“Only one as I knows on,” was the reply. “You see the murrain’s dreadful catchin’, and ef you don’t git them away as is got it, they’ll kill the whole flock. Better shoot ’em right-off; they’ve got to die any way.”
“But no man could single out the infected sheep and shoot them from among the flock,” said the gentleman.
“My name’s Mike Fink!” was the curt reply.
And it was answer enough. The gentleman begged Mike to shoot the infected sheep and throw them into the river. This was exactly what Mike wanted, but he pretended to resist. “It mought be a mistake,” he said; “they’ll may be git well. He didn’t like to shoot Manny’s sheep on his own say so. He’d better go an’ ask some of the neighbors ef it was the murrain sure ’nuf.” The gentleman insisted, and Mike modestly resisted, until finally he was promised a couple of gallons of old Peach Brandy if he would comply. His scruples thus finally overcome, Mike shot the sheep, threw them into the eddy and got the brandy. After dark, the men jumped into the water, hauled the sheep aboard, and by daylight had them neatly packed away and were gliding merrily down the stream.[5]
Another story, of a rather different character, is told to illustrate the recklessness of the man. It occurred on the Mississippi river. A negro had come down to the bank to gaze at the passing boat, who had the singularly projecting heel peculiar to some races of Africans. This peculiarity caught Mike’s eye, and so far outraged his ideas of symmetry that he determined to correct it. Accordingly he raised his rifle to his shoulder and fired, carrying away the offensive projection. The negro fell crying murder, believing himself mortally wounded. Mike was apprehended for this trick, at St. Louis, and found guilty, but we do not hear of the infliction of any punishment. A writer in the Western Monthly Review for July, 1829, in a letter to the editor of that magazine, asserts that he has himself seen the records of this case in the books of the court, and that Mike’s only defense was that “the fellow couldn’t wear a genteel boot and he wanted to fix it so that he could.”
One of his feats with the rifle which Mike most loved to boast of occurred somewhere in Indiana. Mike’s boat was lying to, from some cause, and he had gone ashore in pursuit of game. “As he was creeping along with the stealthy tread of a cat, his eye fell upon a beautiful buck, browsing on the edge of a barren spot a little distance off. Repriming his gun and picking his flint, Mike made his approach in his usual noiseless manner. At the moment he reached the spot from which he meant to take aim, he observed a large Indian intent upon the same object, advancing from a direction little different from his own. Mike shrank behind a tree with the quickness of thought, and keeping his eye fixed upon the hunter, waited the result with patience. In a few moments the Indian halted within fifty paces and leveled his piece at the deer. Instantly Mike presented his rifle at the body of the savage, and at the moment smoke issued from the gun of the latter, the bullet of Fink passed through the red man’s breast. He uttered a yell and fell dead at the same instant with the deer. Mike re-loaded his rifle and remained in covert some minutes to ascertain whether any more enemies were at hand. He then stepped up to the prostrate savage, and having satisfied himself that life was extinct, turned his attention to the buck, took from the carcass the pieces suited to jerking and retraced his steps in high glee to the boat.”[6] He used to say that was what he called “killing two birds with one stone.”
