They caught up with Frenchy last year. Ever’body knew he’d get it sooner er later. He never took nothin’ from me; treated me good, but I hears stories from other guys. Might be all’s they is is stories, guys talkin’. He weren’t no thief, that he weren’t, but he managed to get himself on the bad side a too many guys. It was two guys got him. Stabbed him. He was jungled on the Columbia, west a Wishram.  Had himself a lean-to at the water’s edge, ‘an them two come right down to his jungle in broad daylight an’ stabbed him. Cut him up bad. Sliced up his liver, an’ he come a hair’s breadth from dyin’ on the spot. The way I heard it he sold a cabin to them two for a hunnert an’ thirty-five dollars, ‘an the cabin wasn’t even Frenchy’s to begin with. Them guys found out they been took, an’ they come lookin’ for Frenchy, wantin’ their money back an’ that’s when he got it. The law caught up with the guys that did it. Caught ‘em tryin’ to cross that trestle goin’ over to Oregon. But that didn’t help Frenchy none. He still had a hole in his gut, and I heard he died sometime later on in the hospital. Hatchet George is lookin’ after Frenchy’s poodle dogs, all four of ‘em.

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