The Savannah morning news., 1903-10-03

it moved across Eagle creek in a long
curve. Then the buck struck shallow
water, got its feet on the bottom, and
labored in to shore with heavy splash
ings. Finally, with a bound, it jumped
over a high tangle of upturned roots
and disappeared into the thick underz
brush.
Wall" resumed Ezry, latter that
crouch coughed up the eXtry fifty he
was grouchier than ever. Fused about
payin more'n s. a week for board, and
said quarter a day for the rent of
a rowboat was regular robbery. Fin
ally he found an ole leaky fat bottom
scow that no white man'd ride on an
offered a dime a day for the use of
her.
Then he got out his fishin' tackle
Say! He had a pole about twenty feet
long, line that he must a took off n
the clothes poles at home, and some
big cast iron hooks.
" I come up here to catch a big
musky,' he says, and us fellers snick-
cred to hear him talk.
Want to buy any bait? l asked.
Let you have a dozen nice green
frogs for quarter"
" A qua rter for a dozen frogs?'
says he. WALL not if the court knows
ITSELF
" They amt no good for muskies,
anyhow
Just then Pete come out of the
eatin shack and rung the bell upon
the pole there and we all went in to
chuck. We had salt pork for dinner
that day and when it come on the
table that crouch takes good pig
chunk off the plate, wraps it up in
piece Of newspaper, and puts it in
" Now he says, 4 got my musky
bait
d" People that takes fruit away from
the table is charged extra at this
hotel l says, but the crouch he only
laughs.
Right after dinner that Crouch rigs
up his tackle, us fellers haVin' a hard
time to keep from laughin' right out
at him. When he got through he had
a bunch of apparatus ready that he
couldn't hardly lift.
" Now he says, I'm all ready to
go out and ketch that musky. Would
some of you gents mind tellin me
whereabouts you ketch most of your
muskies? / want a good big one, you
Know: Mona your fifteen or twenty
Founders for me-
Bill, the trapper, was a-settin' on
that stump over there-you remember
Bill, don't you? A big hemock fell
on him over on the Red Cedar last
winter and mashed him fiattern a
shingle. Wall. Bill-he always was a
cuss-he says to the crouch. THE big
gest muskies lies right down there,
close to the boat pier, about eighty
feet straight out in the lake
When the rest of us heard Bill a.
stringin' that crouch we gets up, one
by one, an goes over behind the shack
where we kin laugh a little without
disgracin' ourself. That water you
know, where Bill was a-sendln' the
crouch to fish for muskies amt MORN
eighteen inches deep and nobody ever
caught nothin' but a stray rock bass
in it since the first log come down
Eagle crick. We don't usually stand
for stringin Teller that bad, but this
crouch sort of had it comm.
Don't you want a good man to
push your boat for your we hears
Bill ask the crouch.
" No, he says, I'm going to go
out there an east for EN-
That was the limit, and Jest natar-
ally lays down on the grass and rolls.
The rest of us was a-rollin', too, to
hear that solemn faced Bill putin il
all over that crouch.
Purity soon we hears a sound like a
house fallin' into the lake, but it was
only the crouch, castin' his anchor. He
had rock, half as big as his scow,
hitched onto rope, and when he thrun
it overheard it make a racket that
every fish in the Eagle chain must-a
heard plain. Then he goes to castin'.
He stood up in one end of that
scow, grabs that long pole by the end
with both hands, throws the hook as
high up into the sky as kin toss, and
smacks her down on the water VIZ, a
splash that you could-a heard plain
over to Seven Mile. He had about
half pound of salt pork on that hook
and he was a-beatin' up all this end
of the lake with it.
bill, he comes round behind the
shack with us and all five of us guides
rs a-settin on our launches here on
top of the hill watchin' that crouch
castin' for muskies.