The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Red-Blooded Heroes of the Frontier, by
Edgar Beecher Bronson
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Title: The Red-Blooded Heroes of the Frontier
Author: Edgar Beecher Bronson
Release Date: August 17, 2007 [EBook #22350]
Language: English
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RED-BLOODED HEROES ***
Produced by Al Haines
THE RED-BLOODED
HEROES OF THE FRONTIER
BY
EDGAR BEECHER BRONSON
Author of "Reminiscences of a Ranchman"
HODDER AND STOUGHTON
LONDON ---- NEW YORK ---- TORONTO
COPYRIGHT
A. C. McCLURG & CO.
1910
Published September 10, 1910
Entered at Stationers' Hall, London, England
_The author acknowledges his indebtedness to the
editors of periodicals in which some of this material
has appeared, for permission to use the same in this
volume._
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
LOVING'S BEND
CHAPTER II
A COW-HUNTERS' COURT
CHAPTER III
A SELF-CONSTITUTED EXECUTIONER
CHAPTER IV
TRIGGERFINGERITIS
CHAPTER V
A JUGGLER WITH DEATH
CHAPTER VI
AM AERIAL BIVOUAC
CHAPTER VII
THE EVOLUTION OF A TRAIN ROBBER
CHAPTER VIII
CIRCUS DAY AT MANCOS
CHAPTER IX
ACROSS THE BORDER
CHAPTER X
THE THREE-LEGGED DOE AND THE BLIND BUCK
CHAPTER XI
THE LEMON COUNTY HUNT
CHAPTER XII
EL TIGRE
CHAPTER XIII
BUNKERED
CHAPTER XIV
THEY WHO MUST BE OBEYED
CHAPTER XV
DJAMA AOUT'S HEROISM
CHAPTER XVI
A MODERN COEUR-DE-LION
CHAPTER I
LOVING'S BEND
From San Antonio to Fort Griffin, Joe Loving's was a name to conjure
with in the middle sixties. His tragic story is still told and retold
around camp-fires on the Plains.
One of the thriftiest of the pioneer cow-hunters, he was the first to
realize that if he would profit by the fruits of his labor he must push
out to the north in search of a market for his cattle. The Indian
agencies and mining camps of northern New Mexico and Colorado, and the
Mormon settlements of Utah, were the first markets to attract
attention. The problem of reaching them seemed almost hopeless of
solution. Immediately to the north of them the country was trackless
and practically unknown. The only thing certain about it was that it
swarmed with hostile Indians. What were the conditions as to water and
grass, two prime essentials to moving herds, no one knew. To be sure,
the old overland mail road to El Paso, Chihuahua, and Los Angeles led
out west from the head of the Concho to the Pecos; and once on the
Pecos, which they knew had its source indefinitely in the north, a
practicable route to market should be possible.
But the trouble was to reach the Pecos across the ninety intervening
miles of waterless plateau called the _Llano Estacado_, or Staked
Plain. This plain was christened by the early Spanish explorers who,
looking out across its vast stretches, could note no landmark, and left
behind them driven stakes to guide their return. An elevated tableland
averaging about one hundred miles wide and extending four hundred miles
north and south, it presents, approaching anywhere from the east or the
west, an endless line of sharply escarped bluffs from one hundred to
two hundred feet high that with their buttresses and re-entrant angles
look at a distance like the walls of an enormous fortified town. And
indeed it possesses riches well worth fortifying.
While without a single surface spring or stream from Devil's River in
the south to Yellow House Cañon in the north, this great mesa is
nevertheless the source of the entire stream system of central and
south Texas. Absorbing thirstily every drop of moisture that falls
upon its surface, from its deep bosom pours a vitalizing flood that
makes fertile and has enriched an empire,--a flood without which Texas,
now producing one-third of the cotton grown in the United States, would
be an arid waste. Bountiful to the south and east, it is niggardly
elsewhere, and only two small springs, Grierson and Mescalero, escape
from its western escarpment.
