Loyola University Maryland - Evergreen / Green and Gray Yearbook (Baltimore, MD)

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THE LOYOLA ANNUAL 25 Billy had been doin’ a heap of thinkin’. There was the man that he would have done anything to get rid of, gotten rid of for him, as you might say, by Providence, and he didn’t know whether to get him off, or thank his stars that he hadn’t had to kill him. “ Well, it had been three days and we was still loafln around, trying to get up some means to rescue him without onnecessarily exposin’ ourselves. Charlie was about ‘ all in ;’ he had just enough life to stand up, and that was all. He tried to holler once or twice, but the water was too loud. ‘‘ Well, on the third day she came down. To tell the truth, she had been there most all the time, except when her people forced her to take some rest, and it was easy seen that she was clean gone on ‘ handsome ’ Charlie Morris, now more a skeleton than the good lookin’, reckless Irishman he had been a week before. There was Charlie a-layin’ there, more dead than alive, and the girl near crazy. She came down to where the men were settin’, her face white and drawn. She spoke, and her voice sounded like a rasp on iron. “ ‘What are you goin’ to do for Charlie? ’ she asks for the eleven hundredth time. They looks down and says nothing; they don’t like the fix. ‘ Aint you goin’ to get him? ’ she asks terse and quiet. No answer. “ ‘ Men, for God’s sake get him. Don’t let him die out there. Get him for me, for me. Oh, I love him and I’ll go crazy if you don’t get him off.’ “We don ' t like it, for when she asks for anything they generally go after it. Then, becomin’ scornful, she rips ' em up the back. “‘You call yourselves lumberjacks, but you aint; they don’t act like this when their chum is dying. Where’s Mr. Lacaque? He’ll go. Won’t you? As Bill come up from where he’s been down by the river, studying a whole lot. ‘ Y es,’ he says slow. ‘ I’ll go, but I got to have my price.’

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24 THE LOYOLA ANNUAL jostled them in order to shunt through, for there wasn’t any man dars’t ride through there. That is what we thought any- way. “Well, of course, bein’ so near town, all the folks turned out to see us make this last fight. Of course, she was there, and was certainly good to see. Her hair, all piled up on that pretty little head, blowing and dancing, looking, on the whole, like spun moonbeams; her blue eyes, as dark as the northern skies, laughing and peeping out from under long, silky eye- lashes ; that little mouth, now pouting, now bent in repose with a color that leaped and frolicked, tinging her cheeks and neck, made up a picture that I’d walk a long way to see. I under- stood then why them men were so tangled up and caught; I would ’a been too, if there had been any chance for me. “ My feelins sort of got the better of me. So, as I was sayin’, that Hell’s Leap certainly did look its part. “ Bein’ as all the girls was there, the boys had to show off. So it was first, ‘ I dare you do this,’ and ‘ I dare you do that,’ while all the time they was getting recklesser and recklesser ’till finally some young scamps tying logs together started to go through Hell’s Leap. “ Now, people had gone through on a crib, but it was mighty dangerous business. Well, these fellers started through — there were three of them, and Charlie was one. They went down that stretch like greased lightnin’, then they struck the rocks. I don’t know to this day how it was, but Charlie was thrown plum upon that table rock, and the other poor lads haven’t been seen since. Ground to pieces, I reckon, by the rocks on the last shoot of water. “We tried our durndest to get him off, but it was no go. We tried to float logs with ropes on ’em, to him but — ‘ nothin’ doin’. The men was clean scared to try it on a crib. He was too knocked around to jump a log, as it came through, and take his chances. Well, sir, we was plum stumped. All this time

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26 THE LOYOLA ANNUAL “ ‘ What is it? ’ she says quick. “ ‘ YOU,’ he answers, steady and clear. ‘ If I risk my life for that man out there, who, God knows, I would sooner see die than come back here, it’s you, — or he stays there. “ She sorter starts and looks at him, as though she was dreaming. Then, givin’ a little laugh that was cut short in the middle and wasn’t good to hear, she says : “ ‘ Go ; anything, for he’ll die out there.’ Billy never said another word, but, turning on his heel, he goes up to where the logs is, and picking out a big one, jumps on and shoves her off. When he struck the first stretch of water he leaned for- ward like a circus-rider, swinging easily to the roll of the log. All this time Charlie, who had been looking and seeing what he had to do, waited until the log shot abreast, then jumped. He lit square on the log, but would have fallen off if Billy hadn’t grabbed him. Down they went until they struck the drop, then as their log dived, Billy picked Charlie up in his arms, jumped high and dropped as gracefully as a cat, on one of the logs that were floating in the pool. “Well, you oughter heard us holler! Billy never said a word, but with Charlie, who had fainted, lying in his arms like a big child, went up to where the girl was settin’ with tearless eyes and sweet face lookin’ at him. “ Layin’ the man down beside her he says, kinder sad : “ ‘ Take him, honey, he’s yours. For, as God is my Judge, I won’t deprive a girl of the man she loves, as you love him.’ With this he turns and starts up the river trail. “ ‘ Hey, boss,’ yells one of the men, ‘ aint you agoin’ to run this drive clar thro ? ’ “ ‘ To h — with the drive,’ says Billy. ‘ I’m tired, tired.’ “ Nor has horn, hair nor hoof mark been seen of him since.” Frederic C. Lee, ’10.