Chapter Thirty Nine.Is it a corpse?“Surely Charl Clancy!” exclaims the mulatto as soon as setting eyes on the face. “Dead—shot—murdered!”For a time he stands aghast, with arms upraised, and eyes staring wildly.Then, as if struck by something in the appearance of the corpse, he mutteringly interrogates: “Is he sure gone dead?”To convince himself he kneels down beside the body, having cleared away the loose coverlet still partially shrouding it.He sees the blood, and the wound from which it is yet welling. He places his hand over the heart with a hope it may still be beating.Surely it is! Or is he mistaken?The pulse should be a better test; and he proceeds to feel it, taking the smooth white wrist between his rough brown fingers.“It beats! I do believe it does!” are his words, spoken hopefully.For some time he retains his grasp of the wrist. To make more sure, he tries the artery at different points, with a touch as tender, as if holding in his hand the life of an infant.He becomes certain that the heart throbs; that there is yet breath in the body.What next? What is he to do?Hasten to the settlement, and summon a doctor?He dares not do this; nor seek assistance of any kind. To show himself to a white man would be to go back into hated bondage—to the slavery from which he has so lately, and at risk of life, escaped. It would be an act of grand generosity—a self-sacrifice—more than man, more than human being is capable of. Could a poor runaway slave be expected to make it?Some sacrifice he intends making, as may be gathered from his muttered words:“Breath in his body, or no breath, it won’t do to leave it lyin’ here. Poor young gen’leman! The best of them all about these parts. What would Miss Helen say if she see him now? What will she say when she hear o’ it? I wonder who’s done it? No, I don’t—not a bit. There’s only one likely. From what Jule told me, I thought ’t would come to this, some day. Wish I could a been about to warn him. Well, it’s too late now. The Devil has got the upper hand, as seem always the way. Ah! what ’ll become o’ Miss Armstrong? She loved him, sure as I love Jule, or Jule me.”For a time he stands considering what he ought to do. The dread spectacle has driven out of his mind all thoughts of his appointment with Blue Bell; just as what preceded hindered the coon-hunter from keeping it with him. For the latter, terrified, has taken departure from the dangerous place, and is now hastening homeward.Only for a short while does the mulatto remain hesitating. His eyes are upon the form at his feet. He sees warm blood still oozing from the wound, and knows, or hopes, Clancy is not dead. Something must be done immediately.“Dead or alive,” he mutters. “I mustn’t, shan’t leave him here. The wolves would soon make bare bones of him, and the carrion crows peck that handsome face of his. They shan’t either get at him. No. He’s did me a kindness more’n once, it’s my turn now. Slave, mulatto, nigger, as they call me, I’ll show them that under a coloured skin there can be gratitude, as much as under a white one—may be more. Show them! What am I talkin’ ’bout? There’s nobody to see. Good thing for me there isn’t. But there might be, if I stand shilly-shallying here. I mustn’t a minute longer.”Bracing himself for an effort, he opens his arms, and stoops as to take up the body. Just then the hound, for some time silent, again gives out its mournful monotone—continuing the dirge the runaway had interrupted.Suddenly he rises erect, and glances around, a new fear showing upon his face. For he perceives a new danger in the presence of the dog.“What’s to be done with it?” he asks himself. “I daren’t take it along. ’Twould be sure some day make a noise, and guide the nigger-hunters to my nest—I mustn’t risk that. To leave the dog here may be worse still. It’ll sure follow me toatin away its master, an’ if it didn’t take to the water an’ swim after ’twould know where the dug-out lay, an’ might show them the place. I shan’t make any tracks; for all that they’d suspect somethin’, down the creek, an’ come that way sarchin’. ’Twont do take the dog—’twont do to leave it—whatwilldo?”The series of reflections, and questions, runs rapidly as thought itself. And to the last, quick as thought, comes an answer—a plan which promises a solution of the difficulty. He thinks of killing the dog—cutting its throat with his knife.Only for an instant is the murderous intent in his mind. In the next he changes it, saying:“I can’t do that—no; the poor brute so ’fectionate an’ faithful! ’Twould be downright cruel. A’most the same as murderin’ a man. I wont do it.”Another pause spent in considering; another plan soon suggesting itself.“Ah!” he exclaims, with air showing satisfied, “I have it now. That’ll be just the thing.”The “thing” thus approved of, is to tie the hound to a tree, and so leave it.First to get hold of it. For this he turns towards the animal, and commences coaxing it nearer. “Come up, ole fella. You aint afeerd o’ me. I’m Jupe, your master’s friend, ye know. There’s a good dog! Come now; come!”The deer-hound, not afraid, does not flee him; and soon he has his hands upon it.Pulling a piece of cord out of his pocket, he continues to apostrophise it, saying:“Stand still, good dog! Steady, and let me slip this round your neck. Don’t be skeeart. I’m not goin’ to hang you—only to keep you quiet a bit.”The animal makes no resistance; but yields to the manipulation, believing it to be by a friendly hand, and for its good.In a trice the cord is knotted around its neck; and the mulatto looks out for a tree to which he may attach it.A thought now strikes him, another step calling for caution. It will not do to let the dog see him go off, or know the direction he takes; for some one will be sure to come in search of Clancy, and set the hound loose. Still, time will likely elapse; the scent will be cold, as far as the creek’s edge, and cannot be lifted. With the water beyond there will be no danger.The runaway, glancing around, espies a palmetto brake; these forming a sort of underwood in the cypress forest, their fan-shaped leaves growing on stalks that rise directly out of the earth to a height of three or four feet, covering the ground with achevaux de friseof deepest green, but hirsute and spinous as hedgehogs.The very place for his purpose. So mutters he to himself, as he conducts the dog towards it. Still thinking the same, after he has tied the animal to a palmetto shank near the middle of the brake, and there left it. He goes off, regardless of its convulsive struggles to set itself free, with accompanying yelps, by which the betrayed quadruped seems to protest against such unexpected as ill-deserved, captivity.Not five minutes time has all this action occupied. In less than five more a second chapter is complete, by the carrying of Clancy’s body—it may be his corpse—to the creek, and laying it along the bottom of the canoe.Notwithstanding the weight of his burden, the mulatto, a man of uncommon strength, takes care to make no footmarks along the forest path, or at the point of embarkation. The ground, thickly strewn with the leaves of the deciduoustaxodium, does not betray a trace, any more than if he were treading on thrashed straw.Undoing the slip-knot of his painter, he shoves the canoe clear of its entanglement among the roots of the tree. Then plying his paddle, directs its course down stream, silently as he ascended, but with look more troubled, and air intensely solemnal. This continuing, while he again shoulders the insensible form, and carries it along the causeway of logs, until he has laid it upon soft moss within the cavity of the cypress—his own couch. Then, once more taking Clancy’s wrist between his fingers, and placing his ear opposite the heart, he feels the pulse of the first, and listens for the beatings of the last.A ray of joy illuminates his countenance, as both respond to his examination. It grows brighter, on perceiving a muscular movement of the limbs, late rigid and seemingly inanimate, a light in the eyes looking like life; above all, words from the lips so long mute. Words low-murmured, but still distinguishable; telling him a tale, at the same time giving its interpretation. That in this hour of his unconsciousness Clancy should in his speech couple the names of Richard Darke and Helen Armstrong is a fact strangely significant, he does the same for many days, in his delirious ravings; amid which the mulatto, tenderly nursing him, gets the clue to most of what has happened.Clearer when his patient, at length restored to consciousness, confides everything to the faithful fellow who has so befriended him. Every circumstance he ought to know, at the same time imparting secrecy.This, so closely kept, that even Blue Bill, while himself disclosing many an item, of news exciting the settlement, is not entrusted with one the most interesting, and which would have answered the questions on every tongue:—“What has become of Charles Clancy?” and “Where is his body?”Clancy still in it, living and breathing, has his reasons for keeping the fact concealed. He has succeeded in doing so till this night; till encountering Simeon Woodley by the side of his mother’s tomb.And now on Woodley’s own hearth, after all has been explained, Clancy once more returns to speak of the purpose he has but half communicated to the hunter.“You say, Sime, I can depend upon you to stand by me?”“Ye may stake yur life on that. Had you iver reezun to misdoubt me?”“No—never.”“But, Charley, ye hain’t tolt me why ye appeared a bit displeezed at meetin’ me the night. That war a mystery to me.”“There was nothing in it, Sime. Only that I didn’t care to meet, or be seen by, any one till I should be strong enough to carry out my purpose. It would, in all probability, be defeated were the world to know I am still alive. That secret I shall expect you to keep.”“You kin trust to me for that; an’ yur plans too. Don’t be afeerd to confide them to Sime Woodley. Maybe he may help ye to gettin’ ’em ship-shape.”Clancy is gratified at this offer of aid. For he knows that in the backwoodsman he will find his best ally; that besides his friendship tested and proved, he is the very man to be with him in the work he has cut out for himself—a purpose which has engrossed his thoughts ever since consciousness came back after his long dream of delirium. It is that so solemnly proclaimed, as he stood in the cemetery, with no thought of any one overhearing him.He had then three distinct passions impelling him to the stern threat—three reasons, any of them sufficient to ensure his keeping it. First, his own wrongs. True the attempt at assassinating him had failed; still the criminality remained the same. But the second had succeeded. His mother’s corpse was under the cold sod at his feet, her blood calling to him for vengeance. And still another passion prompted him to seek it—perhaps the darkest of all, jealousy in its direst shape, the sting from a love promised but unbestowed. For the coon-hunter had never told Jupe of Helen Armstrong’s letter. Perhaps, engrossed with other cares, he had forgotten it; or, supposing the circumstance known to all, had not thought it worth communicating. Clancy, therefore, up to that hour, believed his sweetheart not only false to himself, but having favoured his rival.The bitter delusion, now removed, does not in any way alter his determination. That is fixed beyond change, as he tells Simeon Woodley while declaring it. He will proceed to Texas in quest of the assassin—there kill him.“The poor old place!” he says, pointing to the cottage as he passes it on return to the swamp. “No more mine! Empty—every stick sold out of it, I’ve heard. Well, let them go! I go to Texas.”“An’ I with ye. To Texas, or anywhars, in a cause like your’n, Clancy. Sime Woodley wouldn’t desarve the name o’ man, to hang back on a trail like that. But, say! don’t ye think we’d be more likely o’ findin’ the game by stayin’ hyar? Ef ye make it known that you’re still alive, then thar ain’t been no murder done, an’ Dick Darke ’ll be sure to kum home agin.”“If he came what could I do? Shoot him down like a dog, as he thought he had me? That would makemea murderer, with good chance of being hanged for it. In Texas it is different. There, if I can meet him—. But we only lose time in talking. You say, Woodley, you’ll go with me?”“In course I’ve said it, and I’ll do as I’ve sayed. There’s no backin’ out in this child. Besides, I war jest thinkin’ o’ a return to Texas, afore I seed you. An’ thar’s another ’ll go along wi’ us; that’s young Ned Heywood, a friend o’ your’n most as much as myself. Ned’s wantin’ bad to steer torst the Lone Star State. So, thar’ll be three o’ us on the trail o’ Dick Darke.”“There will befourof us.”“Four! Who’s the t’other, may I axe?”“A man I’ve sworn to take to Texas along with me. A brave, noble man, though his skin be—. But never mind now. I’ll tell you all about it by-and-by. Meanwhile we must get ready. There’s not a moment to lose. A single day wasted, and I may be too late to settle scores with Richard Darke. There’s some one else in danger from him—”Here Clancy’s utterance becomes indistinct, as if his voice were stifled by strong emotion.“Some one else!” echoes Sime, interrupting; “who mout ye mean, Clancy?”“Her.”“That air’s Helen Armstrong. I don’t see how she kin be in any danger from Dick Darke. Thet ere gurl hev courage enuf to take care o’ herself, an’ the spirit too. Besides, she’ll hev about her purtectors a plenty.”“There can be no safety against an assassin. Who should know that better than I? Woodley, that man’s wicked enough for anything.”“Then, let’s straight to Texas!”