A driven herd normally travels only twelve to seventeen miles a day,
and even less than this in the early Spring when herds usually are
started. It therefore seemed a desperate undertaking to enter upon the
ninety-mile "dry drive," from the head of the Concho to the Horsehead
Crossing of the Pecos, wherein two-thirds of one's cattle were likely
to perish for want of water.
Joe Loving was the first man to venture it, and he succeeded. He
traversed the Plain, fought his way up the Pecos, reached a good
market, and returned home in the Autumn, bringing a load of gold and
stories of hungry markets in the north that meant fortunes for Texas
ranchmen. This was in 1866. It was the beginning of the great "Texas
trail drive," which during the next twenty years poured six million
cattle into the plains and mountains of the Northwest. Of this great
industrial movement, Joe Loving was the pioneer.
At this time Fort Sumner, situated on the Pecos about four hundred
miles above Horsehead Crossing, was a large Government post, and the
agency of the Navajo Indians, or such of them as were not on the
war-path. Here, on his drive in the Summer of 1867, Loving made a
contract for the delivery at the post the ensuing season of two herds
of beeves. His partner in this contract was Charles Goodnight, later
for many years the proprietor of the Palo Duro ranch in the Pan Handle.
Loving and Goodnight were young then; they had helped to repel many a
Comanche assault upon the settlements, had participated in many a
bloody raid of reprisal, had more than once from the slight shelter of
a buffalo-wallow successfully defended their lives, and so they entered
upon their work with little thought of disaster.
Beginning their round-up early in March as soon as green grass began to
rise, selecting and cutting out cattle of fit age and condition, by the
end of the month they reached the head of the Concho with two herds,
each numbering about two thousand head. Loving was in charge of one
herd and Goodnight of the other.
Each outfit was composed of eight picked cowboys, well drilled in the
rude school of the Plains, a "horse wrangler," and a cook. To each
rider was assigned a mount of five horses, and the loose horses were
driven with the herd by day and guarded by the "horse wrangler" by
night. The cook drove a team of six small Spanish mules hitched to a
mess wagon. In the wagon were carried provisions, consisting
principally of bacon and jerked beef, flour, beans, and coffee; the
men's blankets and "war sacks," and the simple cooking equipment.
Beneath the wagon was always swung a "rawhide"--a dried, untanned,
unscraped cow's hide, fastened by its four corners beneath the wagon
bed. This rawhide served a double purpose: first, as a carryall for
odds and ends; and second, as furnishing repair material for saddles
and wagons. In it were carried pots and kettles, extra horseshoes,
farriers' tools, and firewood; for often long journeys had to be made
across country which did not furnish enough fuel to boil a pot of
coffee. On the sides of the wagon, outside the wagon box, were
securely lashed the two great water barrels, each supplied with a
spigot, which are indispensable in trail driving. Where, as in this
instance, exceptionally long dry drives were to be made other water
kegs were carried in the wagons.
Such wagons were rude affairs, great prairie schooners, hooded in
canvas to keep out the rain. Some of them were miracles of patchwork,
racked and strained and broken till scarcely a sound bit of iron or
wood remained, but, all splinted and bound with strips of the cowboy's
indispensable rawhide, they wabbled crazily along, with many a shriek
and groan, threatening every moment to collapse, but always holding
together until some extraordinary accident required the application of
new rawhide bandages. I have no doubt there are wagons of this sort in
use in Texas to-day that went over the trail in 1868.
The men need little description, for the cowboy type has been made
familiar by Buffalo Bill's most truthful exhibitions of plains life.
Lean, wiry, bronzed men, their legs cased in leather chaparejos, with
small boots, high heels, and great spurs, they were, despite their
loose, slouchy seat, the best rough-riders in the world.
