On the morning of the trial the court room was crowded. The counsel for the state had everything ready, and the prisoner brought to the bar. The indictment was then read, charging the prisoner with murder in the first degree. And to the question, are you guilty or not guilty? Daymon answered not guilty, and resumed his seat. Silence now prevailed for a few minutes, when the judge inquired, "is the state ready?" The attorney answered, "yes." The judge inquired, "has the prisoner any one to defend him?" Daymon shook his head.

"It is then the duty of the court to appoint your defense," said the judge, naming the attorneys, and the trial proceeded. The witnesses for the state being sworn, testified to the shoe as already described. In the mean time Beargrass creek had been dragged, and the body of a woman found. The fish had eaten the face beyond recognition, but a chintz calico dress was sworn to by two sewing women as identical to one they had previously made for Daymon's wife.

The state's attorney pictured all of this circumstantial evidence to the jury in an eloquence seldom equaled.

But, who ever heard a lawyer plead the cause of a moneyless man? The attorneys appointed to defend Daymon preserved only their respectability in the profession.

And the jury returned their verdict guilty. Nothing now remained but to pronounce the sentence, and then the execution.

The judge was a crippled man, and slowly assumed an erect position. Then casting his eyes around the court room, they rested upon the prisoner, and he paused a moment. That moment was silent, profound, awful! for every ear was open to catch the first sound of that sentence. The silence was broken by a wild scream at the door. The anxious crowd opened a passage, and a woman entered the court room, her hair floating upon her shoulders, and her voice wild and mellow as the horn of resurrection. That woman was Daymon's wife.

SCENE SECOND.—THE HERO OF SHIRT-TAIL BEND.

Two boys in one house grew up side by side,

By the mother loved, and the father's pride

With raven locks and rosy cheeks they stood,

As living types of the family blood.

Don, from the mother did his mettle take,

Dan, the Prodigal—born to be a rake.

In the month of May, 1816, the Enterprise landed at Louisville, having made the trip from New Orleans in twenty-five days. She was the first steamboat that ever ascended the Mississippi river. The event was celebrated with a public dinner, given by the citizens of Louisville to Captain Henry M. Shreve, her commander.

A new era was inaugurated on the western waters, yet the clouds of monopoly had to be blown away, and the free navigation of the Mississippi heralded across the land.

The startling events of the times are necessarily connected with our story.

For the truth of history was never surpassed by fiction, only in the imagination of weak minds.

Sixty miles above Louisville, on the southern bank of the Ohio, stood a round-log cabin, surrounded by heavy timber. In the background a towering clift reared its green-covered brow to overlook the valley—the woodland scenery seemed to say: "here is the home of the wolf and the wild cat," and it gave the place a lonesome look.

A passing neighbor had informed the inmates of the cabin that a saw-mill was coming up the river. Two barefooted boys stood in the front yard, and looked with hopeful eyes upon the wonder of the passing steamer. The gentle breeze that waved their infant locks, whispered the coming storms of the future.

It was the Washington, built by Captain Shreve, and was subsequently seized for navigating the western waters. The case was carried to the Supreme Court of the United States, where the exclusive pretensions of the monopolist to navigate the western waters by steam were denied.

Some of the old heroes who battled for the free navigation of the western waters, left a request to be buried on the bank of the beautiful Ohio, where the merry song of the boatman would break the stillness of their resting place, and the music of the steam engine soothe their departed spirits. Well have their desires been fulfilled.

Some long and tedious summers had passed away—notwithstanding a congressman had declared in Washington City, "that the Ohio river was frozen over six months in the year, and the balance of the season would not float a tad-pole."

The music of the steam engine or the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, had given rise to unforseen industries. Don and Dan Carlo, standing in the half-way house between boyhood and manhood, without inheriting a red cent in the wide world with which to commence the battle of life, grown up in poverty, surrounded by family pride, with willing hearts and strong arms, were ready t-o undertake any enterprise that glimmering fortune might point out.

A relative on the mother's side held the title papers, signed by the Governor of Arkansas, to a tract ol land on the Mississippi river, who gave the privilege to Don and Dan Carlo, to establish a wood yard on said premises.

For steam navigation was not only a fixed fact, but the boats were much improved—many of them taking on board twenty-four cords of wood at one landing.

"Competition is the life of trade," and several enterprising woodmen were established in this locality; and when a passing steamboat would ring for wood after night, all anxious to show the first light, the woodmen, torch in hand, would run out of their cabins in their shirt-tails. From this circumstance, that locality was known by the boatmen from Pittsburgh to New Orleans, by the homely appellation of the Shirt-Tail Bend.

That, like many other localities on the Mississippi, was first settled by wood-choppers. The infantile state of society in those neighborhoods can be better imagined than described. The nearest seat of justice was forty miles, and the highest standard of jurisprudence was a third-rate county court lawyer. Little Rock was, perhaps, the only point in the State that could boast of being the residence of a printers' devil, or the author of a dime novel.

The wood-cutters were the representative men of the neighborhood. The Gospel of peace and good will to men was, perhaps, slightly preserved in the memories of some who had been raised in a more advanced state of civilization. The passing days were numbered by making a mark on the day-board every morning, and a long mark every seventh day, for the Sabbath.

Quarrels concerning property seldom, if ever, occurred. The criminal code or personal difficulties were generally settled according to the law of the early boatmen, which was: if two men had a personal quarrel, they were required to choose seconds, go ashore and fight it out. The seconds were chosen to see that no weapons were used and no foul holds were taken. It was a trial of physical strength, and when the vanquished party cried "enough!" the difficulty was considered settled.

I am speaking of times prior to the inauguration of the Arkansas Bowie knife and pistol Many of the early woodcutters on the Mississippi were men of sterling integrity. Don Carlo never wrote a line for the future antiquarian to ponder over, or dreamed that he was transmitting anything to posterity; yet, by his bold and noble conduct, he stamped the impress of his character upon the memories of all who witnessed the blossom of society in the woods on the Mississippi river.

Brindle Bill was a wood-chopper, but he never worked much at his profession. He was one of the class of woodcutters that were generally termed the floating part of the population. This class were employed by the proprietors of the wood yards, to cut wood by the