In all his little tricks, as Mike called them, he never displayed any very accurate respect to the laws either of propriety or property, but he was so ingenious in his predations that it is impossible not to laugh at his crimes. The stern rigor of Justice, however, did not feel disposed to laugh at Mike, but on the contrary offered a reward for his capture. For a long time Mike fought shy and could not be taken, until an old friend of his, who happened to be a constable, came to his boat when she was moored at Louisville and represented to Mike the poverty of his family; and, presuming on Mike’s known kindness of disposition, urged him to allow himself to be taken, and so procure for his friend the promised reward. He showed Mike the many chances of escape from conviction, and withal plead so strongly that Mike’s kind heart at last overcame him and he consented—but upon one condition! He felt at home nowhere but in his boat and among his men: let them take him and his men in the yawl and they would go. It was the only hope of procuring his appearance at court and the constable consented. Accordingly a long-coupled wagon was procured, and with oxen attached it went down the hill, at Third Street for Mike’s yawl. The road, for it was not then a street, was very steep and very muddy at this point. Regardless of this, however, the boat was set upon the wagon, and Mike and his men, with their long poles ready, as if for an aquatic excursion, were put aboard, Mike in the stern. By dint of laborious dragging the wagon had attained half the height of the hill, when out shouted the stentorian voice of Mike calling to his men—Set Poles!—and the end of every long pole was set firmly in the thick mud—Back Her!—roared Mike, and down the hill again went wagon, yawl, men and oxen. Mike had been revolving the matter in his mind and had concluded that it was best not to go; and well knowing that each of his men was equal to a moderately strong ox, he had at once conceived and executed this retrograde movement. Once at the bottom, another parley was held and Mike was again overpowered. This time they had almost reached the top of the hill, when Set poles!—Back her! was again ordered and again executed. A third attempt, however, was successful, and Mike reached the court house in safety; and, as his friend, the constable, had endeavored to induce him to believe, he was acquitted for lack of sufficient evidence. Other indictments, however, were found against him, but Mike preferred not to wait to hear them tried; so, at a given signal he and his men boarded their craft again and stood ready to weigh anchor. The dread of the long poles in the hands of Mike’s men prevented the posse from urging any serious remonstrance against his departure. And off they started with poles “tossed.” As they left the court house yard Mike waved his red bandanna, which he had fixed on one of the poles, and promising to “call again” was borne back to his element and launched once more upon the waters.
After the introduction of steamboats on the Western rivers, Mike’s occupation was gone. He could not consent, however, altogether to quit his free, wild life of adventure; and accordingly in 1822, he, together with Carpenter and Talbot, who were his firmest friends, joined Henry and Ashley’s company of Missouri trappers, and with this company they proceeded in the same year up to the mouth of the Yellow Stone river. Here a fort was built and from this point parties of hunters were sent out in all directions. Mike with his two friends and nine others formed one of these parties, and preferring to live to themselves, they dug a hole in the river bluff and here spent the winter. While here, Mike Fink and Carpenter had a fierce quarrel, caused probably by rivalry in the favors of a certain squaw. Previous to this time the friendship of these two men had been unbounded. Carpenter was equally as good a shot as Mike and it had been their custom to place a tin cup of whisky on each other’s head by turns and shoot it off at the distance of seventy yards with their rifles. This feat they had often performed and always successfully.
After the quarrel, and when spring had returned, they re-visited the fort and over a cup of whisky they talked over their difficulty and rendered their vows of amity, which were to be ratified by the usual trial of shooting at the cup. They “skyed a copper” for the first shot and Mike won it. Carpenter, who knew Mike thoroughly, declared he was going to be killed, but scorned to refuse the test. He prepared himself for the worst. He bequeathed his gun, pistols, wages, &c., to Talbot, in case he should be killed. They went to the field, and while Mike loaded his gun and prepared for the shot, Carpenter filled a tin cup to the brim, and, without moving a feature, placed it on his devoted head. At this target Mike levelled his piece. After fixing his aim, however, he took down his gun, and laughingly cried, “Hold your noddle steady, Carpenter, and don’t spill the whisky, for I shall want some presently.” Then raising his rifle again, he pulled the trigger, and in an instant Carpenter fell and expired without a groan. The ball had penetrated the center of his forehead about an inch and a half above the eyes. Mike coolly set down his rifle and blew the smoke out of it, keeping his eye fixed on the prostrate body of his quondam friend. “Carpenter,” said he, “have you spilt the whisky?” He was told that he had killed Carpenter. “It is all an accident,” said he, “I took as fair a bead on the black spot on the cup as ever I took on a squirrel’s eye. How could it happen?” And he fell to cursing powder, gun, bullet and himself.
In the wild country where they then were, the hand of justice could not reach Mike and he went unmolested. But Talbot had determined to avenge Carpenter, and one day, after several months had elapsed, when Mike, in a drunken fit of boasting, swore in Talbot’s presence that he had killed Carpenter intentionally and that he was glad of it, Talbot drew out one of the pistols which had been left him by the murdered man and shot Mike through the heart. In less than four months after this Talbot was himself drowned in attempting to swim the Titan river, and with him perished “the last of the boatmen.”