hirsute adornment, “does an Irishman have whiskers?”
“What a silly question,” broke in Roland Van Amburg. “Just take a look
at Jim Scanlan over there by the tree-trunk. I’d say an Irishman has
whiskers.” Jim Scanlan was section foreman here. There could be no
mistaking his nationality.
Said Thuse, “I just wanted to be sure of that.” He went about
replenishing the waning fire. This done, he said, “That Indian was half
Irish.”
One story led to another, and finally my father told of hunting panthers
in Tennessee. He said it was claimed by old woodsmen that the panther
made a noise like the cry of a woman, but he had never heard a panther
scream, and he didn’t believe it.
“Do you suppose, Bill that there ever was a panther seen in this
country?” This inquiry was made by Mr. Scanlan.
“Maybe,” said Dad, “I once tracked a varmint that might have been a
panther through these very woods.”
Van chimed in, “Did they ever learn what killed the farmer’s stock over
on Elk creek? That was believed to have been the work of a panther. And
what about that varmint on the Rudy place?” Van was, as I knew stating
facts.
It was generally known here that a prowler of some kind had killed a
calf on the Bill Rudy farm, and had dragged it several hundred yards to
a hazel thicket—and after eating its fill, buried the remaining carcass
under leaves, after the habits of the panther. Bill Rudy owned the land
where Joe Pfrang now lives.
The storm grew in intensity. It had filled the woods with voices. If you
turned your imagination loose you could hear a cry, a laugh—anything you
chose. Then suddenly, astonishingly, there it was. A woman’s scream. Or
was it?
Thuse said, “It’s Bill’s panther.” Bill was my Dad. Old Drum raised his
voice. He made sound enough, in the tree-walled confines of that hunters’
paradise, to raise the dead.
Bob Graham said, “I feel spooky. Think I need a bracer.” He uncorked his
bottle and took a good one.
Well, whatever it might have been, that thing had the men baffled.
Albeit the storm raged fiercely in the tree-tops and upon the hillside
from whence the sound came, a deadly calm settled around the bonfire.
The men looked at one another in complete silence for a tense moment. I
believe everyone was wondering if maybe Thuse had not named it.
By this time everyone was, shall I say, panther-conscious. I would not
want to say that the men actually were waiting in expectancy for the
appearance of that killer. You know how it is. After a menacing thing
has been discussed in your presence for hours, without realizing it, you
just don’t forget.
Then suddenly, miraculously, there it was again—something very like a
woman’s voice coming in swells above the howl of the storm. Van, who had
repeatedly urged the men to break up camp and make a try for home, said,
“It’s the voice of an angel—an angel come to tell us to get the hell out
of here while the going is still possible.” Dad scoffed, “An angel out
here in the woods on a night like this—man, you must be crazy!”
Jim Scanlan said, “Well, anybody who don’t believe in ghosts is maybe
going to pretty soon.”
We had along a sharp axe and several good woodchoppers. At first
fuel for the fire was gleaned from old dead tree tops lying on the
ground—tops of blackoaks my father had cut some years before for the
tanbark to be used in his tannery. But as the snow became deeper, and
the puzzling voices in the woods persisted, the men—including yours
truly — somehow did not seem to want to venture beyond the circle of
light. They fetched fuel from a close-in rick of cordwood—four-foot
lengths. Without leave, we burned Anna Buzan’s wood, a full cord, that
night. It was wood my brother and I had cut on shares. Adjustment could
be—and was—made later.
Back there on the ridge high above us, in the thick of that blizzard, a
woman was singing, as it were, for her life.
Let me explain. Three people—a woman and two men enroute to the old
English colony, from somewhere farther south, had bogged down in the
storm two miles from home, and were desperately in need of help.
The old road in those days, coming in from the prairie lands on the
south, followed the ridge approximately on the line between the John
Wolfley timber on the east and the Anna Buzan timber on the west, to
a crossing on Spring creek. The road was first used in bringing out
cross-ties for use in building the railroad which now skirts the woods
on the north side of the creek. Back on the ridge several old wagon
trails led into the forest. The team those Colonists were driving, to
a ramshackle old spring wagon, had wandered off the road and had
floundered in one of those side leads, upsetting the wagon. This had
been the cause of that first scream.
