The Turnbo Manuscripts
by Silas Claiborne Turnbo
1844-1925
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AT A DEER KILLING
By S. C. Turnbo
We have on a few occasions referred to the Still House Hollow or Pine Branch as it is sometimes called. This hollow empties into Little North Fork on the west side of the creek. It has its source just over the line in Ozark County, Mo., and enters North Fork in Marion County, Ark. Many years ago Tom Mallanaa owned and run a whiskey still in this hollow, hence one of the names it bears. The other name was derived from a few pine trees which stood on a hill on the east side of the hollow. On the Missouri side below where the pine timber stood is a fine spring of living water that gushes out at the base of the hill on the east side of the hollow and flows over a solid rock into the channel of the branch. Jim Donathan was the first settler here and was known for many years as the Donathan place. One-half a mile or more below this spring is the famed Wild Oat Springs which gushes out of the hillside on the west side of the hollow. Mr. Isaac Fleetwood tells of a deer killing near the Donathan Spring once while he lived near the mouth of Gooley’s Spring Creek. He said that one day while he and George Collins were hunting together in this hollow and we become temporarily separated and I met 4 deer just up on the hill just east of the spring. One was a doe and the others were big bucks. They were coming toward me and I took a position by a post oak tree and when they had got within gunshot of me I whistled and they all stopped and I shot and killed the doe. At the report of the gun the bucks shied off a few steps and stopped. I reloaded my gun in such haste that I did not take time to wrap the bullet in cloth and pushed it down the gun naked and shot and killed one of the bucks. Pouring another charge of powder down my gun and ramming another naked ball down I shot down another buck. The remaining deer appeared to be contented and did not offer to run. I worked fast in reloading my gun with another naked ball and shot and killed him too. I called George Collins and when he come to me I showed him the dead deer and he said, "Well done, Fleetwood." We had a job in taking off the hides and dressing the venison."
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