“Surely Charl Clancy!” exclaims the mulatto as soon as setting eyes on the face. “Dead—shot—murdered!”
For a time he stands aghast, with arms upraised, and eyes staring wildly.
Then, as if struck by something in the appearance of the corpse, he mutteringly interrogates: “Is he sure gone dead?”
To convince himself he kneels down beside the body, having cleared away the loose coverlet still partially shrouding it.
He sees the blood, and the wound from which it is yet welling. He places his hand over the heart with a hope it may still be beating.
Surely it is! Or is he mistaken?
The pulse should be a better test; and he proceeds to feel it, taking the smooth white wrist between his rough brown fingers.
“It beats! I do believe it does!” are his words, spoken hopefully.
For some time he retains his grasp of the wrist. To make more sure, he tries the artery at different points, with a touch as tender, as if holding in his hand the life of an infant.
He becomes certain that the heart throbs; that there is yet breath in the body.
What next? What is he to do?
Hasten to the settlement, and summon a doctor?
He dares not do this; nor seek assistance of any kind. To show himself to a white man would be to go back into hated bondage—to the slavery from which he has so lately, and at risk of life, escaped. It would be an act of grand generosity—a self-sacrifice—more than man, more than human being is capable of. Could a poor runaway slave be expected to make it?
Some sacrifice he intends making, as may be gathered from his muttered words:
“Breath in his body, or no breath, it won’t do to leave it lyin’ here. Poor young gen’leman! The best of them all about these parts. What would Miss Helen say if she see him now? What will she say when she hear o’ it? I wonder who’s done it? No, I don’t—not a bit. There’s only one likely. From what Jule told me, I thought ’t would come to this, some day. Wish I could a been about to warn him. Well, it’s too late now. The Devil has got the upper hand, as seem always the way. Ah! what ’ll become o’ Miss Armstrong? She loved him, sure as I love Jule, or Jule me.”
For a time he stands considering what he ought to do. The dread spectacle has driven out of his mind all thoughts of his appointment with Blue Bell; just as what preceded hindered the coon-hunter from keeping it with him. For the latter, terrified, has taken departure from the dangerous place, and is now hastening homeward.
Only for a short while does the mulatto remain hesitating. His eyes are upon the form at his feet. He sees warm blood still oozing from the wound, and knows, or hopes, Clancy is not dead. Something must be done immediately.
“Dead or alive,” he mutters. “I mustn’t, shan’t leave him here. The wolves would soon make bare bones of him, and the carrion crows peck that handsome face of his. They shan’t either get at him. No. He’s did me a kindness more’n once, it’s my turn now. Slave, mulatto, nigger, as they call me, I’ll show them that under a coloured skin there can be gratitude, as much as under a white one—may be more. Show them! What am I talkin’ ’bout? There’s nobody to see. Good thing for me there isn’t. But there might be, if I stand shilly-shallying here. I mustn’t a minute longer.”
Bracing himself for an effort, he opens his arms, and stoops as to take up the body. Just then the hound, for some time silent, again gives out its mournful monotone—continuing the dirge the runaway had interrupted.
Suddenly he rises erect, and glances around, a new fear showing upon his face. For he perceives a new danger in the presence of the dog.
“What’s to be done with it?” he asks himself. “I daren’t take it along. ’Twould be sure some day make a noise, and guide the nigger-hunters to my nest—I mustn’t risk that. To leave the dog here may be worse still. It’ll sure follow me toatin away its master, an’ if it didn’t take to the water an’ swim after ’twould know where the dug-out lay, an’ might show them the place. I shan’t make any tracks; for all that they’d suspect somethin’, down the creek, an’ come that way sarchin’. ’Twont do take the dog—’twont do to leave it—whatwilldo?”
The series of reflections, and questions, runs rapidly as thought itself. And to the last, quick as thought, comes an answer—a plan which promises a solution of the difficulty. He thinks of killing the dog—cutting its throat with his knife.
Only for an instant is the murderous intent in his mind. In the next he changes it, saying:
“I can’t do that—no; the poor brute so ’fectionate an’ faithful! ’Twould be downright cruel. A’most the same as murderin’ a man. I wont do it.”
Another pause spent in considering; another plan soon suggesting itself.
“Ah!” he exclaims, with air showing satisfied, “I have it now. That’ll be just the thing.”
The “thing” thus approved of, is to tie the hound to a tree, and so leave it.
First to get hold of it. For this he turns towards the animal, and commences coaxing it nearer. “Come up, ole fella. You aint afeerd o’ me. I’m Jupe, your master’s friend, ye know. There’s a good dog! Come now; come!”
The deer-hound, not afraid, does not flee him; and soon he has his hands upon it.
Pulling a piece of cord out of his pocket, he continues to apostrophise it, saying:
“Stand still, good dog! Steady, and let me slip this round your neck. Don’t be skeeart. I’m not goin’ to hang you—only to keep you quiet a bit.”
The animal makes no resistance; but yields to the manipulation, believing it to be by a friendly hand, and for its good.
In a trice the cord is knotted around its neck; and the mulatto looks out for a tree to which he may attach it.
A thought now strikes him, another step calling for caution. It will not do to let the dog see him go off, or know the direction he takes; for some one will be sure to come in search of Clancy, and set the hound loose. Still, time will likely elapse; the scent will be cold, as far as the creek’s edge, and cannot be lifted. With the water beyond there will be no danger.
The runaway, glancing around, espies a palmetto brake; these forming a sort of underwood in the cypress forest, their fan-shaped leaves growing on stalks that rise directly out of the earth to a height of three or four feet, covering the ground with achevaux de friseof deepest green, but hirsute and spinous as hedgehogs.
The very place for his purpose. So mutters he to himself, as he conducts the dog towards it. Still thinking the same, after he has tied the animal to a palmetto shank near the middle of the brake, and there left it. He goes off, regardless of its convulsive struggles to set itself free, with accompanying yelps, by which the betrayed quadruped seems to protest against such unexpected as ill-deserved, captivity.
Not five minutes time has all this action occupied. In less than five more a second chapter is complete, by the carrying of Clancy’s body—it may be his corpse—to the creek, and laying it along the bottom of the canoe.
Notwithstanding the weight of his burden, the mulatto, a man of uncommon strength, takes care to make no footmarks along the forest path, or at the point of embarkation. The ground, thickly strewn with the leaves of the deciduoustaxodium, does not betray a trace, any more than if he were treading on thrashed straw.
Undoing the slip-knot of his painter, he shoves the canoe clear of its entanglement among the roots of the tree. Then plying his paddle, directs its course down stream, silently as he ascended, but with look more troubled, and air intensely solemnal. This continuing, while he again shoulders the insensible form, and carries it along the causeway of logs, until he has laid it upon soft moss within the cavity of the cypress—his own couch. Then, once more taking Clancy’s wrist between his fingers, and placing his ear opposite the heart, he feels the pulse of the first, and listens for the beatings of the last.
A ray of joy illuminates his countenance, as both respond to his examination. It grows brighter, on perceiving a muscular movement of the limbs, late rigid and seemingly inanimate, a light in the eyes looking like life; above all, words from the lips so long mute. Words low-murmured, but still distinguishable; telling him a tale, at the same time giving its interpretation. That in this hour of his unconsciousness Clancy should in his speech couple the names of Richard Darke and Helen Armstrong is a fact strangely significant, he does the same for many days, in his delirious ravings; amid which the mulatto, tenderly nursing him, gets the clue to most of what has happened.
Clearer when his patient, at length restored to consciousness, confides everything to the faithful fellow who has so befriended him. Every circumstance he ought to know, at the same time imparting secrecy.
This, so closely kept, that even Blue Bill, while himself disclosing many an item, of news exciting the settlement, is not entrusted with one the most interesting, and which would have answered the questions on every tongue:—“What has become of Charles Clancy?” and “Where is his body?”
Clancy still in it, living and breathing, has his reasons for keeping the fact concealed. He has succeeded in doing so till this night; till encountering Simeon Woodley by the side of his mother’s tomb.
And now on Woodley’s own hearth, after all has been explained, Clancy once more returns to speak of the purpose he has but half communicated to the hunter.
“You say, Sime, I can depend upon you to stand by me?”
“Ye may stake yur life on that. Had you iver reezun to misdoubt me?”
“No—never.”
“But, Charley, ye hain’t tolt me why ye appeared a bit displeezed at meetin’ me the night. That war a mystery to me.”
“There was nothing in it, Sime. Only that I didn’t care to meet, or be seen by, any one till I should be strong enough to carry out my purpose. It would, in all probability, be defeated were the world to know I am still alive. That secret I shall expect you to keep.”
“You kin trust to me for that; an’ yur plans too. Don’t be afeerd to confide them to Sime Woodley. Maybe he may help ye to gettin’ ’em ship-shape.”
Clancy is gratified at this offer of aid. For he knows that in the backwoodsman he will find his best ally; that besides his friendship tested and proved, he is the very man to be with him in the work he has cut out for himself—a purpose which has engrossed his thoughts ever since consciousness came back after his long dream of delirium. It is that so solemnly proclaimed, as he stood in the cemetery, with no thought of any one overhearing him.
He had then three distinct passions impelling him to the stern threat—three reasons, any of them sufficient to ensure his keeping it. First, his own wrongs. True the attempt at assassinating him had failed; still the criminality remained the same. But the second had succeeded. His mother’s corpse was under the cold sod at his feet, her blood calling to him for vengeance. And still another passion prompted him to seek it—perhaps the darkest of all, jealousy in its direst shape, the sting from a love promised but unbestowed. For the coon-hunter had never told Jupe of Helen Armstrong’s letter. Perhaps, engrossed with other cares, he had forgotten it; or, supposing the circumstance known to all, had not thought it worth communicating. Clancy, therefore, up to that hour, believed his sweetheart not only false to himself, but having favoured his rival.
The bitter delusion, now removed, does not in any way alter his determination. That is fixed beyond change, as he tells Simeon Woodley while declaring it. He will proceed to Texas in quest of the assassin—there kill him.