Having broken harness which they could not repair in the dark, they had
started on foot to where, in passing, they had seen the light of our
bonfire, hoping it would lead them to the home of a settler. But when
close enough to see it was only a bonfire, misgivings began to
assail them. What if it should prove to be an Indian camp, or maybe
horse-thieves in hiding? These facts were made known to us after they
had reached our fire.
When Van’s “Angel” had come in the flesh—her long skirt, held up in
front, trailing atop the snow as she moved in—we could see that she was
not garbed in the traditional folds of flowing gauze-like fabric, as
becomes an angel. It would have been all out of place on a night like
that. As it was, I thought she was dressed rather too thinly.
Bob Graham said, “If you wouldn’t be offended, young lady, I’d offer you
a swig of my whisky.”
“Liquor,” she said, “I can take it,” Bob passed the bottle to her.
“O-oo, so little,” she complained. “I ‘opes it will ‘elp.”
Their names were Bill and Teddy and Minerva. Bill led off as spokesman.
He said, “When we sawer men walking around the fire we knew there would
be no ‘ouse ‘ere. And I asked Teddy wot shall we do now?”
“Ted ‘e said,” continued Bill, “Blast me ‘ide if I know wot would
be best. Wot you think, Minerva? Want to chawncit?” Teddy spoke for
Minerva. He said, “Minerva ‘ere,” pointing to the girl, “said to us—Now
you just ‘old your ‘orses, men I got it. I’ll sing ‘em a song.”
Let me remind you here that it was their ability and their willingness
to sing on any and all occasions that made those Colonists extremely
popular at the country school-house lyceum of that age.
Bill talked again. He said, “Then I said Hindians or ‘orse-theives,
whichever they are, would know that ‘appy, singing folks bode nobody
‘arm.” For the purpose intended, Bill’s idea was not bad—but Minerva
challenged it promptly. She said, “You can just drop that ‘appy part of
it, Mr. Bill.”
Their reasoning was logical. And their manner in coping with the
situation was unique. For them to have burst in upon a band of
horse-thieves in those days would, most likely, have been suicidal.
But with Indians of the times, it is my belief, they would have had no
trouble at all.
When they had thawed out, after Minerva had obliged us with more
songs—and believe me, that girl could sing — Teddy said he would fetch
his concertina from the wrecked wagon. It maybe was a good thing he
didn’t know anything about all that panther discussion.
However, after Ted had returned, Van, who, as a boy, had lived in
a panther country back east, told the newcomers about the Elk creek
incident and other periodical panther scares elaborating on the dangers
of same. He told those people they could count themselves lucky in
finding our fire. “Wild animals,” he said, “won’t go near a fire.” I
knew that this was not news to any of our party. And I knew, too, we
would keep our visitors for the duration.
Van started it. When he had guessed the hour of midnight had arrived,
he yelled so that all could hear above the roar of the storm—”Merry
Christmas!” Our English visitors returned the greeting—though, enveloped
in swirling snow, they didn’t seem to put much heart in it.
Looking up toward the high heavens in readiness to speak, Dad was caught
full in the face with a gob of dislodged snow from the treetops. He
said, clawing the snow out of his whiskers at the same time, “It didn’t
look like this could happen when we started out yesterday afternoon — it
was so warm, almost like spring. But then maybe this snow is a godsend.”
He clawed again at his whiskers, saying “Dammit!” He probably would have
quoted the old saying, “A green Christmas presages a fat graveyard”
— but old Drum raised his voice again, bringing everyone to rigid
attention. The dog ran out a few paces, turned around and came back. He
had not gone beyond the circle of light.
Together, or rather alternately, Minerva and Teddy made music against
the howl of the storm until morning. They could not team together.
This nightingale who had come to us out of the storm, was from another
colony—perhaps English Ridge, south of Havensville. Bill sang some, in
a comical way. Our improvised shelter, hardly worth mentioning, and our
fire had kept them from freezing. They were grateful.
They were of the old English Colony folk—Bill and Ted. This is not to
say they were scions of the favored six families who occupied Llewellyn
Castle on section 25, in Harrison township. They might have been from
any one—or two — of the dugouts scattered about over the prairies
outside the Colony-owned section. But they were decidedly English, and
none the less Colonists.
When at last morning had come, and we had seen our visitors off, we
drove out onto a vast prairie covered with snow, homeward bound. We
would be doing well if we reached home in time for dinner. Deep drifts
lay ahead of us and there was a sea of white on all sides as far as one
could look.
