rough coated and rougher tongued, swearing men on a holiday, stevedores
and boatmen off the lakes and rivers of the middle border--some of whom
had had their training on the Ohio and Mississippi. There was much
drunkenness and fighting in the crowded streets. Some of the carriers and
handlers of American commerce vented their enthusiasm in song.

In Samson's diary was the refrain of one of these old lake songs, which
he had set down, as best he could, after the event:

"Then here's three cheers for the skipper an' his crew,
Give 'er the wind an' let 'er go, for the boys'll put 'er through;
I thought 'twould blow the whiskers right off o' you an' me,
On our passage up from Buffalo to Milwaukee-ee."

Each of these rough men had dressed to his own fancy. Many wore fine
boots of calf skin with red tops, drawn over their trousers, and high
heels and blue and red shirts and broad brimmed straw hats. A long haired
man, in buckskin leggings and moccasins, with a knife at his belt and too
much whisky beneath it, amused a crowd by a loud proclamation of his own
reckless and redoubtable character and a louder appeal for a chance to
put it in action. It was a droll bit of bragging and merely intended, as
the chronicler informs us, to raise a laugh.

"Here I be half man an' half alligator," he shouted. "Oh, I'm one o' yer
tough kind, live forever an' then turn into a hickory post. I've just
crept out o' the ma'shes of ol' Kentuck. I'm only a yearlin', but cuss
me if I don't think I can whip anybody in this part o' the country. I'm
the chap that towed the Broadhorn up Salt River where the snags was so
thick a fish couldn't swim without rubbin' his scales off. Cock a doodle
doo! I'm the infant that refused his milk before his eyes was open an'