Forgotten Treasures #16: FISHING IN ELK RIVER--PART 1
 

FISHING IN ELK RIVER
by Tobe Hodge

Originally published in LIPPINCOTT'S MAGAZINE, AUGUST, 1885.

__________________________________________________ _
PART 1

When a man has once absorbed into his system a love for fishing or hunting,
he is under the influence of an invisible power greater than that of vaccine
matter or the virus of rabies. The sporting-fever is the veritable malady
of St. Vitus, holding its victim forever on the go, as game-seasons come,
and so long as back and legs, eye and ear, can wrestle with Time's
infirmities. It breeds ambition, boasting, and "yarns" to a proverbial
extent, with a general disbelief in the possible veracity of a brother
sportsman, and an irresistible desire to talk of new and privately
discovered sporting-heavens. The gold-seeker stakes his claim, the
"wild-catting" oil-borer boards up his lot, the inventor patents his
invention, and the author copyrights his brain-fruit; but the sportsman
crazily tells all he knows. So the secret gets out, and the discoverer is
robbed of his treasure and forced to seek new fields for his rod and gun.

Colonel Bangem had enjoyed a year's sort among the unvisited preserves of
Elk River. Mrs. Bangem and Bess, their daughter, had shared his pleasures
and acquired his fondness for such of them as were within feminine reach.
Any ordinary man would have been perfectly satisfied with such company and
delights; but no, when the bass began to leap and the salmon to flash their
tails, the pressure was too great. His friends the Doctor and Professor
were written to, and summoned to his find. They came, the secret was too
good to keep, and that is the way this chronicle of their doings happens to
be written.

No sooner was the invitation received than the Doctor eased his conscience
and delighted his patients by the regular professional subterfuge of sending
such of them as had money to the sea-shore, and telling those who had not
that they needed no medicine at present; the Professor turned his classes
over to an assistant on pretext of a sudden bronchial attack, for which a
dose of mountain-air was the prescribed remedy. And so the two were whirled
away on the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad across the renowned valley of
Virginia and the eastern steps of the Alleghany summits, past the gigantic
basins where boil and bubble springs curative of all human ills, down the
wild boulder-tossed waters and magnificent cañons of New River, around
mountain-bases, through tunnels, and out into the broad, beautiful fertility
of the Kanawha Valley, until the spires of Charleston revealed the last
stage of their railroad journey. When their train stopped, stalwart porters
relieved them of their baggage and deafened them with self-introductions in
stentorian tones: "Yere's your Hale House porter!" "I's de man fer St.
Albert's!"

"It's no wonder," said the Doctor, as he followed the sable guide from the
station to the river ferry, and looked across the Hanawha's bush flow,
covered with coal-barges, steamboats, and lumber-crafts, to Charleston's
long stretch of high-bank river front, "that Western rivers get mad and rise
against the deliberate insult of all the towns and cities turning their
backs to them. There is a mile of open front, showing the cheerful faces of
fine residences through handsome shade-trees and over well-kept lawns; but
here, where our ferry lands, and where we see the city proper, stoops and
kitchens, stove-pipes and stairways, ash-piles and garbage-shoots, are stuck
out in contempt of the river's charms and the city's comeliness."

"Stove-pipes and stairways have to be put somewhere," said the
matter-of-fact Professor. "And the best way to turn dirty things is toward
the water."

The ferry-boat wheezed and coughed and sidled across the river to a floating
wharf, covered, as usual, with that portion of the population, white and
black, which has no interest in the arrival of trains, or anything else,
excepting meals at the time for them, but which manages to live somehow by
looking at other people working.

"Give me," said the Professor, "the value of the time which men spend in
gazing at what does not concern them, and, according to my estimate, I could
build a submarine railroad from New York to Liverpool in two years and three
months. What are those fellows doing with their huge barrels on wheels
backed into the river?"

"Dat is de Charleston water-works, boss," answered the grinning porter.
"Widout dem mules an' niggahs an' bar'ls dah wouldn't be 'nough water in dis
town to wet a chaw tobacky."

