LIFJB ON THE MISSISSIPPI.

' He swum to it, and as he come pushing it to the raft, the men spread to
one side. Bat the old man got it aboard and busted in the head, and there
was a baby in it! Yes, sir, a stark naked baby. It was Dick Allbright's
baby; he owned up and said so.

* " Yes," he says, a-leaning over it, et yes, it is my own lamented darling,
my poor lost Charles William Allbright deceased," says he,—for he could

curl his tongue around the
bulliest words in the lan-
guage when he was a mind
to, and lay them before you
without a jint started, any-
wheres. Yes, he said he used
to live up at the head of this
bend, and one night he choked
his child, which was crying,
not intending to kill it,—
which was prob'ly a lie,—and
then he was scared, and buried
it in a bar'l, before his wife
got home, and off he went,
and struck the northern trail
and went to rafting; and this
was the third year that the
bar'l had chased him. He
said the bad luck always begun
light, and lasted till four men
was killed, and then the bar'l
did n't come any more after
that. He said if the men
would stand it one more night,
—and was a-going on like
that,—but the men had got
enough. They started to get
* GRABBED THE LITTLE CHILD.' wt a boat to take him ashore

and lynch him, but he grabbed
the little child all of a sudden

and jumped overboard with it hugged up to his breast and shedding tears,
and we never see him again in this life, poor old suffering soul, nor Charles
William neither/

' Who was shedding tears ?' says Bob; e was it Allbright or the baby ? '
' Why, Allbright, of course; didn't I tell you the baby was dead ? Been
dead three years—how could it cry ?'