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Howard Byng stayed with me all that season—about eight months, and was a constant surprise. I helped him a little and taught him to read a newspaper and got rid of some of his negro dialect. He was faithful and true—a willing slave if such a term could be applied to a free-born man.

Wonderful in woodcraft, he knew just where to pitch camp to get water and avoid it. One bee meant a bee's nest nearby, and we had wild honey all the time. He knew just where to go and pull a 'possum out of a tree, we had wild turkey, and occasionally a young bear or deer. And work—he was worth any two men I ever had. He developed like a starving crop fertilized and watered. In the clean-cut, powerful, willing, cheerful "axe-man" no one could have recognized the Georgia Cracker I found hauling turpentine sap with a mule eight months before. Well barbered and tailored he would have presented a handsome appearance. I was sorry enough when the time came to part with him.

At that time we were on the bank of the Altamara river. All of the other men had been paid but I kept Howard to pack up. The tent and outfit were to be shipped to Savannah. One day I queried:

"Howard, what are you going to do with your money?" He had asked me to keep his monthly vouchers and give him spending money as needed.

"How much money have I got coming, Mistah Wood?" he asked, coming near where I sat making out my final reports, using the mess table in the center of the big tent for a desk.

"You have more than a thousand dollars," I replied without looking up.

"A thousand dollars—sure enough money?" he exclaimed with delight, yet astonished and a little bit doubtful.

"Yes—you can go to any bank and get it in gold, if you desire."

"Why—a thousand dollars—I never expected to have that much money in my whole life—ah—ah reckon I'll let you keep it fer me, Mistah Wood. I got no use for money now."

"I'm afraid I can't keep it for you, Howard," I replied. "I am going back to Washington, and will enter another branch of the service."

"You can't keep it for me, Mistah Wood?"

"No—that wouldn't do, you must learn to take care of it yourself."

"What can I do with ut?" he finally asked, troubled and thoughtful, as I mentioned going away.

He amused me with his simplicity. Half in jest I said, "Buy up some of this stump land—it will make you rich some day."

"If I had some of this good-for-nothing land what would I do with ut?" he asked, feigning astonishment and going over to the edge of the tent which had been opened all around. Looking out as far as he could see was a scraggly growth of pine among stumps as thick, black and forbidding as midnight in a swamp of croaking frogs.

"This land's no better than the turpentine country—what would such cussed stuff be worth if I had ut?" he asked again. "Why, they ain't a house for miles—all of it is God-fo'saken," he insisted before I could reply.

"Howard, you must use your imagination—those stumps are full of turpentine and rosin, and after you get them out you have river-bottom land that will raise cotton as high as your shoulders for a hundred years—and right out there is deep tide-water, to take it to any part of the world."

"Yes, I know, but how you goin' to get the stumps out?" he asked quickly, still looking out.

"Blow them out with dynamite—pull them out, that's easy."

"Yes—but how am I going to get the turpentine and rosin outen the stumps after I blow 'em up?" he came back at me.

"Boil it out, and then sell the wood or make paper out of it. You ought to be able to work that out," I replied, smiling.

Howard Byng looked out a little longer and without replying resumed packing the dishes and kitchen outfit in a big chest, while I went on with my writing. Finally he came opposite the table and surprised me by saying:

"Do you heah them little frogs yapin'—and do you heah them big bullfrogs bawlin', and do you see them buzzards flyin', and doan you know them stumps is in water where it's full of rattla's? This ain't no good country fur a white man where dey is bullfrogs and little frogs, vermin of all sorts and buzzards, and where you got to eat quinine three times a day."

"Think it over, Howard, it may be better than you imagine."

We finally got a boat as far as Brunswick. Howard insisted on going with me to Savannah where I would turn in my camp outfit. He had never been out of the woods before. His surprise and delight at being in a city for the first time was refreshing. This nineteen-year-old turpentine woods boy had never been farther than a country store, never had seen a locomotive, and to him cities had been mere dreams.

To him the one, and only, three-story block in the place was a skyscraper. He saw big steamers and sailing ships for the first time, and acres of long wharfs loaded with naval stores, sawed timber and cotton he could scarcely believe as real until he actually touched them with his hands.

