about here nr. an earlier date, that cool Captain Kidd. In the northern part of Louisiana is a pretty landing by name L’Argcnt. mean ing silver. Near it is Bayou If Argent, up which, tradition says. Captain Kidd sailed his black flag to escape an ene my; but hitting a snag the vessel sank, and spilled ail of the treasure, which was silver, into the deep. A few miles from I/Argent is “Ravenswood,” the pretty plantation heme of Madame Yznaga, grandmother of the duke of Manchester. In. dos k..ig gone, profligai a of the worst type, from all parts oL the country, were wont to make their way to the Mississippi. Indeed, it was even whis pered that evil spirits guarded the big river. But perhaps none equaled in diabolism one “Mason,” of the year 1802, who boasted ms victims by the hundreds. Exaggerated accounts accredit to tins rival of the devil a thousand followers. Their chief business was to r‘>b and murder the boatmen as they re turned in parting from the far south witli the profits from their cargoes which they had carried down in fiat boats. At • ©■••©■»-••••• •( — 0 0 0 0 — 0 -—9 ‘ i o ••• 9 0 * ••• • ••• • • ••• o • .o. • •.. -©•••••••©••••••• i • ••• ... • ... 9-o-9—. m- &/>e Minister By W. H. Boardman Tenth of £he Outdoor Stories 9-—9-—9 — 9—0-»'9—0—9—-9‘~9-—L **■►•••■ ■••••©-•■I ■9—-9-»-9-»-9*9-*-0-»-0—9—-9-~0" '■9-»-9-*-9-»-9 — 9-»-9—- 9 ■•■9 9 i ©-•*©••*© © ••• ©.( •9 — 9-»*-+0-'9—9—9~9»-9—t ©•»•*•••© ••• o e •••©■«• 9 — 9 ■' <■ 9 HERE is no one thing,” said Hardy, “that lias so impressed me in my short experience in the woods as lias the fact that a man needs so little here. Xo, that is not quite right; It is that it is easy to get every comfort in the woods, because so much has already been done by the Almighty and 1 s ready to our hand. Each thing that grows here seems to he ada,pfod to the needs of other living things, and all for ns. “I never happened to know a good woodsman.” said Colonel Warren, “who was not devout. He is liable to go a step farther and be superstitious, for. however long arvl minutely lie studies nature, he finds so many tilings unac countable that he is apt to believe in supernatural intervention. ‘When a man’s barkin',’ says Billy Drew, ‘he learns what the moon kin do. In the full o' the moon, hemlock bark ’ll fal] off if you look at It. but when she changes, the bark'll squeeze to the log tighter ‘n a weasel ' “I almost wish I could be supersti tious. it is so picturesque, and it stops a man plumplv before he gets beyond his depth searching for reasons why. I don’t know why whirlwinds come to tear great swaths and make desolate windfalls among the beaitfiful timber trees; or why briars grow in burnt ground. I am glad to know 'Why spruce bark cannot usually be peeled later than July. In thf spring the sap is feeding a soft film between the bark nnd the wood and we ran easily get roofing for camps. The chemical process of changing this film fnto a cylinder of hard fiber is an ex tremely interesting and beautiful one. It is tile spawning season for timber, and the bark is again cemented to the new ring of wood. "I am glad to guess why hemloek, spruce, pine and balsam do not shed their leaves all at once, but keep a stock on band alive through the year, to make an everlasting cover for the rocks; and why the broad leaves of birch, beech, maple and ash are shed once a year and whirl in and work together to make rich soli on the hardwood flats and slopes; and why witch hopple and moose maple bestir themselves to make cover wherever too much sunlight gets in between the hard wood tops; and why water washes soil to the shallows in the ponds so that lily pads, deer grass, mosses, rushes and weed can grow for food for deer and sup port for the insects that trout feed on; but facts, rather than guessed reasons, interest the woodsman. "Black flics come precisely when trout are careless as they go on the rifts, about the 1st of June. John says there wouldn’t bo a trout left in the river in five years if it were not for black flies. They cer tainly keep a good many fishermen out of the woods, and often compel a man to go ashore and heal his wounds be fore his basket is filled. John claims that they like ‘fish lings' better than decent men, nnd it is likely to be true tlmt brutal men, who like to hurt and kill, are most afraid of pain. “Xotice. too, how well the punkevs do their work when the black flies tire and turn gray in July nnd lose their pow er for good. The little midget thrives in the slujde; lie can’t do good work in the shade; lie can’t do good work In the sunlight, or in the night, or at any time In the year except in the spring hole season. In the cool of the evening, when trout are at supper, ten thoousand mil lions of these infernal gnats, the size of a--*i,redle point, 'lost to sight, to memory dear,' too small to be seen before they are felt, establish themselves about a quarter of an inch apart all over the body, and each one digs a hole. One bit© does not hurt much, but the cumulative effect is a frenzy, and lie is a stolid man who can clean out a spring hole in the edge of the evening when the punkevs are defending the trout there. It used to he an Indian torture, and it is said that a man stripped and tied to a tree in a punkoy hole soon loses his mind, and dies in one evening. It seems to me be lievable. “Comfort means exactly the same here as it does at home, provision for a lot of small necessities