There was a record of a mighty flood that drowned out everything and everybody, ran over the top of the bridge and carried part of it away, and following this were notations of approximate dates of sundry happenings—when the gang of counterfeiters that dwelt in Pinkamink Marsh were caught and “sent up”—the year that Bill killed a blue goose on “Boiler Slough”—when the tornado blew all of the water out of the river at “Ox Bow Bend” and left the channel bare for half an hour, and the year that “forty-six thousand rat skins was took off Shelby Marsh.” A page was devoted to a reign of terror that lasted several weeks in 1877. For five nights an awful roar had come out of “Bull Snake Bayou.” The mystery was never explained, but Bill thought that the noise had been produced by a “whiffmatick” or a “hodad” that had come down with the spring flood, lost its way, and was shedding horns or scales in the vine-clad thickets. The births, weddings and deaths of all the old settlers were carefully recorded, and many of their exploits detailed at length. There was an account of the capture of Hank Butts and his illicit still by the revenue officers, the failure of the jury to convict, owing to the reputations of the culprit’s two sons as dead shots, and the story of Hank’s death in a feather bed, with his boots on, when he went to visit a city relative and blew out the gas a few months later. Bill’s experience with a “cattymount” was related with much detail. He had encountered it in the woods when he was young, and had spent two days and nights in a tree, living on crackers, plug tobacco, and a bottle of sage tea that he fortunately happened to have with him. The animal’s foot had been shattered by Bill’s only bullet and this prevented it from going into the foliage after him. The captive had chewed up over a pound of the plug and had carefully aimed the resulting juices at the baleful eye-balls that gleamed below him at night, hoping to blind his besieger. When the supply of this ammunition was exhausted the animal’s eyes were still bright, although Bill had scored many body hits and had decidedly changed the general color of his enemy. Hunger finally compelled the savage beast to beat a retreat and the situation was relieved. The “cattymount” had evidently increased in size with the succeeding years, for in the manuscript its estimated length had been twice corrected with a pen, the last figures being the highest. Bill added that he had killed this “fierce an’ formidable animal” later, and that “its skin was taken east.”