Incidentally, I might say here that the streets in Wetmore were
completely blocked by that storm. The main street in the business
section was drifted so deeply in snow that to facilitate traffic a cut
was made down the center of the street, and one standing up in a wagon
had to look up to see the top of the cut.
Van stroked old Drum’s head. He said, “Too bad, old boy, you didn’t get
a chance to show Bill how good you are. Skunked this time, but maybe
better luck next time. Wish you could tell us what kind of a varmint you
saw, heard, or scented, when you made all that commotion back there. You
wouldn’t lie to a fellow, old longears, and you are not afraid of the
dark—are you?”
Dad said, in a tone that indicated his great disappointment over the
bogged down coon-hunt, with maybe, also apologies to his guests,
“Well, damn it, men—it wasn’t a complete waterhaul. We’ve got a white
Christmas.”
UNCLE NICK’S BOOMERANG Published in Wetmore Spectator
March 5, 1943
By John T. Bristow
The hunt was staged in Uncle Nick Bristow’s timber — way back in the
70’s. It was on the home place over on the Rose branch, the farm now
owned by Bill Mast. The trail of the hunters would range down stream,
overlapping into the Jim Hyde and Bill Rose woods, and on down to
the junction with Wolfley creek. Ostensibly, it was to have been a
coon-hunt, but it soon developed into something bigger and better. ‘
There was a good moon—but to attract the hunters, a big bonfire was
built in the woods, and the men flocked in from all directions. The
interesting part of it was that three of them were from the old English
Colony, two miles west of my uncle’s farm — ”Green Englishmen,” the
Wolfley creekers said they were. Couldn’t name them now—and be sure. One
of them was a stocky little man, very talkative, very agreeable.
Then there were the Porters, the Pickets, the Piatts, the Snows, the
Mayers, the Barnes boys, and others—not aiming to overlook my Uncle Nick
and his son, Burrel. The elder Mayers, Gus and Noah, were Pennsylvania
Dutch, with Holland ancestry. Gus liked his fun while Noah liked to stay
at home and mind his own business. But some of Noah’s boys were in the
gathering, as was also Peter Metzdorf, who had a while back married Gus
Mayer’s daughter, Anna. Peter was German—the real thing. He lived in
Wetmore.
Of the five Porter brothers, Ambrose was the only one that I can now
positively say was present. But John and Tom and their brothers-in-law,
Bill Evans and Ben Summers, were probably around somewhere. Bill Porter
had just married my Aunt Nancy, late of Tennessee, and he couldn’t come.
And Ben Porter—well, they said he was too contrary to appreciate a good
thing like this. Ambrose wore his red hair—it was really red—at shoulder
length. He wore gold earrings, too, and three gutta-percha rings on one
finger, rings he himself had made from old coat buttons.
It was good to have Roland Van Amburg with us. Roland was a grand old
sport. Moreover, Roland Van Amburg had much in common with my Uncle Nick
Bristow. They had both suffered, or were due to suffer, heavy losses in
large herds of Texas cattle they had bought from Dr. W. L. Challis,
of Atchison. It is barely possible that those cattle might have been
milling about on the western part of Uncle Nick’s farm that night.
The bonfire was built on the edge of a small clearing, with a large tree
backed up by a clump of small growth on the right. In the distance—not
too distant—was a big log lying on the edge of a ravine, with a 10-foot
bank at this point. A small tree with good height stood at the top end
of the log on the left side of the clearing. One approaching from the
north would see the log only after advancing so far, and even then only
if not otherwise attracted. Had it been a plant for a modern movie
scene it could not have been a more perfect setting for the thing that
actually happened.
While yet around the bonfire the talk turned to panthers. One had
reportedly been seen, or heard, in the woods a couple of miles away—up
in the Rube Wolfley neighborhood. The men would be careful not to hunt
that timber because they didn’t want their dogs to be torn to pieces.
Uncle Nick owned a timber lot over in the panther country.
The natives saw in this hunt a chance to have some fun at the expense
of the Englishmen. Also, they wanted to impress those Colonists in a way
that might be the means of keeping them on their own reservation, so to
speak. A lot of timber-stealing had been going on and the Colonists
were suspicioned. As a matter of fact, timber-stealing in those days was
widespread. But in that business the Colonists were no worse than the
natives, but the Colonists were always sure to get the blame.
While people generally scoffed at the idea of panthers roaming the
woods, there were some who said it was not altogether improbable—that
one might have escaped from a menagerie. You must understand that
practically all the older men here at that time had come from panther
states back East—and, I might say, the rising generation had more or
less been steeped in panther talk.