“The poor old place!” he says, pointing to the cottage as he passes it on return to the swamp. “No more mine! Empty—every stick sold out of it, I’ve heard. Well, let them go! I go to Texas.”
“An’ I with ye. To Texas, or anywhars, in a cause like your’n, Clancy. Sime Woodley wouldn’t desarve the name o’ man, to hang back on a trail like that. But, say! don’t ye think we’d be more likely o’ findin’ the game by stayin’ hyar? Ef ye make it known that you’re still alive, then thar ain’t been no murder done, an’ Dick Darke ’ll be sure to kum home agin.”
“If he came what could I do? Shoot him down like a dog, as he thought he had me? That would makemea murderer, with good chance of being hanged for it. In Texas it is different. There, if I can meet him—. But we only lose time in talking. You say, Woodley, you’ll go with me?”
“In course I’ve said it, and I’ll do as I’ve sayed. There’s no backin’ out in this child. Besides, I war jest thinkin’ o’ a return to Texas, afore I seed you. An’ thar’s another ’ll go along wi’ us; that’s young Ned Heywood, a friend o’ your’n most as much as myself. Ned’s wantin’ bad to steer torst the Lone Star State. So, thar’ll be three o’ us on the trail o’ Dick Darke.”
“There will befourof us.”
“Four! Who’s the t’other, may I axe?”
“A man I’ve sworn to take to Texas along with me. A brave, noble man, though his skin be—. But never mind now. I’ll tell you all about it by-and-by. Meanwhile we must get ready. There’s not a moment to lose. A single day wasted, and I may be too late to settle scores with Richard Darke. There’s some one else in danger from him—”
Here Clancy’s utterance becomes indistinct, as if his voice were stifled by strong emotion.
“Some one else!” echoes Sime, interrupting; “who mout ye mean, Clancy?”
“Her.”
“That air’s Helen Armstrong. I don’t see how she kin be in any danger from Dick Darke. Thet ere gurl hev courage enuf to take care o’ herself, an’ the spirit too. Besides, she’ll hev about her purtectors a plenty.”
“There can be no safety against an assassin. Who should know that better than I? Woodley, that man’s wicked enough for anything.”
“Then, let’s straight to Texas!”
Chapter Forty.“Across the Sabine.”At the time when Texas was an independent Republic, and not, as now, a State of the Federal Union, the phrase, “Across the Sabine” was one of noted signification.Its significance lay in the fact, that fugitives from States’ justice, once over the Sabine, felt themselves safe; extradition laws being somewhat loose in the letter, and more so in the spirit, at any attempt made to carry them into execution.As a consequence, the fleeing malefactor could breathe freely—even the murderer imagine the weight of guilt lifted from off his soul—the moment his foot touched Texan soil.On a morning of early spring—the season when settlers most affect migration to the Lone Star State—a party of horsemen is seen crossing the boundary river, with faces turned toward Texas. The place where they are making passage is not the usual emigrants’ crossing—on the old Spanish military road between Natchitoches and Nacogdoches,—but several miles above, at a point where the stream is, at certain seasons, fordable. From the Louisiana side this ford is approached through a tract of heavy timber, mostly pine forest, along a trail little used by travellers, still less by those who enter Texas with honest intent, or leave Louisiana with unblemished reputations.That these horsemen belong not to either category can be told at a glance. They have no waggons, nor other wheeled vehicles, to give them the semblance of emigrants; no baggage to embarrass them on their march. Without it, they might be explorers, land speculators, surveyors, or hunters. But no. They have not the look of persons who pursue any of these callings; no semblance of aught honest or honourable. In all there are twelve of them; among them not a face but speaks of the Penitentiary—not one which does not brighten up, and show more cheerful, as the hooves of their horses strike the Texan bank of the Sabine.While on theterrainof Louisiana, they have been riding fast and hard—silent, and with pent-up thoughts, as though pursuers were after. Once on the Texan side all seem relieved, as if conscious of having at length reached a haven of safety.Then he who appears leader of the party, reining up his horse, breaks silence, saying—“Boys! I reckon we may take a spell o’ rest here. We’re now in Texas, whar freemen needn’t feel afeard. If thar’s been any fools followin’ us, I guess they’ll take care to keep on t’other side o’ the river. Tharfor, let’s dismount and have a bit o’ breakfast under the shadder o’ these trees. After we’ve done that, we can talk about what shed be our next move. For my part, I feel sleepy as a ’possum. That ar licker o’ Naketosh allers knocks me up for a day or two. This time, our young friend Quantrell here, has given us a double dose, the which I for one won’t get over in a week.”It is scarcely necessary to say the speaker is Jim Borlasse, and those spoken to his drinking companions in the Choctaw Chief.To a man, they all make affirmative response. Like himself, they too are fatigued—dead done up by being all night in the saddle,—to say nought about the debilitating effects of their debauch, and riding rapidly with beard upon the shoulder, under the apprehension that a sheriff and posse may be coming on behind. For, during the period of their sojourn in Natchitoches, nearly every one of them has committed some crime that renders him amenable to the laws.It may be wondered how such roughs could carry on and escape observation, much more, punishment. But at the time Natchitoches was a true frontier town, and almost every day witnessed the arrival and departure of characters “queer” as to dress and discipline—the trappers and prairie traders. Like the sailor in port, when paid off and with full pockets—making every effort to deplete them—so is the trapper during his stay at a fort, or settlement. He does things that seem odd, are odd, to the extreme of eccentricity. Among such the late guests of the Choctaw Chief would not, and did not, attract particular attention. Not much was said or thought of them, till after they were gone; and then but by those who had been victimised, resignedly abandoning claims and losses with the laconic remark, “The scoundrels have G.T.T.”It was supposed the assassin of Charles Clancy had gone with them; but this, affecting the authorities more than the general public, was left to the former to deal with; and in a land of many like affairs, soon ceased to be spoken of.Borlasse’s visit to Natchitoches had not been for mere pleasure. It was business that took him thither—to concoct a scheme of villainy such as might be supposed unknown among Anglo-Saxon people, and practised only by those of Latinic descent, on the southern side of the Rio Grande.But robbery is not confined to any race; and on the borderland of Texas may be encountered brigandage as rife and ruthless as among the mountains of the Sierra Morena, or the defiles of the Appenines.That the Texan bandit has succeeded in arranging everything to his satisfaction may be learnt from his hilarious demeanour, with the speech now addressed to his associates:—“Boys!” he says, calling them around after they have finished eating, and are ready to ride on, “We’ve got a big thing before us—one that’ll beat horse-ropin’ all to shucks. Most o’ ye, I reckin, know what I mean; ’ceptin’, perhaps, our friends here, who’ve just joined us.”The speaker looks towards Phil QuantrellaliasDick Darke, and another, named Walsh, whom he knows to be Joe Harkness, ex-jailer.After glancing from one to the other, he continues—“I’ll take charge o’ tellin’themin good time; an’, I think, can answer for their standin’ by us in the bizness. Thar’s fifty thousand dollars, clar cash, at the bottom of it; besides sundries in the trinket line. The question then is, whether we’d best wait till this nice assortment of property gets conveyed to the place intended for its destination, or make a try to pick it up on the way. What say ye, fellers? Let every man speak his opinion; then I’ll give mine.”“You’re sure o’ whar they’re goin’, capting?” asks one of his following. “You know the place?”“Better’n I know the spot we’re now camped on. Ye needn’t let that trouble ye. An’ most all o’ ye know it yourselves. As good luck has it, ’taint over twenty mile from our old stampin’ groun’ o’ last year. Thar, if we let em’ alone, everythin’ air sure to be lodged ’ithin less’n a month from now. Thar, we’ll find the specie, trinkets, an’ other fixins not forgetting the petticoats—sure as eggs is eggs. To some o’ ye it may appear only a question o’ time and patience. I’m sorry to tell ye it may turn out somethin’ more.”“Why d’ye say that, capting? What’s the use o’ waitin’ till they get there?”
At the time when Texas was an independent Republic, and not, as now, a State of the Federal Union, the phrase, “Across the Sabine” was one of noted signification.
Its significance lay in the fact, that fugitives from States’ justice, once over the Sabine, felt themselves safe; extradition laws being somewhat loose in the letter, and more so in the spirit, at any attempt made to carry them into execution.
As a consequence, the fleeing malefactor could breathe freely—even the murderer imagine the weight of guilt lifted from off his soul—the moment his foot touched Texan soil.
On a morning of early spring—the season when settlers most affect migration to the Lone Star State—a party of horsemen is seen crossing the boundary river, with faces turned toward Texas. The place where they are making passage is not the usual emigrants’ crossing—on the old Spanish military road between Natchitoches and Nacogdoches,—but several miles above, at a point where the stream is, at certain seasons, fordable. From the Louisiana side this ford is approached through a tract of heavy timber, mostly pine forest, along a trail little used by travellers, still less by those who enter Texas with honest intent, or leave Louisiana with unblemished reputations.
That these horsemen belong not to either category can be told at a glance. They have no waggons, nor other wheeled vehicles, to give them the semblance of emigrants; no baggage to embarrass them on their march. Without it, they might be explorers, land speculators, surveyors, or hunters. But no. They have not the look of persons who pursue any of these callings; no semblance of aught honest or honourable. In all there are twelve of them; among them not a face but speaks of the Penitentiary—not one which does not brighten up, and show more cheerful, as the hooves of their horses strike the Texan bank of the Sabine.
While on theterrainof Louisiana, they have been riding fast and hard—silent, and with pent-up thoughts, as though pursuers were after. Once on the Texan side all seem relieved, as if conscious of having at length reached a haven of safety.
Then he who appears leader of the party, reining up his horse, breaks silence, saying—
“Boys! I reckon we may take a spell o’ rest here. We’re now in Texas, whar freemen needn’t feel afeard. If thar’s been any fools followin’ us, I guess they’ll take care to keep on t’other side o’ the river. Tharfor, let’s dismount and have a bit o’ breakfast under the shadder o’ these trees. After we’ve done that, we can talk about what shed be our next move. For my part, I feel sleepy as a ’possum. That ar licker o’ Naketosh allers knocks me up for a day or two. This time, our young friend Quantrell here, has given us a double dose, the which I for one won’t get over in a week.”
It is scarcely necessary to say the speaker is Jim Borlasse, and those spoken to his drinking companions in the Choctaw Chief.
To a man, they all make affirmative response. Like himself, they too are fatigued—dead done up by being all night in the saddle,—to say nought about the debilitating effects of their debauch, and riding rapidly with beard upon the shoulder, under the apprehension that a sheriff and posse may be coming on behind. For, during the period of their sojourn in Natchitoches, nearly every one of them has committed some crime that renders him amenable to the laws.