and luxuries that we have become accustomed to, and the good woodsman * gets them with the least possible amount of work. There are de fective persons whose idea of camping is a squalid, unrighteous and not sober life, which they call roughing it. When you learn how. it is always possible to have dry clothes in your pack, a tight roof, a good fire, the best food and the best cooking in the world, good society and plenty of water for bathing. What more do you want, unless It is a library? Xothing, I think, and books in the running brooks servo for the pres ent. “There are others who over-pro vide, but theiy err on tne sale side and are on the right track if they are ready to learn. They brinig a rain coat, while a rain cape it better and weighs only a quarter as much; they bring wading boots, when an extra pair of stockings is better, and the boots w;igh 5 or 10 pounds, a con siderable straw to break the carrier’s back; a heavy toilet case, when a pocket comb and the few necessaries suffice and weigh less. A man needs something like 15 pounds of personal belongings for a few days in camp, but when he does not know, it is better to take 50 pounds than to be uncomfortable. “I invited a friend to meet me in camp last year, and as he was inexperienced in fly fishing and I was over supplied with tackle I told him to bring only a comb and a tooth brush and I would do the rest. I walked down the trail to meet him. and observed that, in order to dis encumber himself so as to shake hands with me, he carefully transferred bis comb from his right hand to his left hand, which was also holding the tooth brush. It was a warm day, and as we walked in my friend took off his cap. He was baldheaded—extremely so—and, of course, I always knew it, but forgot •it when X sent the facetious message, which he had taken seriously. I was at first mortified, for he was' interrog ative in the matter of the comb, often so during the first day in camp. He said he did not own one, and had not owned one for years, but as he knew nothing of the woods he had provided himself with a strong one, and was extremely anxious to know its use in woodcraft. I at last succeeded in convincing him that it was desirable—even necessary—to comb out his flies for using them, until they were thoroughly dry. I quite enjoyed watch ing him at work, evenings, with a tool to which he had been long unused, for 1 disliked to admit that I had caused him to make the error of over-providing. Still, bringing too much is a good fault; he might have needed a comb.” “But,” said ‘Hardy, “the woods supply everything. If he had needed a comb I have no doubt John could have made one.” “I made one once,” said John, “out of horn beam, worked it out careful and polished it with scourin' rush, the kind we use for cleanin’ knives, and it lasted me a hull winter.” “They come ready made here,” said George. “A trout's backbone is good enough for me unless there’s comp’ny cornin', and then I spear for a sucker.” "I have been puzzled,” said Hardy, “to ■understand how you put in this camp the row of wooden pins that are about an inch thick and 6 or 8 inches long; those that we hanig coats, hats and park bask ets on, inside the camp and put our rods on, outside the camp under the eaves. X can see that no auger holes were bored for them.” “That,” said Colonel Warren, is one of the most important of the small conve niences in camp, and the easiest to pro vide. Cut beech or maple saplings in lengths 3 inches longer than you want them to project. Sharpen one end to a long, tapering wedge. Make a nice job of this sharpening and the pins can easily be driven 3 inches in any soft wood log. Xeatness and good order are prime neces.sitif« for comfortable camping, and with plenty of these wall pins it is easy to be tidy. You are right, my boy, in concluding that the woods supply every thing, that is, everything in reason.” “You can't always tell what you 11 need,” said George, "especially when you start in a hurry. Y’ou rerpember when the minister was here five years ago? "We put out the dogs on a Saturday and he missed the only shot he had, and come Sunday, of course he wouldn't let any huntin’ be done. Drawin’ pay for Sundays and all. I didn’t mind settin’ still, but I kep’ thinkin’ of one of my dogs that hadn't come In, and ‘lowed I'd step out in the woods apiece and look for him. I had an idee of strikin’ the camp up Xorth Eiby way, for there was a party there runnin’ dogs and my dog might ‘a’ led into it. They was no need of carryin’ lunch, for I knoweil one of the guides there and of course he’d ask me to stay to dinner and I'd get a change of feed. But when the min ister see me bucklin’ on my belt and chain, he was all for goin’ along. I hed calklated on goin' alone and bein’ more sure of gettin’ ast to dinner, and perhaps a little mountain ash. and havin’ everything comfortable, but the minister spoke about the 'virgin wilderness’ and the 'holy temple on the Sabbath day' and lit out. Mothin’- could stop him. “Ws m£de the camp about I o’clock, jest as I figured to, but the party was gone. They'd left that mornin,’ for the ashes was hot, and they were good campers, for they’d burnt all the food that was left over, so's not to attract mice and vermin; but it made it bad for us. The only thing I found was a little pork grease, and I gathered a hatful of mushrooms and fried ’em, but the minis ter splcened again’ it; called ’em toad stools. “Then we struck off about 4 miles to Indian Clearin’, where I'd heard shootin’ the day before, and perhaps my dog had pulled in there, and perhaps whoever was there would ask us to eat with ’em. I never see a worse-lookin’ party than we found. 1 They said no strange dog had come in, and, of course, I didn’t believe ’em and began lookin’ ’round, careless- like, but they was unpleasant and seemed to want to get rid of us. So I looked for the minister, to take him away, and start for home, and there he was stand- in’ near the cooking’ fire. His nostrils flickered as lie smelled the coffee, and when he looked at the patridges, all split, and flatted out ready to briie, lie jest drilled; but they never even ast him if he had a meouth on him.” “It's queer,” said John, “how many ministers do come to these woods. I'v» seen a good many In my time, more'n a dozen. I reckon, and gen'lly good ones. It’s probably the best of ’em that comes, but I don’t know. 1 haven’t seen one outside since I was a boy. One September I was a few miles above here on the river with my boat. It was about 2 o'clock and I had stepped back on the hardwood flat to where the colo nel had a cache under the big maple by the hemlock stub. There's a spring brook there and I was cookin' a meal of vittels, when I heard two rifle shots in the line of my boat, and, of course, I stepped out to see what was goin’ on. Two men were restin’ on the bank op posite. They said they'd seen my boat and noticed it was fresh grounded on the bank, apd thought they’d find the owner of it by firin’ a couple of shots, so’s to ask on which side the trail led down the river. ”1 brought ’em over and didn’t ask questions, though it was puzzlin' to lo cate ’em. Course, I noticed they stepped in a boat right and knew how to take care of themselves, ’though they were strange to this country. Their shoes was good, but the strings bad been broke and knotted. Their pants was tore in a good many places, but mended good, except a few places fixed with safety pins, so it was pretty sure they’d come from Indian river way, through the big burnt ground. They were gritty and didn't ask for help, but I could see things wa’n’t altogether pleasant, 30 I asked ’em to take a meal with me. “Seemed as if I could hear their teeth click when they accepted, so I stepped across to the colonel's maple for some more provisions. I dug out his bottle and put it with a tin cup by the spring where they was washin’ up. Then I could see they was all right, for they took only about an ounce apiece. You can find out a good deal about a man by the way he treats whiskey. They were ten der of it and showed they took it only when 'twas needed. “After diijner the older man told me he used to come to the woods when he was young. He'd been a missionary to Tur key or somewhere way off. most of his life, and, since he’d come back, wanted to see the woods again. They'd started in to walk across, guidin’ by a map, and of course they'd had some troubles, but he made light of ’em. When they'd come to wide water that they couldn’t get round, they'd made a little raft for their clothes a'nd packs, and swum and pushed across. They were sandy and good, but they had been out six days and provi sions was low. The old man asked if there was a camp where they could stay over Sunday, so I told 'em all about the colonel and his camp, and how glad he'd be .when he come up in the spring to hear from me that his camp had been of use to people who loved th ewoods. I told ’em they was all right, and would be well fixed after about two hours’ tramp; and that’s where I made a break, for, as it turned out, it was a good while before they saw Wilderness camp. “The weather had changed while we was talkin’, nnd I’d been careless, not noticin’. It was growing black and south of west I could see a cloud risin’ that looked like a bag of bluin'. I struck off through the woods fast as I could make It, for we had five miles to go. Tiie ministers kep’ up well. We could hear roarin’ and crashin’ ahead of us, and we ■hadn’t gone fur before the tops near us begun to wnistle and moan, and I knew it wouldn't be long bef9re they’s begin twistin' and breakin'. We was on a ridge and I wanted to get down where some high rocks would shelter us. hut it was black dark, except when it was lightnin’ which was most of the time. When I saw a birch, about two foo through, that had fell across a little gully, I dodged down by it and called to the ministers to come in and make themselves small. They crawled in careful, without a word. The old one was the coolest man I ever see in these woods. When a hemlock come CONTINUED OX LAST PAGE. $! os^ i! sag last murders became so frequent that an immense reward had to be offered for the capture of the clan’s leader. lie was betrayed by two of his confederates. One morning, while counting out his money, a tomahawk pierced his head, which was then severed from the body and carried to Washington. The bones of the bandit lie molding in a grave at Smyrna, Tcnn., it is said, and his skull, to quote the words of an other, “furnishes history for the mu seum at Xashivlle.” Of the numerous Islands that dot the river, Xo. 37 is pointed out as having been one of the chief headquarters of these vicious out laws. It is worthy of mention that Abraham Lincoln was a fiat boatman on the river and that he was ever spoken COXTINTJED OX LAST PAGE. P St vVA n I v I ©Mi