"DOC" SIMMONS AND THE WILD_CAT AN EPISODE t IN WOODS J \ AND WATER j \ EXPLOITS < [ 1 * Ernest McGaifey } r Author of "Foema of j Ik Gun and Hod, Etc. 3 in iIM B'lM MiMH« ■II IT |i W\ (Copyright, by Jobvpti 11. iJowltis.) "Got your comp?.ss, Doc?" asked one of the guides, at a short, stout figure passed out fron the tents, with a double-barrelled shot-gun over his Bhoulder. "Yep," wast 0 reply. "Which way he you going today?" "Over by the oak ridges," was the answer, "I saw lots of turkey sign there late yesterday afternoon." "Well, look out for wildcats over there, too," remarked the guide, "they re settin' around in the green briers over there watchin' for rabbit and turkey." "All light," replied "Doc," "if I run across one of 'em, I'll try and scratch bis buck for him." We were camped in the Arkansa3 wilderness, forty miles from a railroad and in the heart of the White river country. It had been a heart-rending trip through the swamps, and it had taken us two days to pitch camp, cut wood, and get our bearings a little. Five of us had arranged to take the dogs and "drive" deer that day, and "Doc" Simmons, like all but two of us, a "tenderfoot," was going over I thought if I lingered the wild cat might have robbed me of my watch and other valuables. to try for turkeys. "Doc" had been taking lessons from an artist in tur key-calling, and by means of scraping a small cedar box on the barrels of his gun, after having previously rub bed a quantity of common chalk on the barrels, he had managed to learn a call that sounded quite natural to the uninitiated, even If it didn't fool the turkeys. But "Doc" had run across a tur key by accident in the brush, the bird hwing been scared up by the dogs wMle running a deer, and when it flew right, into "Doc" he bowled it over ns easy as he would a quail. It was a fine, big gobbler, and filled "Doc's" breast with a desire to get some more of them. .Along about five, when it was get ting dark rapidly, we saw "Doc" Sim mons coming down the trail, headed for camp. He didn't have any gun wilh him but he appeared to be per fectly serene about it. He came up Just as though, nothing had happened, and says, "How soon'll supper be ready?" "What's the matter, Doc, said Em ory, "anything happen to you? Didn't meet up with a panther, did yeu?" "No!" says "Doc," and then he laughed. "I got a turkey," says he. "Where Is It?" says Ed Morton. "Hanging up out in the brush," says "Doc." "Where's your gun?" says Ed. "I left that during my tete-a-tete with my friend and contemporary, the wild-cat," says "Doc." "Sure enough?" says we all, "let's hear." "Well," says "Doc," "it's quite a story; I'll tell you all about it after supper." "Well, sir, we had supper, and then "Doc" stretches out before the blaze of about a ton of logs and he says "Are we all here, brethren?" And then he commences. "I start ad out this morning and went straight to the oak ridges, and built me a little aort of 'blind' and crawled In back §Mt and commenced to listen, and oc- casionally call for turkejw. Finally I began to get an answer from over to my right and I kept calling the best I could, but finally 1 must have let out a fortissimo instead of a pianissimo note, and the turkey quit me cold." "Forty missimo," says one of the guides, "what's that, 'Doc?'" "It's a buck-suort translated Into English," says "Doc." "Goon, 'Doc,'" says old man Waits. "Well," says "Doc," "at last I heard the sound of about a million turkeys gobbling down in the timber and something must have scared them, for they commenced flying over me by singles, pairs, threes and clouds. I got two shots before they all went past, and killed one turkey. When I started back towards where they all had seemed to light, I hung my turkey up by that old cottonwood stump, high up out of reach of anything I guess." "Well, I was coming along to where the turkeys had all lit, and I got down to the green-brier patches. I wormed my way through about a mile of 'em, but can't raise any turkeys. I sat down and tried the 'call,' but nary a turkey. Then I made up my mind to come back to camp and pick up my turkey on the way. There was a little snow on the ground, just a smear, and every once in a while I'd come across one of those big old logs that was hard to climb over and far togo around, and the wading through the briers was awful tough besides. At last I came to a long old log that was running the way I was headed, and I made up my mind I'd 'ride her.' So I climbed up on top, and as I was coming along