The Manitowoc pilot. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1859-1932, 1903-10-01

There was a small settlement at the
mouth of Rock creek called Wolf. Oxen
were more plentiful than horses in
Wolf, as New Salem; yet Antywine
had one passing fash of determination
to go there and demand horse. But
breathless with haste, he plunged
through naked woods and down the
terraced bank of the Sangamon, sliding
on dead leaves in his descent, straight
to the mill.
The boat was tied above the dam. He
pushed out before he thought of the
dam, half covered by swelling water
and roaring across the width of the
Sangamon. Antywine was never more
alive than when his feet were planted
in a boat. He came of line of voy-
ageurs who had threaded Canadian
rapids time out of mind. Although his
later years had been spent in Belle
vile, off great stream courses, his in
born dexterity was TOO much part
of him to be forgotten. There was no
time for thought He swooped down
the curve poised in the stern of his
boat, laughing aloud at the shock,
which nearly swamped him. The boat
ran without direction. making for
partly submerged trees while he baied
with his hands. Antywine stuck out
an oar for a rudder, and turned his
craft into the racing current. So,
baling with one hand and steering with
the other, he got under way, and was
soon able to sit on the bench, fit the
oars into rowlocks, and pull with the
racing force which spun him along.
Branches and logs menaced his dim
course.
The shores were black. Froth spo,s
like white money appeared and disap-
peared around him with phosphoric
swiftness. And underneath rose and
fell the bullfrogs' diapason.
Not many miles down was the fork
of the Sangamon, where the stream
turned toward the Illinois. Boards
town, by prairie and river-bluff route,
was nearly 40 miles from New Salem.
Frost was out of the ground, and a
bottomless trail would delay the most
hurried rider. The scalloped bank,
ascending and descending in serated
cliff and hollow, seeming to swim past
Antywine, finally curved away from
a wider current; and he made for shore
through drift. He drew the boat out,
and left it beached above the rising
water.
There was no sound abroad in all
that void darkness except the Sanga-
mons low note and the intermittent
cry Of frogs. He thought of sloughs
Oh the Beardstown road and of hun
cry wolves infesting the night Star
light had become lost in thickening
mist, and as Antywine pushed on he
felt the sting of rain in the face. He
tried to distinguish a track which
ought to darken the pallid turf near
this place, and set out in the direc-
ton Of Beardstown.
He heard at his left the suction Of
horse feet in mud. 1t came nearer,
and he braced himself to spring at the
bride, IL he had been SO fortunate as
thus to intercept Peggy's captor. But
two horses, instead of one, plunged
up from a slough, and swept past him
in tearing race toward Beardstown.
"Shickshack and Sieur Abe" thought
Antywine. He shouted after them,
but they did not hear him. There was
SO little travel at that season he felt
sure these riders were in pursuit of
Peggy, and comforted, he followed
lightly on, keeping to the spongy dead
grass by the roadside.
The humid forest stretching from the
bank Of the Sangamon still darkened
his way with skeleton trees. He
passed an empty cabin which he had
seen once before when hunting
deer The rain now began to pelt.
Though he had lived SO long among
Englishspeaking people at Belleville
that their language had become in a
measure his own, Antywine never
found himself able to part with buck