It may be wondered how such roughs could carry on and escape observation, much more, punishment. But at the time Natchitoches was a true frontier town, and almost every day witnessed the arrival and departure of characters “queer” as to dress and discipline—the trappers and prairie traders. Like the sailor in port, when paid off and with full pockets—making every effort to deplete them—so is the trapper during his stay at a fort, or settlement. He does things that seem odd, are odd, to the extreme of eccentricity. Among such the late guests of the Choctaw Chief would not, and did not, attract particular attention. Not much was said or thought of them, till after they were gone; and then but by those who had been victimised, resignedly abandoning claims and losses with the laconic remark, “The scoundrels have G.T.T.”
It was supposed the assassin of Charles Clancy had gone with them; but this, affecting the authorities more than the general public, was left to the former to deal with; and in a land of many like affairs, soon ceased to be spoken of.
Borlasse’s visit to Natchitoches had not been for mere pleasure. It was business that took him thither—to concoct a scheme of villainy such as might be supposed unknown among Anglo-Saxon people, and practised only by those of Latinic descent, on the southern side of the Rio Grande.
But robbery is not confined to any race; and on the borderland of Texas may be encountered brigandage as rife and ruthless as among the mountains of the Sierra Morena, or the defiles of the Appenines.
That the Texan bandit has succeeded in arranging everything to his satisfaction may be learnt from his hilarious demeanour, with the speech now addressed to his associates:—
“Boys!” he says, calling them around after they have finished eating, and are ready to ride on, “We’ve got a big thing before us—one that’ll beat horse-ropin’ all to shucks. Most o’ ye, I reckin, know what I mean; ’ceptin’, perhaps, our friends here, who’ve just joined us.”
The speaker looks towards Phil QuantrellaliasDick Darke, and another, named Walsh, whom he knows to be Joe Harkness, ex-jailer.
After glancing from one to the other, he continues—
“I’ll take charge o’ tellin’themin good time; an’, I think, can answer for their standin’ by us in the bizness. Thar’s fifty thousand dollars, clar cash, at the bottom of it; besides sundries in the trinket line. The question then is, whether we’d best wait till this nice assortment of property gets conveyed to the place intended for its destination, or make a try to pick it up on the way. What say ye, fellers? Let every man speak his opinion; then I’ll give mine.”
“You’re sure o’ whar they’re goin’, capting?” asks one of his following. “You know the place?”
“Better’n I know the spot we’re now camped on. Ye needn’t let that trouble ye. An’ most all o’ ye know it yourselves. As good luck has it, ’taint over twenty mile from our old stampin’ groun’ o’ last year. Thar, if we let em’ alone, everythin’ air sure to be lodged ’ithin less’n a month from now. Thar, we’ll find the specie, trinkets, an’ other fixins not forgetting the petticoats—sure as eggs is eggs. To some o’ ye it may appear only a question o’ time and patience. I’m sorry to tell ye it may turn out somethin’ more.”
“Why d’ye say that, capting? What’s the use o’ waitin’ till they get there?”
Chapter Forty One.A repentant sinner.Nearly three weeks after Borlasse and his brigands crossed the Sabine, a second party is seen travelling towards the same river through the forests of Louisiana, with faces set for the same fording-place.In number they are but a third of that composing the band of Borlasse; as there are only four of them. Three are on horseback, the fourth bestriding a mule.The three horsemen are white; the mule-rider a mulatto.The last is a little behind; the distance, as also a certain air of deference—to say nothing of his coloured skin—proclaiming him a servant, or slave.Still further rearward, and seemingly careful to keep beyond reach of the hybrid’s heels, is a large dog—a deer-hound. The individuals of this second cavalcade will be easily identified, as also the dog that accompanies it. The three whites are Charles Clancy, Simeon Woodley, and Ned Heywood; he with the tawny complexion Jupiter; while the hound is Clancy’s—the same he had with him when shot down by Richard Darke.Strange they too should be travelling, as if under an apprehension of being pursued! Yet seems it so, judging from the rapid pace at which they ride, and there anxious glances occasionally cast behind. It is so; though for very different reasons from those that affected the freebooters.None of the white men has reason to fear for himself—only for the fugitive slave whom they are assisting to escape from slavery. Partly on this account are they taking the route, described as rarely travelled by honest men. But not altogether. Another reason has influenced their selection of it while in Natchitoches they too have put up at the Choctaw Chief; their plans requiring that privacy which an obscure hostelry affords. To have been seen with Jupiter at the Planter’s House might have been for some Mississippian planter to remember, and identify, him as the absconded slave of Ephraim Darke. Acontretempsless likely to occur at the Choctaw Chief, and there stayed they. It would have been Woodley’s choice anyhow; the hunter having frequently before made this house his home; there meeting many others of his kind and calling.On this occasion his sojourn in it has been short; only long enough for him and his travelling companions to procure a mount for their journey into Texas. And while thus occupied they have learnt something, which determined them as to the route they should take. Not the direct road for Nacogdoches by which Colonel Armstrong and his emigrants have gone, some ten days before; but a trail taken by another party that had been staying at the Choctaw Chief, and left Natchitoches at an earlier period—that they are now on.Of this party Woodley has received information, sufficiently minute for him to identify more than one of the personages composing it. Johnny has given him the clue. For the Hibernian innkeeper, with his national habit of wagging a free tongue, has besides a sort of liking for Sime, as an antipathy towards Sime’s old enemy, Jim Borlasse. The consequence of which has been a tale told in confidence to the hunter, about the twelve men late sojourning at the Choctaw Chief, that was kept back from the Sheriff on the morning after their departure. The result being, that in choice of a route to Texas, Woodley has chosen that by which they are now travelling. For he knows—has told Clancy—that by it has gone Jim Borlasse, and along with him Richard Darke.The last is enough for Clancy. He is making towards Texas with two distinct aims, the motives diametrically opposite. One is to comfort the woman he loves, the other to kill the man he hates.For both he is eagerly impatient; but he has vowed that the last shall be first—sworn it upon the grave of his mother.Having reached the river, and crossed it, Clancy and his travelling companions, just as Borlasse and his, seek relaxation under the shade of the trees. Perhaps, not quite so easy in their minds. For the murderer, on entering Texas, may feel less anxiety than he who has with him a runaway slave!Still in that solitary place—on a path rarely trodden—there is no great danger; and knowing this, they dismount and make their bivouacsans souci. The spot chosen is the same as was occupied by Borlasse and his band. Near the bank of the river is a spreading tree, underneath which a log affords sitting accommodation for at least a score of men. Seated on this, smoking his pipe, after a refection of corn-bread and bacon, Sime Woodley unburdens himself of some secrets he obtained in the Choctaw Chief, which up to this time he has kept back from the others.“Boys!” he begins, addressing himself to Clancy and Heywood, the mulatto still keeping respectfully apart. “We’re now on a spot, whar less’n two weeks agone, sot or stud, two o’ the darndest scoundrels as iver made futmark on Texan soil.Youknow one o’ ’em, Ned Heywood, but not the tother. Charley Clancy hev akwaintance wi’ both, an’ a ugly reccoleckshun o’ them inter the bargain.”The hunter pauses in his speech, takes a whiff or two from his pipe, then resumes:—“They’ve been hyar sure. From what thet fox, Johnny, tolt me, they must a tuk this trail. An’ as they hed to make quick tracks arter leavin’ Naketosh, they’d be tired on gettin’ this fur, an’ good as sartin to lay up a bit. Look! thar’s the ashes o’ thar fire, whar I ’spose they cooked somethin’. Thar hain’t been a critter crossed the river since the big rain, else we’d a seed tracks along the way. For they started jest the day afore the rain; and that ere fire hez been put out by it. Ye kin tell by them chunks showin’ only half consoomed. Yis, by the Eturnal! Roun’ the bleeze o’ them sticks has sot seven, eight, nine, or may be a dozen, o’ the darndest cut-throats as ever crossed the Sabine; an’ that’s sayin’ a goodish deal. Two o’ them I kin swar to bein’ so; an’ the rest may be counted the same from their kumpny—that kumpny bein’ Jim Borlasse an’ Dick Darke.”After thus delivering himself, the hunter remains apparently reflecting, not on what he has said, but what they ought to do. Clancy has been all the while silent, brooding with clouded brow—only now and then showing a faint smile as the hound comes up, and licks his outstretched hand. Heywood has nothing to say; while Jupiter is not expected to take any part in the conversation.For a time they all seem under a spell of lethargy—the lassitude of fatigue. They have ridden a long way, and need rest. They might go to sleep alongside the log, but none of them thinks of doing so, least of all Clancy. There is that in his breast forbidding sleep, and he is but too glad when Woodley’s next words arouse him from the torpid repose to which he has been yielding. These are:—“Now we’ve struck thar trail, what, boys, d’ye think we’d best do?”Neither of the two replying, the hunter continues:—“To the best of my opeenyun, our plan will be to put straight on to whar Planter Armstrong intends settin’ up his sticks. I know the place ’most as well as the public squar o’ Natchez. This chile intends jeinin’ the ole kurnel, anyhow. As for you, Charley Clancy, we know whar ye want to go, an’ the game ye intend trackin’ up. Wal; ef you’ll put trust in what Sime Woodley say, he sez this: ye’ll find that game in the neighbourhood o’ Helen Armstrong;—nigh to her as it dar’ ventur’.”The final words have an inflammatory effect upon Clancy. He springs up from the log, and strides over the ground, with a wild look and strangely excited air. He seems impatient to be back in his saddle.“In coorse,” resumes Woodley, “we’ll foller the trail o’ Borlasse an’ his lot. It air sure to lead to the same place. What they’re arter ’tain’t eezy to tell. Some deviltry, for sartin. They purtend to make thar livin’ by ropin’ wild horses? I guess he gits more by takin’ them as air tame;—as you, Clancy, hev reezun to know. I hain’t a doubt he’d do wuss than that, ef opportunity offered. Thar’s been more’n one case o’ highway robbery out thar in West Texas, on emigrant people goin’ that way; an’ I don’t know a likelier than Borlasse to a had a hand in’t. Ef Kurnel Armstrong’s party wan’t so strong as ’tis, an’ the kurnel hisself a old campayner, I mout hev my fears for ’em. I reckin they’re safe enuf. Borlasse an’ his fellurs won’t dar tech them. Johnny sez thar war but ten or twelve in all. Still, tho’ they moutn’t openly attack the waggon train, thar’s jest a chance o’ their hangin’ on its skirts, an’ stealin’ somethin’ from it. Ye heerd in Naketosh o’ a young Creole planter, by name Dupray, who’s goed wi’ Armstrong, an’s tuk a big count o’ dollars along. Jest the bait to temp Jim Borlasse; an’ as for Dick Darke, thar’s somethin’ else to temp him. So—”“Woodley!” exclaims Clancy, without waiting for the hunter to conclude; “we must be off from here. For God’s sake let us go!”His comrades, divining the cause of Clancy’s impatience, make no attempt to restrain him. They have rested and sufficiently refreshed themselves. There is no reason for their remaining any longer on the ground.Rising simultaneously, each unhitches his horse, and stands by the stirrup, taking in the slack of his reins.Before they can spring into their saddles, the deer-hound darts off from their midst—as he does so giving out a growl.The stroke of a hoof tells them of some one approaching, and the next moment a horseman is seen through the trees.Apparently undaunted, he comes on towards their camp ground; but when near enough to have fair view of their faces, he suddenly reins up, and shows signs of a desire to retreat.If this be his intention, it is too late.Before he can wrench round his horse a rifle is levelled, its barrel bearing upon his body; while a voice sounds threateningly in his ears, in clear tone, pronouncing the words,—“Keep yur ground, Joe Harkness! Don’t attempt retreetin’. If ye do, I’ll send a bullet through ye sure as my name’s Sime Woodley.”The threat is sufficient. Harkness—for it is he—ceases tugging upon his rein, and permits his horse to stand still.Then, at a second command from Woodley, accompanied by; a similar menace, he urges the animal into action, and moves on towards their bivouac.In less than sixty seconds after, he is in their midst, dismounted and down upon his knees, piteously appealing to them to spare his life.The ex-jailor’s story is soon told, and that without any reservation. The man who has connived at Richard Darke’s escape, and made money by the connivance, is now more than repentant for his dereliction of duty. For he has not only been bullied by Borlasse’s band, but stripped of his ill-gotten gains. Still more, beaten, and otherwise so roughly handled that he has been long trying to get quit of their company. Having stolen away from their camp—while the robbers were asleep—he is now returning along the trail they had taken into Texas, on his way back to the States, with not much left him, except a very sorry horse and a sorrowing heart.His captors soon discover that, with his sorrow, there is an admixture of spite against his late associates. Against Darke in particular, who has proved ungrateful for the great service done him.All this does Harkness communicate to them, and something besides.Something that sets Clancy well-nigh crazed, and makes almost as much impression upon his fellow-travellers.After hearing it they bound instantly to their saddles, and spur away from the spot; Harkness, as commanded, following at their horses’ heels. This he does without daring to disobey; trotting after, in company with the dog, seemingly less cur than himself.They have no fear of his falling back. Woodley’s rifle, whose barrel has been already borne upon him, can be again brought to the level in an instant of time.The thought holds him secure, as if a trail-rope attached him to the tail of the hunter’s horse.