down towards the end I saw a thick bunch of green-briers at the other end. Says I to myself, I'll jump that hurdle, and I took a little flying start and up I went over the briers." "Now, it's a little singular, but when I came down I lit square straddle of the biggest wild-cat in Arkansaw. Yes, sir! I was in the saddle for sure, and I squashed him right down to the ground. I wasn't exactly scared, you might say, but I was a trifle confused. This old cat spit and clawed out from under me and 1 know he was almost frightened out of his senses. The ef fect on nie was what the scientists call 'optical illusion.' Ever see these cages with a squirrel going around in 'em? Well, I thought the world wa3 going around at the rate of a million revolutions a minute and that I was going around with it in a sort of cage, with eleventeen wild-cats on top of me to keep me company." "That's the reason I came away without my gun. That's the reason I didn't hunt up my turkey. That's the reason I hustled for camp. I wanted the sight of human faces and the touch of human sympathy. What I wanted to do was to get away from there and forget all that maze of fur and teeth and yellow eye-balls, and thrashing around there in the green briers, and that pungent smell of scared wild-cat." "And that's the reason, I reckon, that my clothes seem to be ripped up a little across the E?ams. I don't know what's the best record for travel ing through green-briers on a direct line, and I haven't measured the dis tance from here to where me and the wild-cat got Introduced to each other, but I want to say that my time must have been something terrific. I sailed over the logs like a quail, and I went through the green-briers like a rabbit through an osage orange hedge." "I thought if I lingered the wild-cat might have robbed me of my watch and other variables, I guess, for 1 never stopped to dicker about the gun at all. And now when I come to size it up, that varmint was as badly scared —I mean confused, as I was. I remember he went over the log like a charge of buck-shot the mimite he could squirm loose, but the optical il lusion on me was stseng at that time, and I thought I had lit right in the middle of a wild-cat convention." "Who'll go out with me in the morn ing and help me find my gun?" say* "Dpc." will," eaya old Emor/± CAMERON COUNTY PRESS, THURSDAY, MARCH 19,1908. STO]RIEf:I°E^~Y THOUGHT HE KILLED A MAN. Samuel Martindale Relieved When Told the Truth. "It must he a dreadful thing," sairl Capt. John S. Tarkington, "to carry through life the knowledge—or even the suspicion—of having killed a man, of having deprived any human being of life. "I was captain of company A, One Hundred and Thirty-second Indiana, in the civil war, and the regiment was stationed most of the time of its serv ice at Stevenson, Ala. 1 was judge ad vocate of the general court-martial at Bridgeport, ten miles from Stevenson, on the Tennessee river. It was re ported to me one morning that Sam uel Martindale of my company was in sore distress. He had killed a man, a deserter from a union regiment, as he was escaping from the prisoners' stockade the night before. "This deserter had gotten over the stockade, had crossed the ditch sur rounding it and was climbing the em bankment a hundred feet away whero Martindale wai pacing hi") sentry bent, when Corporal Iliff ordered him to fire on the fugitive. He did 30. The man fell, shot in the back and through the body, the minie ball touching tho backbone in its flight. The poor fel low was paralyzed and Martindale had suffered a shock almost as bad. "The deserter was picked up. A de tail carried him to a convalescent camp up the mountain. The surgeon in charge took the body to see to its burial and our detail returned to camp. "I consoled Martindale as best I could: told him what he had done was in the strict line of duty, but he con tinued to bewail this death, which he said was quite a different thing from shooting a inun in actual battle. "More than 20 years later I was talking one evening with a neighbor, Maj. W. H. Calkins, who afterward went to the state of Washington. We were calling up army incidents as we were seated on his porch when a friend visiting him came out upon the porch, whom he introduced as a for mer surgeon in the army. The major told of a man in his regiment, a cav alry regiment, who was shot in the toe, not much more than bruising it, yet the soldier died from that apparently insignificant wound. "Then the surgeon spoke up. Ho said he could tell