The Forest Republican. [volume] (Tionesta, Pa.) 1869-1952, 1880-08-25
A THRILLING ADVENTURE.

A case OF involuntary fasting is related
by gentleman who recently arrived
in Chicago from Montana. The name O
the narrator is Louis Cohn. He |.
connected with a system of post trader.
ships in the northwestern Territories
and visits Chicago once a year. He
came here direct from Fort Keoph,
which is situated on the Yellowstone
river. Mr.. Cohn 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 il 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
one of these chutes the heroic little
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 quarters of mile.
Had anything happened at that moment
to deprive the pilot of his control of the
craft, the boat, cargo aAd crew would
have been smashed against the rocks as
a fly can be smashed against a wall.
One evening as the boat was emerg-
ing from one of the narrowest canons
IN the river, a man named Richie, a
Frenchman, who was working as a
roustabout to pay for his passage to the
post, caught his foot in the rope, and
stumbling, pitched over the guard inso
the water. He WASH much of q mariner.
nor was he swimmer enough to cone
with a current as tumultuous and barbar-
GUS as that of the Yellowstone; SO, while
as swimmer he didn't make any percep-
bible headway,as floater he made won
oeriul time. Ot course the crew made
q q snow OF trying to rescue the poor
Frenchman but the pilot had too fresh
a sense of the difficulties of NAVIGATION
in that region to think of dropping back
down the canon after having nearly
worn out boiler and engine in getting
through 1T. 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, "Poor
fellow! 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 light
cargo fpelts, 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
lghtnlng-like velocity. In the deepest
part OF the gorge, upon 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
pearance, he was instantly recognized
by every man of the crew-had fallen in
heap upon the strip of beach. This
man was Rlche. the roustabout," "Who,
10 the surprise OF his rescuers, had sur
vIved the dive and dash through the
perllous canon, and, by no particularly
effort OF his own, had stranded on the
beggarly patch of rocky beach, with
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.
MIR. 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-
glbly. lie had taken nothing but river
water into his stomach during the thir-
teen days of his isolation. When, under
the Judicious application of stimulating
iced, he was restored sufficiently to be
able to converse, ne 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
Che pinching pangs of starvation in.
creased, he would lie for hours with
ear close to the water, momen
5arlly imagining that he could hear the
pulsatlons OF steamer breasting and
Drawing the rapids. After a few davs
MS stomach rejected water, and, as that
was the best and only Offering he had to
glVe' II was forced to feed upon itself,
and 1t was doing this at a ruinouslV
]
who, apparently, had been a man of I6O
pounds weight, was skeleton when
rescued, and had not strength enough
70 lit both hands to his face at once. Ha
,aid that several times fine, large trout
llspolted themselves in the shadows at 7
lis feet, and once he threw himself ,
into the water and thrust his !
lands along the graveled bottom in the
nope Of clutching one of the fish, but :
hey eluded his desperate grasp, and he :
vas left to the despairing reflection that
here were millions of fish within reach :
md not even minnow to eat. He was al =
most hopeless one night-a dreadfully :
Hack and tempestuous night. The bolts :
# lightning seemed to fill the gorge from
vail to wall. The wind blew SO hard =
hat the river lashed the rocks with a =
ury that terrified him, for he expected
very moment to be swept from his y
nooring and carried out to certain q 4
cath. He explained, as reason for
ot taking to water and swimming to a =
inding whence he could escape from q
ne canon, that he was not certain thot y