A winding macadamized road leads up the river bank to the main street
running parallel with it. There is a short cut by a rickety stairway, but,
as some steep climbing has to be done before reaching the lower step, it is
seldom used. These formerly led directly to the Hale House, a fine brick
building, which faced the river, with a commodious portico, and offered the
further attractions of a pleasant interior and an excellent table; but now a
blackened space marked its site, as though a huge tooth had been drawn from
the city's edge, for one morning a neighboring boiler blew up, carrying the
Hale House and much valuable property with it, but leaving the owners of the
boiler.

"Dat's where de Hale House was, boss, but it's done burned down. I's de
porter yit. When it's done builded ag'in I's gwine back dar. Dis time I
take you down to de St. Albert. I's used to yellin' Hale House porter so
many years dat St. Albert kind chokes me."

So to the St. Albert went the Doctor and Professor, where they met with a
home-like greeting from its popular host.

Wheeling was formerly the capital of West Virginia, but for good reasons it
was decided to move the seat of government from "that knot on the Panhandle"
to Charleston. A commodious building of brick and sandstone, unchristened
as to style of architecture, has been erected for the home of the
law-makers; and henceforth the city which started around the little log fort
built in 1786 by George Glendermon to afford protection against Indians will
be the seat of government for the great unfenced State of West Virginia.
Its business enterprise and thrift, its excellent geographical and
commercial position, its healthiness notwithstanding its bad drainage, or
rather no drainage, have induced a growth almost phenomenal. Churches,
factories, and commodious storehouses have spread the town rapidly over the
beautiful valley in which it lies. The United States government has been
lavish in its expenditure upon a handsome building for court, custom, and
post-office purposes; and to it flock, especially when court is in session,
as motley an assortment of our race as ever assembled at legal mandate.
Moonshiners, and those who regard whiskey-making, selling, and drinking as
things that ought to be as free as the air of the mountain and licenses as
unheard-of impositions of a highly oppressive government, that would "tax a
feller for usin' up his own growin' uv corn," and courts "havin' a powerful
sight uv curiosity, peekin' into other fellers' business," afford ample
opportunities for the exercise of judicial authority.

A long mountaineer was before a dignified judge of the United States Court
for selling liquor without a license. He had bought a gallon at a
still,--as to the locality of which he professed profound
ignorance,--carried it thirty miles, and peddled it out to his
long-suffering and thirsty neighbors. Every native being a natural
informer, the story was soon told: arrest followed, a march of fifty miles
over the mountains, and a lengthy imprisonment before trial. Following the
advice of his assigned counsel, he pleaded guilty. Being too poor to pay a
fine, and having an unlimited family dependent upon their own
exertions,--which comprises the sum pf parental reponsibilility among the
natives,--the judge released him on his own bail-bond, and told him to go
home. He deliberately put on his hat, walked up to his honor, and said, "I
say, jedge, I reckon you fellers 'ill give me 'nough money to ride hum an'
pay fer my grub, 'cause
tain't fair, noway. You fetched me clar down yere, footin' it the hull way,
an' now you're lettin' me off an' tellin' me to foot it back. "Tain't fair,
noway. You-uns oughter pay me fer it." And he went off highly indignant at
having his modest request refused.

There is much of the primitive not outgrown as yet by Charleston: it has put
a long-tailed coat over its roundabout. The gossipy telephone is ahead of
the street-cars; gas-works supply private consumers, while the citizens wade
the unlighted streets by the glimmer of their own lanterns; innumerable cows
contest the right of pedestrians to the board footways and what of pavement
separates the mud-holes; an ice-manufactory supplies coolness to water
peddled about in barrels; the officials outnumber the capacity of the jail;
the ferry-facilities vary from an unstable leaky bateau to a dirty,
open-decked dynamite steamboat, who night-service is subject to the
lung-capacity of the traveller hallooing for it, and the fares to
necessities and circumstance; the fine brick improvements are flanked by
frame tinder-boxes; the offal of the city has not a single relieving sewer:
yet it is a beautiful, healthy place, and the chief city of the greatest
mineral-district in the world.