of a most singular recovery. lie told of a man brought up to the hospital of which he was in charge just outside of Stevenson, Ala., a man who had been shot through the body. The surgeon had casually looked at the body when he in some mysteri ous way was moved to put his ear to the heart. He heard a faint beat. More than that, there was a faint breath coming from his lips. The surgeon, who was about to give or ders for the burial of this body, had the man placed upon a bed. He nursed him, watched him night and day and finally sent him away entirely restored, to his regiment. Let us hope this deserter did valiant duty for his country afterward. "I thought at once of poor Sam Mar tindale as I heard the surgeon's story, and directly afterward I told him that the deserter whose death he had mourned so many years did not die, and was probably yet in the land of the living. "Martindale was again a happy man. He said that this thing of killing a man jumping over a fence was too much like murder for his peace of mind. Mr. Martindale is yet living. He's up in Newton county, where he has served as auditor and treasurer of his county." SOLDIERLY CANDOR. "Colonel," asked the beautiful maiden, "did you ever have a horse shot under you?" "No," replied the bluff old war rior, "but 1 had several trees shot in front of me." —Chicago Record-Herald. Shorthand Without Hands. A youth of 15, named Possneck, who two years ago lost both his hands in a machinery accident at Arnstadt, has accomplished the remarkable feat of gaining a speed certificate for short hand. After his mishap, by which his hands were cut off at the wrists, he was received into a cripples' home. Tho duke of Saxe-Meiningen, one of the patrons, took an active interest in the iad and paid for two artificial hands. The cripple soon became so expert in their use that he is now an excellent penman, and can write shorthand at the rate of 115 words per minute. That Strange Ladder. "Some one has said," remarked the moralizer, "that the ladder of ambition has no top rung." "I guess that's right," rejoined the demoralizer, "and very often it has nothing to lean against."—Chicago Daily News. AT PETERSBURG. War Reminiscences of One Hundred and Fifty-fifth Regiment, Pa. V. Tn the winter and e&rty spring the marshy country to the south and south west of Petersburg, drained by Hatch ers and Gravelly runs, was subject to frequent fogs so dense that from day break until ten o'clock a soldier wan dering away a few rods from his camp would be unable to find his way back to the same. During the siege ®f Pe tersburg, writes John T. Porter in the Pittsburg Dispatch, the whole region between the lines of the contending armies was so cut up by covered ways, dug-out roads, rifle pits, etc., to con ceal the movement of troops and pick ets from the view of the enemy aB to make it almost impossible, or at least extremely hazardous, to pass from the main lines to the picket posts when the fog was heavy. During the winter campaign of 'G4- 'OS Sergt. Walter McCabo of com pany B, One Hundred and Fifty-fifth, in command of a large squad of pick ets, started out one foggy morning to relieve the union pickets in the riflo pits. After wandering for some timo in what seemed to be the direction of the union picket line the sergeant and his squad were brought to a sudden halt by a challenge from a confed erate picket, when, to their consterna tion, they found themselves prisoners within the enemy's Hue, unable to es cape. On bei.ig line 3up preparatory to starting for the rear of the confed erate army Sergt. McCabe and his men were relieved by the enemy of all their valuables and moot of The Sergeant and His Squad Were Brought to a Sudden Halt. their clothing. A confederate would say: "Here, Yank, I'll trade hats with you!" Another would exclaim: "Off with your shoes, Yank! I'll ex change with you!" Some mercenary confederate would ask:"Have you any money? Out with it! You'll not need it where you're going, and I'll take care of it for you." When the exchanges were all com pleted the scene presented the appear ance of a company of confederates dressed in neat union military uni forms, guarding within their own line a band of union soldiers dressed in ragged, tattered confederate uni forms, their heads sticking through crownless hats, toes protruding through the ends of shoes, bare spots showing through rents in trousers, es pecially in the rear. As the prisoners were marshaled into line by their captors and started for the rear, the