Nearly three weeks after Borlasse and his brigands crossed the Sabine, a second party is seen travelling towards the same river through the forests of Louisiana, with faces set for the same fording-place.
In number they are but a third of that composing the band of Borlasse; as there are only four of them. Three are on horseback, the fourth bestriding a mule.
The three horsemen are white; the mule-rider a mulatto.
The last is a little behind; the distance, as also a certain air of deference—to say nothing of his coloured skin—proclaiming him a servant, or slave.
Still further rearward, and seemingly careful to keep beyond reach of the hybrid’s heels, is a large dog—a deer-hound. The individuals of this second cavalcade will be easily identified, as also the dog that accompanies it. The three whites are Charles Clancy, Simeon Woodley, and Ned Heywood; he with the tawny complexion Jupiter; while the hound is Clancy’s—the same he had with him when shot down by Richard Darke.
Strange they too should be travelling, as if under an apprehension of being pursued! Yet seems it so, judging from the rapid pace at which they ride, and there anxious glances occasionally cast behind. It is so; though for very different reasons from those that affected the freebooters.
None of the white men has reason to fear for himself—only for the fugitive slave whom they are assisting to escape from slavery. Partly on this account are they taking the route, described as rarely travelled by honest men. But not altogether. Another reason has influenced their selection of it while in Natchitoches they too have put up at the Choctaw Chief; their plans requiring that privacy which an obscure hostelry affords. To have been seen with Jupiter at the Planter’s House might have been for some Mississippian planter to remember, and identify, him as the absconded slave of Ephraim Darke. Acontretempsless likely to occur at the Choctaw Chief, and there stayed they. It would have been Woodley’s choice anyhow; the hunter having frequently before made this house his home; there meeting many others of his kind and calling.
On this occasion his sojourn in it has been short; only long enough for him and his travelling companions to procure a mount for their journey into Texas. And while thus occupied they have learnt something, which determined them as to the route they should take. Not the direct road for Nacogdoches by which Colonel Armstrong and his emigrants have gone, some ten days before; but a trail taken by another party that had been staying at the Choctaw Chief, and left Natchitoches at an earlier period—that they are now on.
Of this party Woodley has received information, sufficiently minute for him to identify more than one of the personages composing it. Johnny has given him the clue. For the Hibernian innkeeper, with his national habit of wagging a free tongue, has besides a sort of liking for Sime, as an antipathy towards Sime’s old enemy, Jim Borlasse. The consequence of which has been a tale told in confidence to the hunter, about the twelve men late sojourning at the Choctaw Chief, that was kept back from the Sheriff on the morning after their departure. The result being, that in choice of a route to Texas, Woodley has chosen that by which they are now travelling. For he knows—has told Clancy—that by it has gone Jim Borlasse, and along with him Richard Darke.
The last is enough for Clancy. He is making towards Texas with two distinct aims, the motives diametrically opposite. One is to comfort the woman he loves, the other to kill the man he hates.
For both he is eagerly impatient; but he has vowed that the last shall be first—sworn it upon the grave of his mother.
Having reached the river, and crossed it, Clancy and his travelling companions, just as Borlasse and his, seek relaxation under the shade of the trees. Perhaps, not quite so easy in their minds. For the murderer, on entering Texas, may feel less anxiety than he who has with him a runaway slave!
Still in that solitary place—on a path rarely trodden—there is no great danger; and knowing this, they dismount and make their bivouacsans souci. The spot chosen is the same as was occupied by Borlasse and his band. Near the bank of the river is a spreading tree, underneath which a log affords sitting accommodation for at least a score of men. Seated on this, smoking his pipe, after a refection of corn-bread and bacon, Sime Woodley unburdens himself of some secrets he obtained in the Choctaw Chief, which up to this time he has kept back from the others.
“Boys!” he begins, addressing himself to Clancy and Heywood, the mulatto still keeping respectfully apart. “We’re now on a spot, whar less’n two weeks agone, sot or stud, two o’ the darndest scoundrels as iver made futmark on Texan soil.Youknow one o’ ’em, Ned Heywood, but not the tother. Charley Clancy hev akwaintance wi’ both, an’ a ugly reccoleckshun o’ them inter the bargain.”
The hunter pauses in his speech, takes a whiff or two from his pipe, then resumes:—
“They’ve been hyar sure. From what thet fox, Johnny, tolt me, they must a tuk this trail. An’ as they hed to make quick tracks arter leavin’ Naketosh, they’d be tired on gettin’ this fur, an’ good as sartin to lay up a bit. Look! thar’s the ashes o’ thar fire, whar I ’spose they cooked somethin’. Thar hain’t been a critter crossed the river since the big rain, else we’d a seed tracks along the way. For they started jest the day afore the rain; and that ere fire hez been put out by it. Ye kin tell by them chunks showin’ only half consoomed. Yis, by the Eturnal! Roun’ the bleeze o’ them sticks has sot seven, eight, nine, or may be a dozen, o’ the darndest cut-throats as ever crossed the Sabine; an’ that’s sayin’ a goodish deal. Two o’ them I kin swar to bein’ so; an’ the rest may be counted the same from their kumpny—that kumpny bein’ Jim Borlasse an’ Dick Darke.”
After thus delivering himself, the hunter remains apparently reflecting, not on what he has said, but what they ought to do. Clancy has been all the while silent, brooding with clouded brow—only now and then showing a faint smile as the hound comes up, and licks his outstretched hand. Heywood has nothing to say; while Jupiter is not expected to take any part in the conversation.
For a time they all seem under a spell of lethargy—the lassitude of fatigue. They have ridden a long way, and need rest. They might go to sleep alongside the log, but none of them thinks of doing so, least of all Clancy. There is that in his breast forbidding sleep, and he is but too glad when Woodley’s next words arouse him from the torpid repose to which he has been yielding. These are:—
“Now we’ve struck thar trail, what, boys, d’ye think we’d best do?”
Neither of the two replying, the hunter continues:—
“To the best of my opeenyun, our plan will be to put straight on to whar Planter Armstrong intends settin’ up his sticks. I know the place ’most as well as the public squar o’ Natchez. This chile intends jeinin’ the ole kurnel, anyhow. As for you, Charley Clancy, we know whar ye want to go, an’ the game ye intend trackin’ up. Wal; ef you’ll put trust in what Sime Woodley say, he sez this: ye’ll find that game in the neighbourhood o’ Helen Armstrong;—nigh to her as it dar’ ventur’.”
The final words have an inflammatory effect upon Clancy. He springs up from the log, and strides over the ground, with a wild look and strangely excited air. He seems impatient to be back in his saddle.
“In coorse,” resumes Woodley, “we’ll foller the trail o’ Borlasse an’ his lot. It air sure to lead to the same place. What they’re arter ’tain’t eezy to tell. Some deviltry, for sartin. They purtend to make thar livin’ by ropin’ wild horses? I guess he gits more by takin’ them as air tame;—as you, Clancy, hev reezun to know. I hain’t a doubt he’d do wuss than that, ef opportunity offered. Thar’s been more’n one case o’ highway robbery out thar in West Texas, on emigrant people goin’ that way; an’ I don’t know a likelier than Borlasse to a had a hand in’t. Ef Kurnel Armstrong’s party wan’t so strong as ’tis, an’ the kurnel hisself a old campayner, I mout hev my fears for ’em. I reckin they’re safe enuf. Borlasse an’ his fellurs won’t dar tech them. Johnny sez thar war but ten or twelve in all. Still, tho’ they moutn’t openly attack the waggon train, thar’s jest a chance o’ their hangin’ on its skirts, an’ stealin’ somethin’ from it. Ye heerd in Naketosh o’ a young Creole planter, by name Dupray, who’s goed wi’ Armstrong, an’s tuk a big count o’ dollars along. Jest the bait to temp Jim Borlasse; an’ as for Dick Darke, thar’s somethin’ else to temp him. So—”
“Woodley!” exclaims Clancy, without waiting for the hunter to conclude; “we must be off from here. For God’s sake let us go!”
His comrades, divining the cause of Clancy’s impatience, make no attempt to restrain him. They have rested and sufficiently refreshed themselves. There is no reason for their remaining any longer on the ground.
Rising simultaneously, each unhitches his horse, and stands by the stirrup, taking in the slack of his reins.
Before they can spring into their saddles, the deer-hound darts off from their midst—as he does so giving out a growl.
The stroke of a hoof tells them of some one approaching, and the next moment a horseman is seen through the trees.
Apparently undaunted, he comes on towards their camp ground; but when near enough to have fair view of their faces, he suddenly reins up, and shows signs of a desire to retreat.
If this be his intention, it is too late.
Before he can wrench round his horse a rifle is levelled, its barrel bearing upon his body; while a voice sounds threateningly in his ears, in clear tone, pronouncing the words,—
“Keep yur ground, Joe Harkness! Don’t attempt retreetin’. If ye do, I’ll send a bullet through ye sure as my name’s Sime Woodley.”
