er Cochran's death on charges of violating the 1940
anti-snake-handling law. Unable to pay, they were jailed, he said.

Elige Bowling, a Holiness church preacher, is under bond pending grand
jury action on a murder charge in the death of Mrs. Napier. Wooton said
Perry county officials would be guided on further prosecution in the
Cochran case by disposition of the Leslie county case.

--Corbin, Ky., Times

Finding themselves in the throes of the law, members of the
snake-handling sect at times turned to drinking poison in testing their
faith. There was no legislation to prevent it, the leaders craftily
observed. However, in some southern mountain states such a measure has
been advocated.

At times, nevertheless, even in cases of death from snakebite during
religious service, county officials refused to prosecute, saying the
matter was up to the state itself to dispose of.

6. SUPERSTITION

BIG SANDY RIVER

There once prevailed a superstition among timbermen in the Big Sandy
country which dated back to the Indian.

The mountain men knew and loved their own Big Sandy River. They rode
their rafts fearlessly, leaping daringly from log to log to make fast a
dog chain, even jumping from one slippery, water-soaked raft to another
to capture with spike pole or grappling hook a log that had broken
loose. They had not the slightest fear when a raft buckled or broke away
from the rest and was swept by swift current to midstream. There were
quick and ready hands to the task. Loggers of the Big Sandy kept a cool
head and worked with swift decisive movements. But, once their rafts
reached the mouth of Big Sandy, there were some in the crew who could
neither be persuaded nor bullied to ride the raft on through to the
Ohio. Strong-muscled men have been known to quit their post, leap into
the turbulent water before the raft swept forward into the forbidding
Ohio. They remembered the warning of witch women, "Don't ride the raft
into the Big Waters! Leap off!" So the superstitious often leaped,
taking his life in his hands and often losing it.

WATER WITCH

If anyone wanted to dig a well in Pizen Gulch he wouldn't think of doing
it without first sending for Noah Buckley, the water witch. He lived at
the head of Tumbling Creek. Noah wore a belt of rattlesnake skin to keep
off rheumati