Cowboy character is not well understood. Its most distinguishing trait
was absolute fidelity. As long as he liked you well enough to take
your pay and eat your grub, you could, except in very rare instances,
rely implicitly upon his faithfulness and honesty. To be sure, if he
got the least idea he was being misused he might begin throwing lead at
you out of the business end of a gun at any time; but so long as he
liked you, he was just as ready with his weapons in your defence, no
matter what the odds or who the enemy. Another characteristic trait
was his profound respect for womanhood. I never heard of a cowboy
insulting a woman, and I don't believe any real cowboy ever did. Men
whose nightly talk around the camp-fire is of home and "mammy" are apt
to be a pretty good sort. And yet another quality for which he was
remarkable was his patient, uncomplaining endurance of a life of
hardship and privation equalled only among seafarers. Drenched by rain
or bitten by snow, scorched by heat or stiffened by cold, he passed it
all off with a jest. Of a bitterly cold night he might casually remark
about the quilts that composed his bed: "These here durned huldys ain't
much thicker 'n hen skin!" Or of a hot night: "Reckon ole mammy must
'a stuffed a hull bale of cotton inter this yere ole huldy." Or in a
pouring rain: "'Pears like ole Mahster's got a durned fool idee we'uns
is web-footed." Or in a driving snow storm: "Ef ole Mahster had to
_git rid_ o' this yere damn cold stuff, he might 'a dumped it on
fellers what 's got more firewood handy."
Vices? Well, such as the cowboy had, some one who loves him less will
have to describe. Perhaps he was a bit too frolicsome in town, and too
quick to settle a trifling dispute with weapons; but these things were
inevitable results of the life he led.
In driving a herd over a known trail where water and grass are
abundant, an experienced trail boss conforms the movement of his herd
as near as possible to the habit of wild cattle on the range. At dawn
the herd rises from the bed ground and is "drifted" or grazed, without
pushing, in the desired direction. By nine or ten o'clock they have
eaten their fill, and then they are "strung out on the trail" to water.
They step out smartly, two men--one at either side--"pointing" the
leaders; and "swing" riders along the sides push in the flanks, until
the herd is strung out for a mile or more, a narrow, bright,
particolored ribbon of moving color winding over the dark green of hill
and plain. In this way they easily march off six to nine miles by
noon. When they reach water they are scattered along the stream, drink
their fill and lie down. Dinner is then eaten, and the boys not on
herd doze in the shade of the wagon, until, a little after two o'clock,
the herd rise of their own accord and move away, guided by the riders.
Rather less distance is made in the afternoon. At twilight the herd is
rounded up into a close circular compact mass and "bedded down" for the
night; the first relief of the night guard riding slowly round, singing
softly and turning back stragglers. If properly grazed, in less than a
half-hour the herd is quiet and at rest; and, barring an occasional
wild or hungry beast trying to steal away into the darkness, so they
lie till dawn unless stampeded by some untoward incident.
Every two or three hours a new "relief" is called and the night guard
changed. Round and round all night ride the guards, jingling their
spurs and droning some low monotonous song, recounting through endless
stanzas the fearless deeds of some frontier hero, or humming some love
ditty rather too passionate for gentle ears.
But when a ninety-mile drive across the Staked Plain is to be done, all
this easy system is changed. In order to make the journey at all the
pace must be forced to the utmost, and the cattle kept on their legs
and moving as long as they can stand.
Therefore, when Loving and Goodnight reached the head of the Concho,
two full days' rest were taken to recuperate the "drags," or weaker
cattle. Then, late one afternoon, after the herd had been well grazed
and watered, the water barrels and kegs filled, the herd was thrown on
the trail and driven away into the west, without halt or rest,
throughout the night. Thus, driving in the cool of the night and of
the early morning and late evening, resting through the heat of midday
when travel would be most exhausting, the herd was pushed on westward
for three nights and four days.
On these dry drives the horses suffer most, for every rider is forced,
in his necessary daily work, to cover many times the distance travelled
by the herd, and therefore the horses, doing the heaviest work, are
refreshed by an occasional sip of the precious contents of the water
barrels--as long as it lasts. By night of the second day of this drive
every drop of water is consumed, and thereafter, with tongues parched
and swollen by the clouds of dust raised by the moving multitude, thin,
drawn, and famished for water, men, horses, and cattle push madly ahead.
