The Arkansaw traveler., 1884-09-27
RUNNING RAT RIVER FALLS.

RUNNING RAT RIVER FALLS.
 tPeck's Sun.
 The boys up in the northern part of the state, who have been logging for years, and have seen men who are now million aires when they rode saw logs with spies in their bocts. occasionally whisper a stcry about man who now holds one of the highest places in the gift of the state, and who can draw his check on an Oshkosh bank for any amount he desises, and have 1t honored. If vas aimost thirty years ago that it happoned, and
 though the victim has been through sev-
 eral political campaigns, the boys have never told the story on him.. showing
 conclusiveiy that they know how to keep a good thing; but as the victim has a public office, the term of which does not expire for several years, the .SHH will tell the story as it was told around camp fire up on Wolf river last week. The conversation had turned from politics,
 senators and things, to duck shooting,
 and some lone said we ought to take a
 boat and go up Rat river, and jump wood
 duck, when another of the party said he
 didn't believe we could get above the
 Falls" At this all the boys laughed,
 and one asked if we had never heard
 about how old Saw Logs, of Oshkosh,
 once run Rat river falls. The story had
 never been heard of, and SO one of the
 boys told it. Filling a pipe with dog-leg tobacco, and striking match on the
 shoulder of his pants, he said:
 "Well, when old Saw Logs first located
 in Oshkosh, he took job of getting out some logs up on the headwaters of Rat river, and rafting them down to Wolf river. He got some boys around Oshkosh, who were familiar with Rat river, to go and help him, and they tramped from Oshkosh up through the woods to the timber. Rat river is little stream about thirty feet wide. that runs through the woods and marshes, and has hardly cur rent enough to float a feather down stream. except in the spring. when the snow melts. and then it runs about three miles an hour, but it is as quiet and mod est a stream as ever was, without rifle on it. While the boys were getting out the timber and rafting it they kept talking about the falls, and wondering if any of the party would be drowned running the raft over, until Saw Logs became in- terested, and the boys told him Rat river falls were the most dangerous falls on any of the logging streams of the state, except the dells of the Wisconsin, and it stoou a man in hand to make his peace with his Maker before the raft struck the rushing, foaming water, as the raft was liable to go twenty feet under water, and then take shoot up into the tree tops. Saw Logs became much interested, and his jolly ways forsook him. The last night before the raft started the boys would not play cards, as was their usual custom, but seemed serious, and two of them hunted testaments out of their camp outfit, and read passages from them, until Saw Logs got nervous and went out into the woods and thought over his past life, and wished the danger was past. If he then had any ambitions to a United States senatorship in the future, that sleepless night of agony, thinking of the perils of the morrow in running the falls, knocked the ambition out of him. He arose in the morning pale and nervous, and when the raft was turned loose, and the start was made, he acted as though he would give all he expected to be worth if he had not taken the job. He could have returned to Oshkosh by land, and let the boys run the raft, but he would not finch from any danger. Though new to logging and rafting he was willing to learn, and he wanted to stand by and do all that any honorable man could do, but he told the boys that he would be thank ful for any suggestions they would make as to safety in running the falls. He said life was perhaps as dear to him as any body, and while he was always prepared for anything that might happen, and hoped he had led such a life as to be l ready at any time to meet the Great | Judge, and he was not coward, he felt | that 1t was the duty of any man to take | all the precautions that were possible to | save life. The boys had all they could | do to keep from laughing, but they kept straight faces, and told him that the only | thing to do was to lash themselves to the | raft before entering the falls, and trust in providence. If the raft was destroyed | and they were lost, their friends could ind body easier if it was lashed to a saw log than they could by dragging for 1t in nifty feet of rushing water. They sad they would tell him long enough before reaching the falls so he could get himself fixed, and he thanked them. and looked up at the blue sky as though it might be his last look at it. About four o'clock that afternoon, as the raft was nearing the mouth, where the Rat river empties into the Wolf, the boys put a little flour on their faces, to make them look pale, and began to prepare to run the falls. Each had some request to make of the others in case he should be lost, such as giving some trinket, a pipe, pr something, to some friend. and mes sages were given to be delivered to friends in Oshkosh. It was trying time, and when the raft pilot said they were only half n ;le from the falls, and that t was time to lash themselves to the raft. Saw Logs felt as though it was the last act of his lie. The bows helD4d him lash