Gloucester County Democrat. (Woodbury, N.J.) 1878-1932, 1880-08-12

A Frenchman Under9oes the Tanner
Test InvoIuntariIy in Canon of
the Yellowstone Thirteen Days
Without Food-A Remarkable Epi-
sode.
A case of involuntary fasting is related
by a gentleman who recently arrived
in Chicago from Montana. The name Of
the narrator is Louis Cohn. He is
connected with system of post trader
ships in the northwestern Territories,
and visits Chicago once a year. He
came here direct from Fort Keogh,
which is situated on the Yellowstone
river. Mr.. Coin descended the Yellow
stone and Missouri rivers to Bismarck
on small steamer that had delivered a
cargo Of military supplies at Keogh.
Mr.. Cohn vouches for the truth of the
story of suffering which he relates. 1t
was by the hardest work that the
steamer reached its destination at all.
The June freshet, as it is termed, was
on at the time, and the Yellowstone was
swollen to bursting. In the gorges,
where, on account of the perpendicular
walls of rock-in places 1000 feet high
the torrent could not spend its enormous
force in overflow, the current had appar-
emily force of thirty miles an hour. In
steamer, trembling and creaking as if
ready to burst and fly into a million
fragments, breasted the rapids for five
hours, in which time it had moved up
stream just three-q uarters of a mile
Had anything happened at that moment
to deprive the pilot of his control of the
craft, the boat, cargo and crew would
have been smashed against the rocks as
a fly can be smashed against wall.
One evening as the boat was emerg-
ing from one of the narrowest canons
in the river, man named Richie,
Frenchman, who was working as q
roustabout to pay for his passage to the
post, caught his foot in the rope, and
stumbling. pitched over the guard into
the water. He wasn't much of mariner,
nor was he swimmer enough to cope
with current as tumultuous and barbar-
Gus as thatof the Yellowstone; so, while
as q swimmer he didn't make any percep-
tible headway ,as foater he made won
dertul time. OF course the crew made
a show Of trying to rescue the poor
Frenchman but the pilot had too fresh
sense of the difficulties of navigation
in that region to think of dropping back
down the canon after having nearly
worn out a boiler and engine in getting
through it. So, in ten seconds, more
or less, the man overheard had been
swept down into the neck of the gorge,
and soon disappeared altogether from
view. The crew said, in chorus, g Poor
fellowm and the boat went grinding on
up against the bounding tide.
Thirteen days from that time, at about
the same hour in the evening, the
steamer, on its return trip, with a light
cargo of pelts, shot down through that
same canon at a fearful rate of speed.
the current alone, without the help of
steam, carrying the light craft with
lightning-like velocity In the deepest
part OF the gorge, upon o patch of beach
that seemed to have been formed of
the debris perpetually dropping from
the sturendous walls of granite, man
was espied in the attitude of signaling the
boat to stop. For signal he used his
flannel shirt. As soon as possible the
boat was brought to landing rear
by where the man was standing.
In the meantime the stranger-no not
stranger, for, despite his changed ap-
pearanee, he was instantly recognized
by every man of the crew-had fallen in
heap upon the strip OF beach. This
man was Richie. the g roustabout," who,
to the surprise of his rescuers, had sur
vived the dive and dash through the
perilous canon, and, by no particularly
effort of his own, had stranded on the
beggarly patch of rocky beach. with a
terrible river ON two sides of him and
granite walls on the other two sides. He
remembered falling overheard, and,
more vividly still, he remembered roll
ing up safely on the rocks, somewhat
bruised and with throat and nostrils
gorged with water, but he could give no
idea Of the time spent in the water, nor
Of the number of days that had elapsed
since the crew had cruelty abandoned
him to his fate.
Mr.. Conn says that Riches condition
was Wretched to the last extreme. When
found and taken aboard the boat he
could not articulate his words intelli-
gibly. He had taken nothing but river
water into his stomach during the thir-
teen days Of his isolation. When, under
the judicious application of stimulating
feed, he was restored sufficiently to be
able to converse, he told them that his
only hope had been that a steamer
would come along and that he would be
able to make himself discovered. As
the pinching pangs of starvation in
creased, he would lie for hours with
ear close to the water, momen-
tarily imagining that he could hear the
pulsations of q steamer breasting and
Drawing the rapids. After a few days
his stomach rejected water. and, as that
was the best and only offering he had to
give, it was forced to feed upon itself,
and it was doing this at a ruinously
rapid rate when succor came. Richie,
who, apparently, had been man of 160
pounds weight, was q skeleton when
rescued, and had not strength enough
to lit both hands to his face at once. He
said that several times fine, large trout
disported themselves in the shadows at
bis feet, and once he threw himself
sprawling into the water and thrust his
hands along the graveled bottom in the
hope of clutching one of the fish, but
they eluded his desperate grasp, and he
was left to the despairing reflection that
there were millions of fish within reach
and not even minnow to eat. He was al
most hopeless one night--a dreadfully
black and tempestuous night. The bolts
oflightniDg seemed to fill the gorge from
wall to wall. The wind blew SO hard
that the river lashed the rocks with
fury that terrified him, for he expected
every moment to be swept from his
mooring and carried out to certain
death. He explained, as q reason for