Come at last within fifteen miles of the Pecos, even the leaders, the
strongest of the herd, are staggering along with dull eyes and drooping
heads, apparently ready to fall in their tracks. Suddenly the whole
appearance of the cattle changes; heads are eagerly raised, ears
pricked up, eyes brighten; the leaders step briskly forward and break
into a trot. Cow-hunters say they smell the water. Perhaps they do,
or perhaps it is the last desperate struggle for existence. Anyway,
the tide is resistless. Nothing can check them, and four men gallop in
the lead to control and handle them as much as possible when they reach
the stream. Behind, the weaker cattle follow at the best pace they
can. In this way over the last stage a single herd is strung out over
a length of four or five miles.
Great care is needed when the stream is reached to turn them in at easy
waterings, for in their maddened state they would bowl over one another
down a bluff of any height; and they often do so, for men and horses
are almost equally wild to reach the water, and indifferent how they
get there.
However, the Pecos was reached and the herds watered with comparatively
small losses, and both Loving's and Goodnight's outfits lay at rest for
three days to recuperate at Horsehead Crossing. Then the drive up the
wide, level valley of the Pecos was begun, through thickets of
_tornilla_ and _mesquite_, horses and cattle grazing belly-deep in the
tall, juicy _zacaton_.
The perils of the _Llano Estacado_ were behind them, but they were now
in the domain of the Comanche and in hourly danger of ambush or open
attack. They found a great deal of Indian "sign," their trails and
camps; but the "sign" was ten days or two weeks old, which left ground
for hope that the war parties might be out on raids in the east or
south. After travelling four days up the Pecos without encountering
any fresh "sign," they concluded that the Indians were off on some
foray; therefore it was decided that Loving might with reasonable
safety proceed ahead of the herds to make arrangements at Fort Sumner
for their delivery, provided he travelled only by night, and lay in
concealment during the day.
In Loving's outfit were two brothers, Jim and Bill Scott, who had
accompanied his two previous Pecos drives, and were his most
experienced and trusted men. He chose Jim Scott for his companion on
the dash through to Fort Sumner. When dark came, Loving mounted a
favourite mule, and Jim his best horse; then, each well armed with a
Henry rifle and two six-shooters, with a brief "So long, boys!" to
Goodnight and the men, they trotted off up the trail. Riding rapidly
all night, they hid themselves just before dawn in the rough hills
below Pope's Crossing, ate a snack, and then slept undisturbed till
nightfall. As soon as it was good dusk they slipped down a ravine to
the river, watered their mounts, and resumed the trail to the north.
This night also was uneventful, except that they rode into, and roused,
a great herd of sleeping buffalo, which ran thundering away over the
Plain.
Dawn came upon them riding through a level country about fifteen miles
below the present town of Carlsbad, without cover of any sort to serve
for their concealment through the day. They therefore decided to push
on to the hills above the mouth of Dark Cañon. Here was their mistake.
Had they ridden a mile or two to the west of the trail and dismounted
before daylight, they probably would not have been discovered. It was
madness for two men to travel by day in that country, whether fresh
sign had been seen or not. But, anxious to reach a hiding place where
both might venture to sleep through the day, they pressed on up the
trail. And they paid dearly the penalty of their foolhardiness.
Other riders were out that morning, riders with eyes keen as a hawk's,
eyes that never rested for a moment, eyes set in heads cunning as foxes
and cruel as wolves. A war party of Comanches was out and on the move
early, and, as is the crafty Indian custom, was riding out of sight in
the narrow valley below the well-rounded hills that lined the river.
But while hid themselves, their scouts were out far ahead, creeping
along just beneath the edge of the Plain, scanning keenly its broad
stretches, alert for quarry. And they soon found it.
Loving and Jim hove in sight!
To be sure they were only two specks in the distance, but the trained
eyes of these savage sleuths quickly made them out as horsemen, and
white men.