Our travellers breakfasted on delicious mountain mutton and vegetables fresh
from surrounding farms. Their host secured three men and a canoe to carry
them up Elk River to Colonel Bangem's camp, at the cost of one dollar a day
and "grub," or one dollar and a quarter a day if they found themselves, with
the moderate charge of fifty cents a day for the canoes.

When time arrived for starting, the Professor was missing. Bells were rung,
servants were despatched to search the hotel for him, but he was not to be
found. The Doctor grew impatient, but restrained himself until an uncoated
countryman, who had just walked into town and was ready for a talk, told him
that he "seed a feller, thet wuz a stranger in these parts, with a
three-legged picter-gallery, chasin' a water-cart a right smart ways back in
the town, ez I come in."

"That's he," said the Doctor. "He is crazy after pictures. I'll give you a
dollar if you bring him to the hotel alive."

"Is he wicked?" asked the man.

"Generally," answered the Doctor, whose eyes began to twinkle; "but you get
hold of his picture-gallery and run for the hotel: he will follow you. I
often have to manage him that way."

"I'm minded to try coaxin' him thet a-way fer a dollar. You jist take keer
uv my shoes, an' I'll hev him yer ez quick ez Tim Price kin foot it, if he
follers well an' hain't contrairy-like, holdin' back."

Tim price relieved his feet of their encumbrances, and started. When his
tall, gaunt figure had disappeared around the corner, the Doctor grew red in
the face from an internal convulsion, and then exploded past all concealment
of his joke.

"If you gentlemen," he said to the by-standers, "want to see some fun, just
follow that man. I will stay here as judge whether the man brings in the
Professor or the Professor brings in the man."

A goo joke would stop a funeral in Charleston. The hotel was cleared of men
in an instant to follow Tim and enjoy the hunt. Tim sighted the Professor
about a quarter of a mile back in the town. A darky driving a water-cart
was standing up on the shafts, thrashing his mule with the ends of his
driving-lines, and urging it, by voice and gesture, to the highest
mule-speed: "Git up! git up! you lazy old no-go! Git up! Don't you see dat
picter-feller tryin' to took you an' me an' de bar'l? Git up! Wag yer ears
an' switch yet tail. You're not gwine ter stan' still an' keep yer eyes on
de instrement fer no gallery-man to took, 'less you's fix' up fer Sunday.
Git up, you ole long-eared corn-eater!"

The Professor was keeping well up with the flying water-works. His hat was
stuck on the back of his head, he carried his camera with its tripod spread
ready for sudden action, and every step of his run was guided by thought of
proper distance, fixed focus, and determination to have the water-works in
his collection of instantaneous photographs. A turn in the street gave the
Professor his opportunity: he darted ahead, set his camera, and took the
whole show as it went galloping by, when he reclined against a fence while
making the street ring with his laugh.

Tim Price, who was watching his chance, saw that it had come. He grabbed
the camera, gave a yell of triumph, and faced for the home-run. He had not
an instant to lose. The Professor sprang for his precious instrument.
Tim's long legs carried him across the street, over a fence into a cross-cut
lot, and away for the hotel at a mountaineer's speed. The Professor was
small, but active as a cat. Where Tim jumped fences, the Professor squirmed
through them; where Tim took one long stride, the Professor scored three
short ones. Tim lost his hat, and the Professor threw off his coat as he
ran. The main street was reached without perceptible decrease of distance
between them; but there the pavements were something Tim's bare feet were
not used to catching on, and the people something he was not used to
dodging: he upset several, but dashed on, with his pursuer gaining on his
heels. Men, women, dogs, and darkies turned out to witness the race or
follow it. "Stop thief!" "Go it, Tim!" "You're catching him, stranger!"
"Foot it, little one!" were cries that speeded the running. The Doctor
stood waiting at the hotel door, laughing, shaking , and red as a veritable
Bacchus. Tim Price banged the camera into him, whirled round suddenly,
caught the Professor as he dashed at him, and held him in his powerful arms,
squirming like an eel.

____________________________________
END PART 1