The threat is sufficient. Harkness—for it is he—ceases tugging upon his rein, and permits his horse to stand still.
Then, at a second command from Woodley, accompanied by; a similar menace, he urges the animal into action, and moves on towards their bivouac.
In less than sixty seconds after, he is in their midst, dismounted and down upon his knees, piteously appealing to them to spare his life.
The ex-jailor’s story is soon told, and that without any reservation. The man who has connived at Richard Darke’s escape, and made money by the connivance, is now more than repentant for his dereliction of duty. For he has not only been bullied by Borlasse’s band, but stripped of his ill-gotten gains. Still more, beaten, and otherwise so roughly handled that he has been long trying to get quit of their company. Having stolen away from their camp—while the robbers were asleep—he is now returning along the trail they had taken into Texas, on his way back to the States, with not much left him, except a very sorry horse and a sorrowing heart.
His captors soon discover that, with his sorrow, there is an admixture of spite against his late associates. Against Darke in particular, who has proved ungrateful for the great service done him.
All this does Harkness communicate to them, and something besides.
Something that sets Clancy well-nigh crazed, and makes almost as much impression upon his fellow-travellers.
After hearing it they bound instantly to their saddles, and spur away from the spot; Harkness, as commanded, following at their horses’ heels. This he does without daring to disobey; trotting after, in company with the dog, seemingly less cur than himself.
They have no fear of his falling back. Woodley’s rifle, whose barrel has been already borne upon him, can be again brought to the level in an instant of time.
The thought holds him secure, as if a trail-rope attached him to the tail of the hunter’s horse.
Chapter Forty Two.The prairie caravan.Picture in imagination meadows, on which scythe of mower has never cut sward, nor haymaker set foot; meadows loaded with such luxuriance of vegetation—lush, tall grass—that tons of hay might be garnered off a single acre; meadows of such extent, that in speaking of them you may not use the word acres, but miles, even this but faintly conveying the idea of their immensity; in fancy summon up such a scene, and you will have before you what is a reality in Texas.In seeming these plains have no boundary save the sky—no limit nearer than the horizon. And since to the eye of the traveller this keeps continually changing, he may well believe them without limit at all, and fancy himself moving in the midst of a green sea, boundless as ocean itself, his horse the boat on which he has embarked.In places this extended surface presents a somewhat monotonous aspect, though it is not so everywhere. Here and there it is pleasantly interspersed with trees, some standing solitary, but mostly in groves, copses, or belts; these looking, for all the world, like islands in the ocean. So perfect is the resemblance, that this very name has been given them, by men of Norman and Saxon race; whose ancestors, after crossing the Atlantic, carried into the colonies many ideas of the mariner, with much of his nomenclature. To them the isolated groves are “islands;” larger tracts of timber, seen afar, “land;” narrow spaces between, “straits;” and indentations along their edges “bays.”To carry the analogy further, the herds of buffalo, with bodies half buried in the tall grass, may be likened to “schools” of whales; the wild horses to porpoises at play; the deer to dolphins; and the fleet antelopes to flying-fish.Completing the figure, we have the vultures that soar above, performing the part of predatory sea-gulls; the eagle representing the rarer frigate-bird, or albatross.In the midst of this verdant expanse, less than a quarter of a century ago, man was rarely met; still more rarely civilised man; and rarer yet his dwelling-place. If at times a human being appeared among the prairie groves, he was not there as a sojourner—only a traveller, passing from place to place. The herds of cattle, with shaggy frontlets and humped shoulders—the droves of horses, long-tailed and with full flowing manes—the proud antlered stags, and prong-horned antelopes, were not his. He had no control over them. The turf he trod was free to them for pasture, as to him for passage; and, as he made way through their midst, his presence scarce affrighted them. He and his might boast of being “war’s arbiter’s,” and lords of the great ocean. They were not lords of that emerald sea stretching between the Sabine River and the Rio Grande. Civilised man had as yet but shown himself upon its shores.Since then he has entered upon, and scratched a portion of its surface; though not much, compared with its immensity. There are still grand expanses of the Texan prairie unfurrowed by the ploughshare of the colonist—almost untrodden by the foot of the explorer. Even at this hour, the traveller may journey for days on grass-grown plains, amidst groves of timber, without seeing tower, steeple, or so much as a chimney rising above the tree-tops. If he perceive a solitary smoke, curling skyward, he knows that it is over the camp-fire of some one like himself—a wayfarer.And it may be above the bivouac of those he would do well to shun. For upon the green surface of the prairie, as upon the blue expanse of the ocean, all men met with are not honest. There be land-sharks as well as water-sharks—prairie pirates as corsairs of the sea.No spectacle more picturesque, nor yet more pleasing, than that of an emigrant caravanen routeover the plains. The huge waggons—“prairie ships,” as oft, and not inaptly, named—with their white canvass tilts, typifying spread sails, aligned and moving along one after the other, like acorps d’arméeon march by columns; a group of horsemen ahead, representing its vanguard; others on the flanks, and still another party riding behind, to look after strays and stragglers, the rear-guard. Usually a herd of cattle along—steers for the plough, young bullocks to supply beef for consumption on the journey, milch kine to give comfort to the children and colour to the tea and coffee—among them an old bull or two, to propagate the species on reaching the projected settlement. Not unfrequently a drove of pigs, or flock of sheep, with coops containing ducks, geese, turkeys, Guinea-fowl—perhaps a screaming peacock, but certainly Chanticleer and his harem.A train of Texan settlers has its peculiarities, though now not so marked as in the times of which we write. Then a noted feature was the negro—hisstatusa slave. He would be seen afoot, toiling on at the tails of the waggons, not in silence or despondingly, as if the march were a forced one. Footsore he might be, in his cheap “brogans” of Penitentiary fabric, and sore aweary of the way, but never sad. On the contrary, ever hilarious, exchanging jests with his fellow-pedestrians, or a word with Dinah in the wagon, jibing the teamsters, mocking the mule-drivers, sending his cachinations in sonorous ring along the moving line; himself far more mirthful than his master—more enjoying the march.Strange it is, but true, that a lifetime of bondage does not stifle merriment in the heart of the Ethiopian. Grace of God to the sons of Ham—merciful compensation for mercies endured by them from the day Canaan was cursed, as it were a doom from the dawning of creation!Just such a train as described is that commanded by Colonel Armstrong,en routetowards Western Texas. Starting from Natchitoches some twenty days ago, it has reached the Colorado river, crossed it, and is now wending its way towards the San Saba, a tributary of the former stream.It is one of the largest caravans that has yet passed over the prairies of Texas, counting between twenty and thirty “Conestoga” wagons, with several “carrioles” and vehicles of varied kind. Full fifty horsemen ride in its front, on its flank, and rear; while five times the number of pedestrians, men with black or yellow skins, keep pace with it. A proportionate number of women and children are carried in the wagons, their dusky faces peeping out from under the tilts, in contrast with the colour of the rain-bleached canvass; while other women and children of white complexion ride in the vehicles with springs.In one of the latter—a barouche of the American build—travel two young ladies, distinguished by particular attentions. Half a dozen horsemen hover around their carriage, acting as its escort, each apparently anxious to exchange words with them. With one they can talk, jest, laugh, chatter as much as they like; but the other repels them. For the soul of the former is full of joy; that of the latter steeped in sadness.Superfluous to say, they are Jessie and Helen Armstrong. And needless to tell why the one is gay, the other grave. Since we last saw them in the hotel of Natchitoches, no change has taken place in their hearts or their hopes. The younger of the two, Jessie, is still an expectant bride, certain soon to be a wife; and with this certainty rejoices in the future. Helen, with no such expectation, no wish for it, feeling as one widowed, grieves over the past. The former sees her lover by her side living and loving, constantly, caressingly; the latter can but think of hers as something afar off—a dream—a dread vision—a cold corpse—herself the cause of it!Colonel Armstrong’s eldest daughter is indeed sad—a prey to repining. Her heart, after receiving so many shocks, has almost succumbed to that the supremest, most painful suffering that can afflict humanity—the malady ofmelancholia. The word conveys but a faint idea of the suffering itself. Only they who have known it—fortunately but few—can comprehend the terror, the wan, wasting misery, endured by those whose nerves have given way under some terrible stroke of misfortune. ’Tis the story of a broken heart.Byron has told us “the heart may break and brokenly live on.” In this her hour of unhappiness, Helen Armstrong would not and could not believe him. It may seem strange that Jessie is still only a bride to be. But no. She remembers the promise made to her father—to share with him a home in Texas, however humble it might be. All the same, now that she knows it will be splendid; knowing, too, it is to be shared by another—her Louis. He is still but herfiancée; but his troth is plighted, his truthfulness beyond suspicion. They are all but man and wife; which they will be soon as the new home is reached.The goal of their journey is to be the culminating point of Jessie’s joy—the climax of her life’s happiness.
Picture in imagination meadows, on which scythe of mower has never cut sward, nor haymaker set foot; meadows loaded with such luxuriance of vegetation—lush, tall grass—that tons of hay might be garnered off a single acre; meadows of such extent, that in speaking of them you may not use the word acres, but miles, even this but faintly conveying the idea of their immensity; in fancy summon up such a scene, and you will have before you what is a reality in Texas.
In seeming these plains have no boundary save the sky—no limit nearer than the horizon. And since to the eye of the traveller this keeps continually changing, he may well believe them without limit at all, and fancy himself moving in the midst of a green sea, boundless as ocean itself, his horse the boat on which he has embarked.
In places this extended surface presents a somewhat monotonous aspect, though it is not so everywhere. Here and there it is pleasantly interspersed with trees, some standing solitary, but mostly in groves, copses, or belts; these looking, for all the world, like islands in the ocean. So perfect is the resemblance, that this very name has been given them, by men of Norman and Saxon race; whose ancestors, after crossing the Atlantic, carried into the colonies many ideas of the mariner, with much of his nomenclature. To them the isolated groves are “islands;” larger tracts of timber, seen afar, “land;” narrow spaces between, “straits;” and indentations along their edges “bays.”
To carry the analogy further, the herds of buffalo, with bodies half buried in the tall grass, may be likened to “schools” of whales; the wild horses to porpoises at play; the deer to dolphins; and the fleet antelopes to flying-fish.
Completing the figure, we have the vultures that soar above, performing the part of predatory sea-gulls; the eagle representing the rarer frigate-bird, or albatross.
In the midst of this verdant expanse, less than a quarter of a century ago, man was rarely met; still more rarely civilised man; and rarer yet his dwelling-place. If at times a human being appeared among the prairie groves, he was not there as a sojourner—only a traveller, passing from place to place. The herds of cattle, with shaggy frontlets and humped shoulders—the droves of horses, long-tailed and with full flowing manes—the proud antlered stags, and prong-horned antelopes, were not his. He had no control over them. The turf he trod was free to them for pasture, as to him for passage; and, as he made way through their midst, his presence scarce affrighted them. He and his might boast of being “war’s arbiter’s,” and lords of the great ocean. They were not lords of that emerald sea stretching between the Sabine River and the Rio Grande. Civilised man had as yet but shown himself upon its shores.