appearance was that of a company of union soldiers within the enemy's lines guarding a com pany of confederate prisoners. How ever, no such scene was witnessed within the enemy's main line, as the captors, becoming confused by the thick fog, struck and followed a cov ered way, which, to their great cha grin, led them and their prison ers right back into the union lines, where the confederates, in turn, became prisoners. It is need less to add that tlie fortunes of war having changed, there was a hasty dis gorging of plunder and Sergt. McCabe and his squad came into their own again. Diplomats Purchase Homes. Diplomats from Latin republics, es pecially those countries where the governments seem to sit on shaky foundations, are making hay while the sun shines and acquiring permanent homes in the United States. The min ister from Cuba and Mine. Quesada have just bought the home of H. Clay Evans, the place of the Leslie Shaw hospitality in Washington. Senor Cal deron, the minister from Bolivia, pur chased and remodeled a fine mansion in Sixteenth street, and he intends to remain in Washington despite the whims of passing governments. Cal deron has invested much of his ample fortune in American securities. His wife is a Philadelphian and his daugh ter was educated in that city. Deforestation in Africa. According to J. Dybowski, a pro gressive desiccation of the air and soil is manifest in the region of the Sudan, the underlying cause being the destruction of the original forests. Cape Verde is cited as an example. In the eighteenth century the botanist, Adanson, described It as covened with a vast forest, whence its name. Now the forests hie gone, the rivers are di minished, sheets of water have disap peared, and the productiveness of the soil is failing, until in many places the region has become almost sterile. The natives began the destruction of the forests ignorantly; white men con tinue It for immediate aelflsb ends. MM A FUNNY GIANT, How a Little Fun Can Be Had In Social Company. Some evening when your friends have come into spend an hour with fl you and conversa tion lags, you and JPBSC }■—-> one of your >!vll can i m ' I personate this /L[Xt]/ I Queer-100 king Hr\ / nn( l cause / I much merriment. I Select a boy Ij\ much smaller than R ) |\ yourself and seat <"/ Tui- / him as * r ide • i ">rll j-J* \ your shoul de r, / i draping your com / 111 \ bined figures with ( |v \ \a sliawl or long / ( ||) ) cloak. Disguise v / 7°" r friend's face by making a mus tache with a piece of burnt cork anJ ornament his head with a high hat. The more complete the disguise tho more effective ia tho giant. If somo ready-witted and genial member of the party will undertake to act as show man and exhibit the giant, holding a lively conversation with him and call ing attention to his gigantic idio syncrasies, a great deal of fun may be produced. The joke should not, how ever, be very long continued, as the feelings of the person carrying i the other must be considered. A NEW CUT-OUT. Cut Out White Space Around the Head. ' <; ? 1 " ' / ((|||>> • <&; Cut out the disk and fasten it to back of the card at the dots. Turn and see yourself as others see you. TOYS OUT OF EGG SHELLS. What the Handy Boy Can Make In Spare Moments. Would you like to make this simple yet clever toy? It is easily done. Take shell which is open only at one A Nf end. Close this | opening with a lit rjJ tie piece of knead ||l ™ ed bread, shaped —I like the head of a chicken. Two tin tacks will servo for eyes; a bit of pointed wood will do for the beak. Let the bread go into the opening quite a little way tp make It more secure. A few feathers insert ed at the rear will look like a tail, and two toothpicks will serve as legs. Now your chicken is complete and ready to be made to stand up. Next take a couple of bent iron wires, about an inch and a half long. One is in serted a little back of the imitation legs, and is kept, as are all the other features, in place by white sealing wax; the other will serve as a support for a bit of sugar. When properly adjusted the bird will perch on your finger; It will bal ance itself and can be made to swing backward and forward. —Magical Ex periments. Teacher (reading aloud) —The weary sentinel leaned on his gun and stole a few moments' sleep. Dottle —I bet I know where he stole it from. Teacher —Where, Dot ? Dottle —Prom his "nap"-sack. Something Wrong. The little girl had gotten up very early in the morning for the first time. "Oh, mamma!" she exclaimed, re