Wausau pilot. [volume] (Wausau, Wis.) 1896-1940, 1912-05-21

selling their pelts, but he made re-
spectacle income by demonstrating the
wild honey bees and by raising droves
OF mountain hogs, which, until the ad-
vent of warm weather, would run wild
and fatten upon the chestnuts and
acorns of the forests"
Judge Bolen remembers Uncle
Billy Combes in his later years. Il
recall said the lawyer, that he once
showed me a spot on the mountain
where a panther had leaped out from
cover and seized one of his mountain
hogs as his prey. Uncle Billy went
to his cabin, got his dogs out and then
summoned one or two of his nearest
neighbors. For two days and nights
| they stalked the panther, until the
dogs finally ran the beast into tree.
where Uncle Billy shot it and skinned
it for its pelt"
Uncle Billy" Combes stood six feet
| three inches tall and was muscled like
a lion He always wore buckskin
breeches and a fur trimmed round
about jacket. On his head a coonskin
cap was poised rakishly, and until his
death, about As years ago, he never
was seen without his shot pouch and
| powder horn.
Uncle Billy was one of the earli-
est of the 'moonshiners" of this Sec
ton. One year there was an almost
! total failure of the corn crop. and hard
frosts late in the season had killed the
| fruit. The liquor "blockaders" were
in sore straits for raw material to put
in their stills. Uncle Billy" deter
mined to try an experiment. SO he
gathered together several hogshead
fuls of acclns, which he undertook to
distil irto new brand of whisky.
When the old trapper tasted the prod
uct, SO the story goes, he made wry
face, and pronounced it powerful bad
liquor Thereupon he mixed it with
some honey to offset its bitterness.
When he tasted it again he allowed"
it was right smart" better, and man
'mought get used to it in time"
/ Thinking to cultivate an acquired
taste, Uncle Billy" tasted the rank
stuff so often that he fell into coma
and remained in a state of stupor for
two or three hours. On regaining con-
sciousness with a racking headache,
the experimenter in acorn whisky Is
said to have sworn an awful oath to
the effect that he would join every
temperance society between Halifax
and hell rather than take another
drink of that mean stuff" Thereupon
he threw away his distilled acorn fail
ure
Uncle Billy" though phenomenal
his fellows. and died much beloved
and respected. His son Jed" how
ever, endowed with much of his ia
| theirs physique, was a noted bully of
| the mountainside. Jed" had met and
conquered many rivals, but he had
never tried conclusions with Ike Beam
er. Ike was, like Jed" a giant in
strength and with sinews of steel, but
Ike was neither quarrelsome nor am
bilious to shine as bully "Jed" de-
termined to force him to fight, trump
ed up some imaginary debt and went
| to Ike under pretense of collecting it.
Jed" knew it probably would give
him the opening he and his satellites
had been craving. Ike listened calm
! ly. Then he remarked: Jed, you know
don't owe you no such sum, but folks
is saying l do owe you tolerable good
thrashing. Are you prepared to col
lect that debt, too?"
Jed" needed no urging. The two
mountaineers went at it, and tradition
says it was a battle of giants Time
and again the men, evenly matched,
had to cease from sheer exhaustion.
Then they clutched each other while
they painted for breath 1t doubtless
would have been fought to finish,
but friends of Beamer interfered.
Neither man had "squeaied" Ac-
cording to the mountaineer code of pu-
gilism. it had been a drawn fight.
Beamer had lost the index finger OF
his right hand, which Jed" Combes
had worried in his teeth until he chew.
ed it off at the middle joint Ike had
thrust his thumbs so remorselessly into
'Jed's" eye sockets that the bully was
blinded. and did not regain his sight
until weeks afterward.