Since then he has entered upon, and scratched a portion of its surface; though not much, compared with its immensity. There are still grand expanses of the Texan prairie unfurrowed by the ploughshare of the colonist—almost untrodden by the foot of the explorer. Even at this hour, the traveller may journey for days on grass-grown plains, amidst groves of timber, without seeing tower, steeple, or so much as a chimney rising above the tree-tops. If he perceive a solitary smoke, curling skyward, he knows that it is over the camp-fire of some one like himself—a wayfarer.
And it may be above the bivouac of those he would do well to shun. For upon the green surface of the prairie, as upon the blue expanse of the ocean, all men met with are not honest. There be land-sharks as well as water-sharks—prairie pirates as corsairs of the sea.
No spectacle more picturesque, nor yet more pleasing, than that of an emigrant caravanen routeover the plains. The huge waggons—“prairie ships,” as oft, and not inaptly, named—with their white canvass tilts, typifying spread sails, aligned and moving along one after the other, like acorps d’arméeon march by columns; a group of horsemen ahead, representing its vanguard; others on the flanks, and still another party riding behind, to look after strays and stragglers, the rear-guard. Usually a herd of cattle along—steers for the plough, young bullocks to supply beef for consumption on the journey, milch kine to give comfort to the children and colour to the tea and coffee—among them an old bull or two, to propagate the species on reaching the projected settlement. Not unfrequently a drove of pigs, or flock of sheep, with coops containing ducks, geese, turkeys, Guinea-fowl—perhaps a screaming peacock, but certainly Chanticleer and his harem.
A train of Texan settlers has its peculiarities, though now not so marked as in the times of which we write. Then a noted feature was the negro—hisstatusa slave. He would be seen afoot, toiling on at the tails of the waggons, not in silence or despondingly, as if the march were a forced one. Footsore he might be, in his cheap “brogans” of Penitentiary fabric, and sore aweary of the way, but never sad. On the contrary, ever hilarious, exchanging jests with his fellow-pedestrians, or a word with Dinah in the wagon, jibing the teamsters, mocking the mule-drivers, sending his cachinations in sonorous ring along the moving line; himself far more mirthful than his master—more enjoying the march.
Strange it is, but true, that a lifetime of bondage does not stifle merriment in the heart of the Ethiopian. Grace of God to the sons of Ham—merciful compensation for mercies endured by them from the day Canaan was cursed, as it were a doom from the dawning of creation!
Just such a train as described is that commanded by Colonel Armstrong,en routetowards Western Texas. Starting from Natchitoches some twenty days ago, it has reached the Colorado river, crossed it, and is now wending its way towards the San Saba, a tributary of the former stream.
It is one of the largest caravans that has yet passed over the prairies of Texas, counting between twenty and thirty “Conestoga” wagons, with several “carrioles” and vehicles of varied kind. Full fifty horsemen ride in its front, on its flank, and rear; while five times the number of pedestrians, men with black or yellow skins, keep pace with it. A proportionate number of women and children are carried in the wagons, their dusky faces peeping out from under the tilts, in contrast with the colour of the rain-bleached canvass; while other women and children of white complexion ride in the vehicles with springs.
In one of the latter—a barouche of the American build—travel two young ladies, distinguished by particular attentions. Half a dozen horsemen hover around their carriage, acting as its escort, each apparently anxious to exchange words with them. With one they can talk, jest, laugh, chatter as much as they like; but the other repels them. For the soul of the former is full of joy; that of the latter steeped in sadness.
Superfluous to say, they are Jessie and Helen Armstrong. And needless to tell why the one is gay, the other grave. Since we last saw them in the hotel of Natchitoches, no change has taken place in their hearts or their hopes. The younger of the two, Jessie, is still an expectant bride, certain soon to be a wife; and with this certainty rejoices in the future. Helen, with no such expectation, no wish for it, feeling as one widowed, grieves over the past. The former sees her lover by her side living and loving, constantly, caressingly; the latter can but think of hers as something afar off—a dream—a dread vision—a cold corpse—herself the cause of it!
Colonel Armstrong’s eldest daughter is indeed sad—a prey to repining. Her heart, after receiving so many shocks, has almost succumbed to that the supremest, most painful suffering that can afflict humanity—the malady ofmelancholia. The word conveys but a faint idea of the suffering itself. Only they who have known it—fortunately but few—can comprehend the terror, the wan, wasting misery, endured by those whose nerves have given way under some terrible stroke of misfortune. ’Tis the story of a broken heart.
Byron has told us “the heart may break and brokenly live on.” In this her hour of unhappiness, Helen Armstrong would not and could not believe him. It may seem strange that Jessie is still only a bride to be. But no. She remembers the promise made to her father—to share with him a home in Texas, however humble it might be. All the same, now that she knows it will be splendid; knowing, too, it is to be shared by another—her Louis. He is still but herfiancée; but his troth is plighted, his truthfulness beyond suspicion. They are all but man and wife; which they will be soon as the new home is reached.
The goal of their journey is to be the culminating point of Jessie’s joy—the climax of her life’s happiness.
Chapter Forty Three.The hand of God.Scarce any stream of South-Western Texas but runs between bluffs. There is a valley or “bottom-land,” only a little elevated above the water’s surface, and often submerged during inundations,—beyond this the bluffs. The valley may be a mile or more in width, in some places ten, at others contracted, till the opposing cliffs are scarce a pistol-shot apart. And of these there are frequently two or three tiers, or terraces, receding backward from the river, the crest of the last and outmost being but the edge of an upland plain, which is often sterile and treeless. Any timber upon it is stunted, and of those species to which a dry soil is congenial. Mezquite, juniper, and “black-jack” oaks grow in groves or spinneys; while standing apart may be observed the arborescent jucca—the “dragon-tree” of the Western world, towering above an underwood unlike any other, composed ofcactaceaein all the varieties of cereus, cactus, and echinocactus. Altogether unlike is the bottom-land bordering upon the river. There the vegetation is lush and luxuriant, showing a growth of large forest timber—the trees set thickly, and matted with many parasites, that look like cables coiling around and keeping them together. These timbered tracts are not continuous, but show stretches of open between,—here little glades filled with flowers, there grand meadows overgrown with grass—so tall that the horseman riding through it has his shoulders swept by the spikes, which shed their pollen upon his coat.Just such a bottom-land is that of the San Saba, near the river’s mouth; where, after meandering many a score of miles from its source in the Llano Estacado, it espouses the Colorado—gliding softly, like a shy bride, into the embrace of the larger and stronger-flowing stream.For a moment departing from the field of romance, and treading upon the domain of history—or it may be but legend—a word about this Colorado river may interest the reader.Possibly, probably, almost lor certain, there is no province in all Spanish America without its “Rio Colorado.” The geographer could count some scores of rivers so named—point them out on any map. They are seen in every latitude, trending in all directions, from the great Colorado ofcañoncelebrity in the north to another far south, which cuts a deep groove through the plains of Patagonia. All these streams have been so designated from the hue of their waters—muddy, with a pronounced tinge of red: this from the ochreous earth through which they have coursed, holding it in suspension.In the Texan Colorado there is nothing of this; on the contrary, it is a clear water stream. A circumstance that may seem strange, till the explanation be given—which is, that the name is amisnomer. In other words, the Texan river now bearing the designation Colorado is not that so-called by the Spaniards, but their Rio Brazos; while the present Brazos is their Rio Colorado—a true red-tinted stream. The exchange of names is due to an error of the American map-makers, unacquainted with the Spanish tongue. Giving the Colorado its true name of Brazos, or more correctly “Brazos de Dios” (“The Arms of God”), the origin of this singular title for a stream presents us with a history, or legend, alike singular. As all know, Texas was first colonised by Spaniards, or Spanish Mexicans, on what might be termed the “militant missionary system.” Monks were sent into the province, cross in hand, with soldiers at their back, bearing the sword. Establishments were formed in different parts of the country; San Antonio de Bejar being the ecclesiastical centre, as also the political capital. Around these the aborigines were collected, and after a fashion converted to Christianity. With the christianising process, however, there were other motives mixed up, having very little to do either with morality or religion. Comfortable subsistence, with the accumulation of wealth by the missionaries themselves, was in most instances the lure which attracted them to Texas, tempting them to risk their lives in the so-called conversion of the heathen.The mission-houses were in the monasterial style, many of them on a grand scale—mansions in fact, with roomy refectories, and kitchens to correspond; snug sitting and sleeping-chambers; well-paved courts and spacious gardens attached. Outside the main building, sometimes forming part of it, was a church, orcapilla; near by thepresidio, or barrack for their military protectors; and beyond, therancheria, or village of huts, the homes of the new-made neophytes.No great difficulty had the fathers in thus handsomely housing themselves. The converts did all the work, willingly, for the sake and in the name of the “Holy Faith,” into which they had been recently inducted. Nor did their toil end with the erection of the mission-buildings. It was only transferred to a more layical kind; to the herding of cattle, and tillage of the surrounding land; this continued throughout their whole lives—not for their own benefit, but to enrich those idle and lazy friars, in many cases men of the most profligate character. It was, in fact, a system of slavery, based upon and sustained by religious fanaticism. The result as might be expected—failure and far worse. Instead of civilising the aborigines of America, it has but brutalised them the more—by eradicating from their hearts whatever of savage virtue they had, and implanting in its place a debasing bigotry and superstition.Most American writers, who speak of these missionary establishments, have formed an erroneous estimate of them. And, what is worse, have given it to the world. Many of these writers are, or were, officers in the United States army, deputed to explore the wild territories in which the missions existed. Having received their education in Roman Catholic seminaries, they have been inducted into taking a too lenient view of the doings of the “old Spanish padres;” hence their testimony so favourable to the system.The facts are all against them; these showing it a scheme ofvilleinage, more oppressive than the European serfdom of the Middle Ages. The issue is sufficient proof of this. For it was falling to pieces, long before the Anglo-Saxon race entered into possession of the territory where it once flourished. The missions are now in a state of decadence, their buildings fast falling into decay; while the red man, disgusted at the attempt to enslave, under the clock of christianising him, has returned to his idolatry, as to his savage life.Several of thesemisioneswere established on the San Saba river; one of which for a considerable period enjoyed a prosperous existence, and numbered among its neophytes many Indians of the Lipan and Comanche tribes.But the tyranny of their monkish teachers by exactions of tenths and almost continuous toil—themselves living in luxurious ease, and without much regard to that continence they inculcated—at length provoked the suffering serfs to revolt. In which they were aided by those Indians who had remained unconverted, and still heretically roamed around the environs. The consequence was that, on a certain day when the hunters of themisionwere abroad, and the soldiers of thepresidioalike absent on some expedition, a band of the outside idolaters, in league with the discontented converts, entered the mission-building, with arms concealed under their ample cloaks of buffalo skin. After prowling about for a while in an insolent manner, they at length, at a given signal from their chief, attacked the proselytisingpadres, with those who adhered to them; tomahawked and scalped all who came in their way.Only one monk escaped—a man of great repute in those early times of Texas. Stealing off at the commencement of the massacre, he succeeded in making his way down the valley of the San Saba, to its confluence with the Colorado. But to reach an asylum of safety it was necessary for him to cross the latter stream; in which unfortunately there was a freshet, its current so swollen that neither man nor horse could ford it.Thepadrestood upon its bank, looking covetously across, and listening in terror to the sounds behind; these being the war-cries of the pursuing Comanches.For a moment the monk believed himself lost. But just then the arm of God was stretched forth to save him. This done in a fashion somewhat difficult to give credence to, though easy enough for believers in Holy Faith. It was a mere miracle; not stranger, or more apocryphal, than we hear of at this day in France, Spain, or Italy. The only singularity about the Texan tale is the fact of its not being original; for it is a pure piracy from Sacred Writ—that passage of it which relates to the crossing of the Red Sea by Moses and his Israelites.The Spanish monk stood on the river’s bank, his eyes fixed despairingly on its deep rapid-running current, which he knew he could not cross without danger of being drowned. Just at this crisis he saw the waters separate; the current suddenly stayed, and the pebbly bed showing dry as a shingle!Tucking his gown under his girdle, he struck into the channel; and, no doubt, making good time—though the legend does not speak of this—he succeeded in planting his sandalled feet, dry shod, on the opposite shore! So far the Texan story closely corresponds with the Mosaic. Beyond, the incidents as related, are slightly different. Pharaoh’s following host was overwhelmed by the closing waters. The pursuing Comanches did not so much as enter the charmed stream; which, with channel filled up, as before, was running rapidly on. They were found next morning upon the bank where they had arrived in pursuit, all dead, all lying at full stretch along the sward, their heads turned in the same direction, like trees struck down by a tornado!Only the Omnipotent could have done this. No mortal hand could make such acoup. Hence the name which the Spaniards bestowed upon the present Colorado,Brazos de Dios—the “Hand of God.” Hence also the history, or rather fable, intended to awe the minds of the rebellious redskins, and restore them to Christanity, or serfdom.Which it did not; since from that day themisionesof San Saba remained abandoned, running into ruin.It is to one of these forsaken establishments Colonel Armstrong is conducting his colony; his future son-in-law having purchased the large tract of territory attached to it.To that spot, where more than a century ago the monks made halt, with cross borne conspicuously in one hand, and sword carried surreptitiously in the other, there is now approaching a new invasion—that of axe and rifle—neither ostentatiously paraded, but neither insidiously concealed.