turning from the window, "the sun 's comin' out all right, but God 's forgot ten to turn off the moon." —Judge. You are always hearing people talk about a jolly good time. Did you ever have one? They are quite rar*. BUSIE. The True Story of a Little SqueaHfa Pig. When Susie wag a little sqneallng baby, Uncle Hezekiah adopted her. She was all alone in the world, and so was he. He wrapped her in a piece at old carpet and tucked her Into a box filled with hay In the wood shed. " A queer crib for a baby," you say. But Susie thought it was delightful. She had never seen such a nice hod before, for she had been born in tbo slummiest of slums —to tell the truth, in a pig pen. That pigs are really cleanly crea tures, no one could doub 1 12. who saw Susie's milk-white coat. She was* the dearest, sweetest little baby ptpgw in the world, iier pretty pink note and little pink ears and the curl of ber little tail were simply irresistible. So thought Uncle Hezekiah, as lie fed her a bowl of warm bread and milk tbrea times each day. But pretty soon Susie was able to feed herself, for baby pigs are not Fed Her Three Times a Day. babies long. In a short time she was trotting all over the farm at her tern ter-father's heels; out to tho hen house to feed the chickens; back to the pump to get a pail of water for Sam, the old horse; down to the berry patch to pick berries for supper; over to the pasture after the cow. Wherever Uncle Hezekiah went Suale went, too, or wanted to. It was very funny to see the old farmer and hiß faithful follower. One day Uncle Hezekiah had togo to town on business. He was already in sight of the courthouse tower when lie remembered that he had not locked Susie in her shed as usual. He turned around and looked behind him in some uneasiness. In the distance was a small cloud of dust. It came nearer and. nearer. Yes, it was Susie! She had ?03- lowed him these three miles to town. Uncle Hezekiah stopped his horse. Susie's feet clattered faster over the dusty road as she saw tbe beloved face of her master turned toward her. When she reached the buggy she gave a joyous grunt of greeting. "Well, Susie, what does this mean?" Uncle Hezekiah spoke sternly. "No one told you you might come. Go straight home!' The joyous twist of Susie's tail ail wound, and she stood looking at biro with mournful eyes, as he whipped np his horse and rolled away as fast ae Sam's stiff old legs could carry him. It was eight o'clock in the evening before Uncle Hezekiah had finished his errands and started for the farm. He had reached the top of the hil! where he had left Susie in the after noon. when he thought he heard a familiar sound in the darkness. listened: "Ugh! Ugh! Ugh! Ugh!" The tones were as full of love an® longing as pig language can expran. It was the voice of the faithful SusSe? She had waited for him all the after 1 noon and evening in this same .spot where he had left her. How could h« scold her? "Is that you, Susie, my girl?** b* called. "Well! well! You must be hungry. So am I. Let's go home as fast as we can and get some supper.** Susie trotted happily along under tho buggy. She was a very intelligent pig, and she pricked up her pink ears to try to hear that song Uncle Heae kiah was chanting in his deep bass. He was chuckling so she could hardly understand him, but it sounded li'kej "This little pig went to market. This little pig stayed at home. This little pig cried: 'Wee, wee, wee!* 1 can't find my way home." —Martha D. Taylor, in Detroit Free- Press. FOR WILLING FINGERS. A Sewing Convenience Which Mother Will Like. Would you like to make this uswful and ornamental sewing convenieoeeT It is easy to make. flW&o, and will be much. appreciated by V/J/ your mother, sia- Hi |\ ter or friend. The (J b \ pin cushion, a\ i A. needlebook and I scissor-case are J m&i fashioned of any ■'* rap small pieces of Ajajra | JJ silk or satin that Jago! V you may happen \j to have. Tii «- emery bag is made of red flannel to represent a strawberry, or of brown cloth to look like an acorn. It is filled with emery. Fasten -to each article * strip of ribbon a half yard in length. Join these at the top with a bow aud sew a large safetypin on the under side of the bow for the purpose ' pinning this dainty sewing eonveafc ence to the dress of the user. Could Gladys Spare It? "Sir, 1 waut your daughter's haad."' "You may have It with the greatest pleasure, dear boy, If you'll take dw oa« that'a alwaya la ray povlwt" 13
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers