Next you'd see a raft sliding by, away off yonder, and maybe a galoot on it chopping, because they're most always doing it on a raft; you'd see the axe flash and come down --you don't hear nothing; you see that axe go up again, and by the time it's above the man's head then you hear the k' had took all that time to come over the water. (p. 115) use either context clues or an outside source to you determine the meaning of the word in bold in the passage above.
galoot is the word in bold.