Scarce any stream of South-Western Texas but runs between bluffs. There is a valley or “bottom-land,” only a little elevated above the water’s surface, and often submerged during inundations,—beyond this the bluffs. The valley may be a mile or more in width, in some places ten, at others contracted, till the opposing cliffs are scarce a pistol-shot apart. And of these there are frequently two or three tiers, or terraces, receding backward from the river, the crest of the last and outmost being but the edge of an upland plain, which is often sterile and treeless. Any timber upon it is stunted, and of those species to which a dry soil is congenial. Mezquite, juniper, and “black-jack” oaks grow in groves or spinneys; while standing apart may be observed the arborescent jucca—the “dragon-tree” of the Western world, towering above an underwood unlike any other, composed ofcactaceaein all the varieties of cereus, cactus, and echinocactus. Altogether unlike is the bottom-land bordering upon the river. There the vegetation is lush and luxuriant, showing a growth of large forest timber—the trees set thickly, and matted with many parasites, that look like cables coiling around and keeping them together. These timbered tracts are not continuous, but show stretches of open between,—here little glades filled with flowers, there grand meadows overgrown with grass—so tall that the horseman riding through it has his shoulders swept by the spikes, which shed their pollen upon his coat.
Just such a bottom-land is that of the San Saba, near the river’s mouth; where, after meandering many a score of miles from its source in the Llano Estacado, it espouses the Colorado—gliding softly, like a shy bride, into the embrace of the larger and stronger-flowing stream.
For a moment departing from the field of romance, and treading upon the domain of history—or it may be but legend—a word about this Colorado river may interest the reader.
Possibly, probably, almost lor certain, there is no province in all Spanish America without its “Rio Colorado.” The geographer could count some scores of rivers so named—point them out on any map. They are seen in every latitude, trending in all directions, from the great Colorado ofcañoncelebrity in the north to another far south, which cuts a deep groove through the plains of Patagonia. All these streams have been so designated from the hue of their waters—muddy, with a pronounced tinge of red: this from the ochreous earth through which they have coursed, holding it in suspension.
In the Texan Colorado there is nothing of this; on the contrary, it is a clear water stream. A circumstance that may seem strange, till the explanation be given—which is, that the name is amisnomer. In other words, the Texan river now bearing the designation Colorado is not that so-called by the Spaniards, but their Rio Brazos; while the present Brazos is their Rio Colorado—a true red-tinted stream. The exchange of names is due to an error of the American map-makers, unacquainted with the Spanish tongue. Giving the Colorado its true name of Brazos, or more correctly “Brazos de Dios” (“The Arms of God”), the origin of this singular title for a stream presents us with a history, or legend, alike singular. As all know, Texas was first colonised by Spaniards, or Spanish Mexicans, on what might be termed the “militant missionary system.” Monks were sent into the province, cross in hand, with soldiers at their back, bearing the sword. Establishments were formed in different parts of the country; San Antonio de Bejar being the ecclesiastical centre, as also the political capital. Around these the aborigines were collected, and after a fashion converted to Christianity. With the christianising process, however, there were other motives mixed up, having very little to do either with morality or religion. Comfortable subsistence, with the accumulation of wealth by the missionaries themselves, was in most instances the lure which attracted them to Texas, tempting them to risk their lives in the so-called conversion of the heathen.
The mission-houses were in the monasterial style, many of them on a grand scale—mansions in fact, with roomy refectories, and kitchens to correspond; snug sitting and sleeping-chambers; well-paved courts and spacious gardens attached. Outside the main building, sometimes forming part of it, was a church, orcapilla; near by thepresidio, or barrack for their military protectors; and beyond, therancheria, or village of huts, the homes of the new-made neophytes.
No great difficulty had the fathers in thus handsomely housing themselves. The converts did all the work, willingly, for the sake and in the name of the “Holy Faith,” into which they had been recently inducted. Nor did their toil end with the erection of the mission-buildings. It was only transferred to a more layical kind; to the herding of cattle, and tillage of the surrounding land; this continued throughout their whole lives—not for their own benefit, but to enrich those idle and lazy friars, in many cases men of the most profligate character. It was, in fact, a system of slavery, based upon and sustained by religious fanaticism. The result as might be expected—failure and far worse. Instead of civilising the aborigines of America, it has but brutalised them the more—by eradicating from their hearts whatever of savage virtue they had, and implanting in its place a debasing bigotry and superstition.
Most American writers, who speak of these missionary establishments, have formed an erroneous estimate of them. And, what is worse, have given it to the world. Many of these writers are, or were, officers in the United States army, deputed to explore the wild territories in which the missions existed. Having received their education in Roman Catholic seminaries, they have been inducted into taking a too lenient view of the doings of the “old Spanish padres;” hence their testimony so favourable to the system.
The facts are all against them; these showing it a scheme ofvilleinage, more oppressive than the European serfdom of the Middle Ages. The issue is sufficient proof of this. For it was falling to pieces, long before the Anglo-Saxon race entered into possession of the territory where it once flourished. The missions are now in a state of decadence, their buildings fast falling into decay; while the red man, disgusted at the attempt to enslave, under the clock of christianising him, has returned to his idolatry, as to his savage life.
Several of thesemisioneswere established on the San Saba river; one of which for a considerable period enjoyed a prosperous existence, and numbered among its neophytes many Indians of the Lipan and Comanche tribes.
But the tyranny of their monkish teachers by exactions of tenths and almost continuous toil—themselves living in luxurious ease, and without much regard to that continence they inculcated—at length provoked the suffering serfs to revolt. In which they were aided by those Indians who had remained unconverted, and still heretically roamed around the environs. The consequence was that, on a certain day when the hunters of themisionwere abroad, and the soldiers of thepresidioalike absent on some expedition, a band of the outside idolaters, in league with the discontented converts, entered the mission-building, with arms concealed under their ample cloaks of buffalo skin. After prowling about for a while in an insolent manner, they at length, at a given signal from their chief, attacked the proselytisingpadres, with those who adhered to them; tomahawked and scalped all who came in their way.
Only one monk escaped—a man of great repute in those early times of Texas. Stealing off at the commencement of the massacre, he succeeded in making his way down the valley of the San Saba, to its confluence with the Colorado. But to reach an asylum of safety it was necessary for him to cross the latter stream; in which unfortunately there was a freshet, its current so swollen that neither man nor horse could ford it.
Thepadrestood upon its bank, looking covetously across, and listening in terror to the sounds behind; these being the war-cries of the pursuing Comanches.
For a moment the monk believed himself lost. But just then the arm of God was stretched forth to save him. This done in a fashion somewhat difficult to give credence to, though easy enough for believers in Holy Faith. It was a mere miracle; not stranger, or more apocryphal, than we hear of at this day in France, Spain, or Italy. The only singularity about the Texan tale is the fact of its not being original; for it is a pure piracy from Sacred Writ—that passage of it which relates to the crossing of the Red Sea by Moses and his Israelites.
The Spanish monk stood on the river’s bank, his eyes fixed despairingly on its deep rapid-running current, which he knew he could not cross without danger of being drowned. Just at this crisis he saw the waters separate; the current suddenly stayed, and the pebbly bed showing dry as a shingle!
Tucking his gown under his girdle, he struck into the channel; and, no doubt, making good time—though the legend does not speak of this—he succeeded in planting his sandalled feet, dry shod, on the opposite shore! So far the Texan story closely corresponds with the Mosaic. Beyond, the incidents as related, are slightly different. Pharaoh’s following host was overwhelmed by the closing waters. The pursuing Comanches did not so much as enter the charmed stream; which, with channel filled up, as before, was running rapidly on. They were found next morning upon the bank where they had arrived in pursuit, all dead, all lying at full stretch along the sward, their heads turned in the same direction, like trees struck down by a tornado!
Only the Omnipotent could have done this. No mortal hand could make such acoup. Hence the name which the Spaniards bestowed upon the present Colorado,Brazos de Dios—the “Hand of God.” Hence also the history, or rather fable, intended to awe the minds of the rebellious redskins, and restore them to Christanity, or serfdom.
Which it did not; since from that day themisionesof San Saba remained abandoned, running into ruin.
It is to one of these forsaken establishments Colonel Armstrong is conducting his colony; his future son-in-law having purchased the large tract of territory attached to it.
To that spot, where more than a century ago the monks made halt, with cross borne conspicuously in one hand, and sword carried surreptitiously in the other, there is now approaching a new invasion—that of axe and rifle—neither ostentatiously paraded, but neither insidiously concealed.