It is written in the family records, and was generally known here
then, that the grandmother of Bill and Ben Porter was killed and
partly devoured by a panther back in Indiana. She would have been the
great-grandmother of Jim and Bill Porter, and Zada Shumaker and Harry
Porter.
Also, there is one man now living in Wetmore—G. C. Swecker—who would
tell you how one of those ferocious beasts hopped upon the roof of his
father’s hunting lodge, while occupied, back in Virginia and ripped the
clapboards off. He also declares that panthers do scream like a woman.
And, as one old fellow around the fire had said, they do sometimes
migrate. I myself recall that during a severe winter in the Rocky
mountains nearly a half century ago, that those killers actually came
right down into Colorado Springs.
At that time panthers were quite numerous in the Missouri hills across
the river from Atchison—and with the Missouri river frozen in the severe
winters of the old days, it would have been an easy matter for them to
cross on the ice to this side; and then only a distance of forty miles
to get out here. And supposing—just supposing—that, perchance,
they might have come over in pairs, and carried on in the usual cat
tradition, there was the bare possibility of our coon-hunters even
running into a “family” of them. The panther’s young stay with the
mother until grown.
Let’s say, then, that there was just enough to it to keep timid people
on edge. I doubt if there ever was a night coon-hunt in those days when
some of the hunters didn’t give some thought to that killer. The thought
seemed to hit one the moment he was in the deep woods. And on moonlight
nights that thought was simply unshakeable. A shadow in the wood—a
shadow that was somehow alive—could be highly disquieting.
Uncle Nick and the men, with the dogs on leash, took a turn about the
woods while waiting for my father and the inevitable Thuse Peters to
arrive. They would be coming out from town. I had gone out earlier that
evening with my cousin, Burrel.
Uncle Nick bade me remain at the fire so as to direct Dad and Thuse
when, and if, they should come while the hunters were away. Ambrose
Porter said, “Nick, you’re not going to leave that boy all alone out
here. I’ll- stay with him.” Uncle Nick said, quietly, “Oh no, you
won’t.” Uncle knew that Ambrose never liked to exert himself needlessly.
If not inclined to discount my statements — and you really should
not—you are now maybe thinking what I thought that night—that it was a
darned shame to leave a boy all alone out there in the woods like that.
The hunters were now coming in from the north. Uncle Nick and the
Englishmen well in front. Uncle Nick called out, “Johnny my boy, where
are you?”
I had climbed the small tree at the end of the log—as far up as I
could go. I called back, “Up here in this tree, Uncle Nick. Look on the
log—quick!”
The hunters had now advanced a couple of steps, bringing the log into
view. I glanced back in time to see them shift their gaze from my
tree-perch to the log—and I took one more look at the log myself, just
as Uncle Nick fired his rifle. In that split second I could see two eyes
shining brightly in the glare of the bonfire—and I saw the yellowish
form of the ugly thing fall off the log.
Uncle Nick was a sure shot with a rifle. And quick too. As told in one
of my former articles, he had killed a mountain lion in the Rockies
while placer mining in Colorado in 1858. The great beast was shot in the
nick of time—in midair, after that 200 pounds of destruction had made
the spring for my uncle from an overhanging limb of a great pine.
Addressing Uncle Nick, the little Englishman said, “I say, my good man,
let’s ‘ave another one soon. Over in the big woods. Beard the lion in
‘is den, so to speak.” In high good humor, he shook a pudgy fist at
my uncle, saying, “Hand mind you, if I am h ignored I shall be
disappointed.”
The one mistake of the whole evening—if one can be sure there was a
mistake—was when the hunters, after they had “impressed” the Englishmen
with the danger of the panther to their dogs, turned the dogs loose on
the trail of the pet coon they had brought into the woods at the right
movement to make a “hot trail.”
It had taken four yoke of oxen to plant the log—and my Aunt Hulda gave
the men a spirited tongue-lashing for making use of one of her hens to
bloody the trail.
Now, imagine if you can, my uncle’s surprise when the next time he went
over to his cherished timber lot he discovered that someone had robbed
him of valuable post and rail trees. Not being present at the time, I
have no way of knowing what his immediate reactions were. But had it
been my Dad instead of my uncle, who never swore, I’m darned sure I
could name more’n half of the irreverent words he would have employed in
taking the epidermis off that stocky little Englishman.
