But what interested me more than all was his tales of adventure, of most of which he was himself the hero. Many of these were well worthy of being recorded.
One I deemed of especial interest, partly from its own essential oddness, partly from the quaint queerness of the language in which it was related to me, and not a little from the fact of its hingeing on a phenomenon, to which more than once I had myself been witness. I allude to the caving in, or breaking down of the banks of the Mississippi river, caused by the undermining influence of the current; when large slips of land, often whole acres, thickly studded with gigantic trees, glide into the water, to be swished away with a violence equalling the vortex of Charybdis.
It was in connection with one of these land-slips that Old Zeb had met with the adventure in question, which came very near depriving him of his life, as it did of his liberty for a period of several days’ duration.
Perhaps the narration had best be given in his own piquant patois; and I shall so set it forth, as nearly as I can transcribe it from the tablets of my memory.
I was indebted for the tale to a chance circumstance: for it was a rare thing in Old Zeb to volunteer a story, unless something turned up to suggest it.
We had killed a fine buck, which had run several hundred lengths of himself with the lead in his carcass, and had fallen within a few feet of the bank of the river.
While stopping to “gralloch the deer,” Old Zeb looked around with a pointed expression, as he did so, exclaiming:
“Darn me! ef this ain’t the place whar I war trapped in a tree! Dog-gone ef taint! Thar’s the very saplin’ itself.”
I looked at the “saplin’” to which my companion was pointing. It was a swamp cypress, of some thirty feet in girth, by at least a hundred and fifty in height.
“Trapped in a tree?” I echoed, with emphatic interest, perceiving that Old Zeb was upon the edge of some odd adventure.