With my help he bought a good suit of clothes, shoes and hat, the first he ever owned. The barber did the rest and his delight knew no bounds. His raven hair and skin were perfect, and he would have been taken for a college athlete until he talked, his speech being a distinct shock. During these two or three days he seemed transported and almost forgot I was about to leave him.

When the time came his sorrow was distressing. He took no pains to disguise it, and lapsed into the Cracker boy, timid, and out of his element. He breathed hard and struggled.

"Mistah Wood, you leavin' makes me want to run back to the pine woods, and I guess I will," he said, standing on the wharf looking up at my steamer.

"Howard, every man must work out his own problems," said I. "For me to attempt to advise would be to rob you of your own inspiration. You will know what you want to do before long, but don't take too big a jump at once. I believe there is good metal in you which will soon show itself, if you don't force it." I was sorry for the boy and thought for the moment I had made a mistake in bringing him out of the woods. I didn't believe anything could be accidental; his meeting me was not, I felt certain.

"Ain't there somethin' I can do to be with you? You know I'm willin' to do anything," he asked in a distinctly broken voice.

"No, Howard—for two reasons. I am going into another department and am uncertain where they will send me, and such a move, were it possible, might be harmful to you. Go to work at something here, and read—study for five years, then you may be able to go in the big world, and become somebody."

"Do you mean I must go back to the turpentine country?" he asked, with moistening eyes, as though asking that sentence be passed upon him.

"It doesn't matter where you go, Howard, or what you do, honestly, if you will get a lot of books to read and study them. Read the lives of Lincoln and Horace Greeley, who started out of the woods. Books and study are the keys to the great outside world. If you would be more than a laborer with your hands—study, my boy," I advised, putting my hand on his broad shoulders.

"I'm goin' to do it, suh—I'm goin' to do it sho'," he repeated as he followed me to the gangplank.

And there he stood on the end of the wharf until the ship was out of sight, occasionally waving his arms. For a time I was actually disturbed by the pathos of the boy's conduct. I knew that in our country there were still thousands more like him not yet reached by our woeful educational system, especially in some parts of the South.

My work in the Excise Department was new to me and kept me very busy for the next five years. Howard Byng had practically passed out of my mind. One day the chief informed me that there was a lot of "moonshine" whiskey coming down the Altamara River in Southern Georgia, that the still was in the center of an immense cut-over swamp, and anyone approaching it could be seen from far away. Also that revenue officers usually came away hurriedly with bullet holes in their hats and clothing, and without the Swamp Angels who had formed the habit of not paying the federal tax on distilled liquors. He wanted to know if I would undertake to bring them in, saying that, as I hadn't many failures to my credit I could afford to stand one. But what he really meant to convey was that the case had become a stench to the department's nostrils, and that I must go well prepared to clean things up.

I found the county was as big as Rhode Island and without a railroad; the county seat a village, and the sheriff a picturesque character. He said he could give minute directions to locate this "still," but so far as he was concerned "pussenly" he had just been re-elected and wanted to serve out his term, "sheriffing" being the best paid job in the county, and that his family needed the money. He was strongly of the belief an attempt on his part to capture the gang would be a direct bid for the undertaker and a successor.

"But, now suh, don't misunderstand," he continued. "Those three or four fellows up there in the 'cut-over' ain't no friends of mine."

The "still" was up the river about thirty miles, and then off three miles, in a creek that was almost dry, except at high tide.

He helped me procure a flat-bottomed rowboat, to which I attached an electric propeller which I thought would send it along quietly—oars are much too noisy—and I started out at night, expecting to get at the mouth of the creek at high tide, which would be about midnight.

After going up the river some twenty miles, I saw a light ahead on the left bank that soon grew into a row of lights,—and electric lights, too. I thought it must be a packet coming down, but packets on that river were small, primitive affairs and again, as I drew closer I saw that the lights were not moving, but located on the bank that raised a little at that point. I thought it strange the sheriff did not mention this landmark. As I came abreast of it, I could see it was some kind of a factory, but decided to look it over, "if I come back," which the sheriff had cast doubt upon.

