The Donaldsonville chief. [volume] (Donaldsonville, La.) 1871-current, 1905-02-04
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How the Columbia River Made Match
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BIZ MAx MeAEILL.
.er Made a Match
BY MAX MeAEILL.


IT VICE year the Columbia river
1 rises above its banks in the valley
below the mouth of the Willamette,
and changes the property rights OF a
tribe of seow-dWel1ers who skirt its
shores. These arbitrary transpositions
by the resistless stream of the river
lead to many complications; some
times to bloodshed. In one case to a
solution of a problem that had yexed
the tender hearts Of two young peo-
pie.
On Wild Mans Island. which lies be-
low Kalama, and is tucked under the
high shores Of the Washington side,
there lived in comparative state a
rancher named Walker, with his dog
and his son. He was a proud man,
and his house, originally scoW, was
surrounded by a fence painted yellow.
He also possessed a chicken yard and
raised potatoes in a patch OF ground
elevated Slightly eboye the water
time in the muddy foreyard, and the
son fshed on the swelling river and
cut ccrdWood for the steamers.
Six miles above, a gayly-qainted
houseboat had come ashore during an
unusually high flood and the master of
it. lonely Missourian, lad slid
skids under it. put out a ssang-plank
and accepted the adjoining land as a
perquisite of discovery. His daughter
had grown up till she was an efficient
aid to her father in handling his net
and the two Of them called the Shiny
strip of bar home. Their one grievance
was that the Water was not low enough
to justify fence. They Were simply
squatterss no more.
It was the difference lii the social
standing of these two men, Walker and
StoWler, that caused much anguish to
the children, Hennery and Eliza.
Hennery tried to blind himself to the
fact that his father was a proper
rancher, while Eliza was simply the
daughter of a scow-dweller But Eliza
knew very well that old man Walker
would never forget. And as she was
proud, she assumed disdain Of Hen
nery's clumsy efforts to obliterate the
dividing line between responsibility
and shift1ess poverty.
Walker, like most men signally IA
vored Of Fortune, attributed his own
position of affiuenee to personal en-
ergy, and as authority must have a
subject, he was fond Of s1yly meeting
Stowler TO nag him into the rage of an
inferior, and these encounters he re
tailed with gusto to Hennery and the
dog, knowing that the boy resented
1eenly every sighting reference to
the father Of the girl he loved. Hen
merry many times attempted to re-
taliate, but somehow it never entered
his head that his fathers place in So
ciety was due solely to a lucky eddy
in swift current some ten years be-
fore. So his words fell emptiIy and
fruitlessly, except in so far as they
save the old man opportunity for
shrewd sarcasm.
IN the spring of a new year, when
the alders on the bank were thicken-
Ing with foliage and the clouds on the
hills We're worn thin and gifted with
summer, Hennerg met Eliza BY the
Elk Rock, and told her many things
that had little reference to anybody
but themselves. Eliza responded slow
ly and with tears. Womanlike, she
was unable to see how she was to be
made happier by HennerSss love unless
the entire world acquieseed. But she
kissed him passionately, and saw the
towering peaks Of the Cascade range
us In dream.
Driven beyond himself by Elias
kisses, Hennery went, late in the
spring, and told his Gather that he was
going to marry the seow-dweller'
daughter. Walker stroked his serawny
beard, and called the dog for an exeea-
tive session. When he had introduced
his measure and carried it by two to
one, he turned his back on Hennery,
drew his fat-buttoned skif into the
water, and Went up stream, rowing
with regularity and slow strength.
He found Stowler sitting bootless
on the back platform o. his little seow,
drying his feet in the weak sunshine.
The hstIess pose of the man filed
Walker with rage, and he was Of two
minds about speaking. But he had
toiled six miles, and he saw no use in
letting anger defeat his purpose.
How do, stowler2' he said gruff-
~, as he tied the painter to stake in
the mud.
Purity well, was the answer.
How's the fish by your