SHORT CHANGED Not Hitherto Published — 1950
By John T. Bristow
You can never tell by the caption of one of my stories what all is going
to be in it—the caption might well have been something else—but the line
that inspired the heading is sure to be apparent to the careful reader;
if he, or she, will look for it.
The oil strike on the Oreon Strahm land one mile south of the Sabetha
hospital, in August, 1950, and the two producers previously brought
in on the Mamie Strahm land three and one-half miles to the southwest,
refreshes my memory of an earlier try for oil in Nemaha County—and
some of my own experiences in this greatest of all “get-rich-quick”
opportunities.
In 1904 Dr. Joseph Haigh and Dr. A. P. Lapham secured a block of oil
leases around Wetmore, and contracted with a driller, W. H. Hardenburg,
of Oklahoma, to drill a well to the depth of 2,000 feet—or to the
Mississippi lime—for $5,000. The site was on land owned by Dr. J. W.
Graham in the west part of town; later owned by Mr. Mathews.
The drillers struck a little gas at 1700 feet, which spurted water over
the 80-foot derrick. This caused a great deal of excitement—but after
“pulling” the fire in the coal-burning power plant and quickly taking
other precautionary measures, the drillers said “there was nothing to
it.”
Gas had previously been encountered in two water wells in the north part
of town—on the Cyrus Clinkenbeard property west of the school grounds,
now owned by the Thorn-burrow girls; and on the J. W. Luce property near
the cemetery, now owned by Gene Cromwell. The flow in the Luce well was
the stronger, agitating the water in a way to produce a bubbling sound.
It created a lot of excitement. But the State Geologist said it was
helium gas, which, rather than burn, would extinguish fire.
In the oil test on the Graham lot, at about 1800 feet, a hard formation
was encountered, which the drillers pronounced the Mississippi lime—but
State Geologist Haworth said it was not. Then the drillers completed the
contract at 2,000 feet. Mr. Hardenburg had a drilling contract coming up
in Oklahoma, but he remained on the job here about a week longer, at $40
a day—and the hole was put down to 2225 feet. It was planned to have Mr.
Hardenburg come back and drill the test deeper, but he got rich in his
“share-the-profits” contract in the Tulsa oil field—and retired to a
home on “easy street” (Morningside Drive) in Kansas City.
When Hart Eyman was getting up a block of oil leases here in 1934, I
called up Mr. Hardenburg, while in Kansas City, and told him of the
activity out here. He asked me to let him know when the first test was
to be spudded in here, saying he would drive out. He said he still had
faith in this section and that he would have been glad to have finished
our test. I believe our people failed to raise the necessary funds. The
money for the original test was raised by selling stock. And it was a
clean promotion—but that is more than I can say for some of the outside
oil promotions in which our Wetmore group dipped.
In view of the recent strikes in the Strahm field, with a 30-barrel
producer in the Hunton lime at around 2800 feet; and the Mamie Strahm
number 2, rated at 1440 barrels in the Viola lime at approximately 3600
feet; and the Oreon Strahm test, with even greater potential production
in the Hunton and Viola and still another producing sand topping the
granite at around 3900 feet, it looks as though we Wetmore “investors”
might better have kept our speculative eggs all in one basket, so to
speak, contrary to high-powered promotion advice—and completed the
Haigh-Lapham oil test. And I still believe we overlooked our best bet
right here at home.
But then we had no data to enlighten us. The nearest and only drilling
at that time was ten miles south of us. It was not deep enough to prove
or disprove anything. In the heyday of his great financial flight—in the
1880’s—Green Campbell drilled a test to the depth of 1,000 feet on the
east edge of Circleville. I believe the incentive was a reported seepage
of oil in the creek south of the town.
Then, some twenty years after the Wetmore try, a couple of promoters
came out of Kansas City, with a plan to rejuvenate interests in the
Haigh-Lapham test—and “feather their own nests.” Joe Searles’ drugstore
in the east room of what is now the First National Bank building,
was the unofficial headquarters for oil hungry “investors”—local and
transient. With Joe and the two promoters, I went over to the Matthews
lot, now owned by Bert Gilbert. Mr. Hardenburg had left the top 100 feet
of casing in the well to prevent cave-ins against the time when he might
return to finish the well. Measurements to the exhaustion of the string
available showed the well open for fifteen hundred feet—and likely all
the way down to the bottom.