For a few miles above something about the contour of the bank puzzled me for a time. I was conscious of the fact that memory and geography are often linked together. Unerringly I could think of a hotel by name when I reached a town, not having thought of it before in years. Even a telephone number I could recall when the geography was right. Having discussed this mental phenomena with others I found I was not alone in possession of this freak of the brain.

After passing that factory I reclined in the bow of the boat, lulled by the rhythmic, noiseless motion of the little screw propeller; the left bank suddenly became familiar. Then, as though a door in my memory had suddenly opened I knew it was here, on this same Altamara River, that I broke camp five years before, and the memory of forgotten Howard Byng stood before me, with the vividness of yesterday. I had expected to hear good things of him some time. I could recall his broken voice asking me to take him with me, feel his wringing hand-shake, bidding me good-bye; perhaps I magnified the abandon in his last wave of the hand as he stood on the end of the wharf watching me leave, disheartened and disconsolate as a lost soul. Then like a wave of nausea came the thought that he might be with this very gang I was going after. I believed he would be a force wherever he was. The time and place synchronized.

But here was my landmark to enter the creek, calling for extreme caution. I had ample notice that this gang was bold and would shoot to kill, if necessary. I didn't mind the danger much, but I did fear failure. The creek was as crooked as a ram's horn and the "still" was at the very end of it, in a dug-out on a little knoll in the low land.

I felt I was near the end of it when the fog came, making the dark night almost black. I had to feel my way in the slough creek that had narrowed now to six or eight feet through high grass.

I knew when I had reached the end, for I drew alongside the scow-like boat described to me, and often seen on the river, but there was neither sound, light, nor sign of life. I took my time and was careful. I sat very quietly in the boat for a few minutes, listening and going over again my plan of action, then I felt about their boat cautiously. It was motor-driven and might carry a ton.

Stepping out on the oozy bank, I began to crawl through the wet and clammy fog in the direction given by the sheriff, but could see nothing and was forced to feel my way along. My rifle and bag, slung over my shoulder, made progress slow and I noticed the ground was rising a little, further identifying the locality.

When I came up to a big stump the oppressive graveyard stillness was broken for the first time by a sound like a man breathing. I crawled a little more and listened. Surely it came from human lungs. There could be no mistake. It was the stuporous breathing of a drunk.

I hitched forward again and vision became clearer. The noise came from inside the stump evidently hollow. Straining my vision I learned that it was about four feet high and one side of it missing. Then I made out the dim outlines of a man sitting inside. I cautiously felt for his form with my hand, then quickly jerked back and away.

I had touched a naked foot, a human foot—but the heavy breathing continued. It was their lookout, their sentinel—of whom I had been warned—and he was evidently stupified by the product from the "still," a moonshiner's great weakness.

I could trace the long-barreled squirrel rifle standing close beside him and I waited cautiously for other signs of life. None came. I touched his foot again. No move. Ready to throttle him on the instant, I pressed the foot again slightly, and then the other one. The "swamp juice" was squarely on the throne. The fellow was inanimate.

I was able to manacle his feet without awakening him, then took away his rifle and began to manacle his hands and his feet. Soon they were ironed—and he still slept.

My success emboldened me. One man was harmless even if he made an outcry but I still walked cautiously, trying to locate the "still" house in the cave. I was confronted with a collection of uprooted stumps, a circular barricade, but in a moment I caught the slightest flicker of light. I was sure then, and moved silently along toward the layout. I knew there must be an entrance, and I now plainly detected the fumes of charcoal and the mash tub. The next thing in order was to get inside.

Following the circle of stumps I came to the entrance, a ditch that led down to the floor level of the place. Time was speeding and I was afraid the stupified sentinel might awaken and give an alarm. Silently I worked up to a narrow door crudely made of upright board planks. Big cracks enabled me to see the interior. There were two men. The older was sitting asleep against the wall, the younger man moving about. I could see his outline plainly by the light of a candle. His figure seemed familiar. He opened the furnace door to put more charcoal under the still—I could see his face. Howard Byng! His hair was long again, his face, smooth when I last saw it, was now covered with a bushy black beard. God only knows how I regretted the work ahead of me. If I had only declined this job! The thought brought a cold sweat.