Bottom and Slough in Frenchman's Bend (Location Key)

In "The Hound" this slough is where a man named Cotton throws the gun with which he shot Houston to try to get rid of it. In The Hamlet, Faulkner brings this story into the Snopes trilogy by re-naming the man who kills Houston Mink Snopes, and enlarging the account of how, after using the gun, Mink wanders in the bottom where this slough is found. In the local vernacular, a "bottom" refers to the landscape around a creek or small river. It is usually dense with brush, vines and small trees. And a "slough" is a pool of stagnant water beside a creek or river. Mink's gun is almost immediately retrieved by a Negro who is "grabbling" - fishing with his bare hands - "in that slough" (257). This episode is also summarized in The Town.