The Montgomery advertiser., 1908-12-13
SLID!
That's What Psts Hawkins Done & He Almost SIId Into tho Jaws of Dsth, as You Might Say -HOrTIhs PaTtiCkIsTs
 Herewith

Pete Hawkins, one of our most ines timable townsmen, had narrer escape from becoming immortal last Thurs day morning, and while he is yet alive to tell the tale, he is a little mite sore as the result of what he went through and walks yet with limp. Pete is one of crew of four who IS employed in cutting timber on Picket Mountain, which rises from the north side of Gootchic Pond several miles west of Bingville. The crew has cut a chute which runs from about halt a mile up the mouptainside down onto the ice on the pond. After the trees is cut down and trimmed, they are dragged to this chute and slid down on the pond where they will lay until the ice melts next spring, after which they will be worked out of the pond through Snake Crick during high water as far as the Go. seat, where the logs
 will be loaded on the train and shipped to parts unknowd.
 This chute is wore as smooth as glass
 by the logs and is slipperier than ice itself. Last Thursday morning Pete
 and Jim Lawler was about to start a
 log from the top of the chute towards the pond Pete was at the front end ot the log with his cant hook, gruntin
 and strainin hisself trying to start the
 end of the log in the chute, when, just as the log started to move, Pete's holt
 on the log with the cant hook slipped and he started to slide down the chute
 ahead of the log. Pete's feelings can better be described l .N down in the chute slidin faster than a mile a mint toward what looked to be eternity. His hat flew of and his hair
 stood up straight, his eyes bugged out
 as big as saucers, and his eoattails was snappin behind him like whipcrackers. To make matters worse, he looked back
 over his shoulders and seen that big
 hemlock log weighing more than half
 a ton follering him up and gaining on
 him every mint. Pete said afterward
 that he was going fast enough, yet
 when he seen that log coming, he wish
 ed he could of went even little fast CT. As Pete slid swiftly toward what
 looked like destruckshion, he hollereC
 "Helpl" as loud as he could holler, but
 who could help him under the circum. stances? Answer-Nobodyl There wa, nOLnlnR IOl GIG tO OO put Just SCI there helpless and wait for results Pete said he tried to pray and asked forgiveness for his wickedness, but ht didn't have time to think up no prayei , and besides he couldn't compose hi
 thorts with what was ahead of him ana that log behind him, he expecktini 7 every mint for it to hit him a walloI . right betwixt the shoulder blades.
 5 Pete said that when he hit the ic, on the pond, he calkilates he must O
 been moving faster than express train He said when he struck the ice he thor ] he heered it crack, then he bounced ! into the air about 20 feet before h t struck it again. The first time h' r struck it sitting and the next time h C struck it on his hands and knees an slid half way aerost the pond betor 7, he stopped, and as he slid, the big hem c lock log passed him, jest merely miss e ing him by a few inches, whereas f it had of hit him as he expeckted, W $ would now be writing Peters obituar
 instead of his miraklus exespe froI