Halting for the main war party to come up, they held a brief council of
war, which decided that the attack should be delivered two or three
miles farther up the river, where the trail swerved in to within a few
hundred yards of the stream. So the scouts mounted, and the war party
jogged leisurely northward and took stand opposite the bend in the
trail.
On came Loving and Jim, unwarned and unsuspecting, their animals jaded
from the long night's ride. They reached the bend. And just as Jim,
pointing to a low round hill a quarter of a mile to the west of them,
remarked, "Thar'd be a blame good place to stan' off a bunch o'
Injuns," they were startled by the sound of thundering hoofs off on
their right to the east. Looking quickly round they saw a sight to
make the bravest tremble.
Racing up out of the valley and out upon them, barely four hundred
yards away, came a band of forty or fifty Comanche warriors, crouching
low on their horses' withers, madly plying quirt and heel to urge their
mounts to their utmost speed.
Their own animals worn out, escape by running was hopeless. Cover must
be sought where a stand could be made, so they whirled about and
spurred away for the hill Jim had noted. Their pace was slow at the
best. The Indians were gaining at every jump and had opened fire, and
before half the distance to the hill was covered a ball broke Loving's
thigh and killed his mule. As the mule pitched over dead,
providentially he fell on the bank of a buffalo-wallow--a circular
depression in the prairie two or three feet deep and eight or ten feet
in diameter, made by buffalo wallowing in a muddy pool during the rains.
Instantly Jim sprang to the ground, gave his bridle to Loving, who lay
helpless under his horse, and turned and poured a stream of lead out of
his Henry rifle that bowled over two Comanches, knocked down one horse,
and stopped the charge.
While the Indians temporarily drew back out of range, Jim pulled Loving
from beneath his fallen mule, and, using his neckerchief, applied a
tourniquet to the wounded leg which abated the hemorrhage, and then
placed him in as easy a position as possible within the shelter of the
wallow, and behind the fallen carcass of the mule. Then Jim led his
own horse to the opposite bank of the wallow, drew his bowie knife and
cut the poor beast's throat: they were in for a fight to the death,
and, outnumbered twenty to one, must have breastworks. As the horse
fell on the low bank and Jim dropped down behind him, Loving called out
cheerily:
"Reckon we're all right now, Jim, and can down half o' them before they
get us. Hell! Here they come again!"
A brief "Bet yer life, ole man. We'll make 'em settle now," was the
only reply.
Stripped naked to their waist-cloths and moccasins, with faces painted
black and bronze, bodies striped with vermilion, with curling buffalo
horns and streaming eagle feathers for their war bonnets, no warriors
ever presented a more ferocious appearance than these charging
Comanches. Their horses, too, were naked except for the bridle and a
hair rope loosely knotted round the barrel over the withers.
On they came at top speed until within range, when with that wonderful
dexterity no other race has quite equalled, each pushed his bent right
knee into the slack of the hair rope, seized bridle and horse's mane in
the left hand, curled his left heel tightly into the horse's flank, and
dropped down on the animal's right side, leaving only a hand and a foot
in view from the left. Then, breaking the line of their charge, the
whole band began to race round Loving's entrenchment in single file,
firing beneath their horses' necks and gradually drawing nearer as they
circled.
Loving and Jim wasted no lead. Lying low behind their breastworks
until the enemy were well within range, they opened a fire that knocked
over six horses and wounded three Indians. Balls and arrows were
flying all about them, but, well sheltered, they remained untouched.
The fire was too hot for the Comanches and they again withdrew.
Twice again during the day the Indians tried the same tactics with no
better result. Later they tried sharpshooting at long range, to which
Loving and Jim did not even reply. At last, late in the afternoon,
they resorted to the desperate measure of a direct charge, hoping to
ride over and shoot down the two white men. Up they came at a dead run
five or six abreast, the front rank firing as they ran. But, badly
exposed in their own persons, the fire from the buffalo-wallow made
such havoc in their front ranks that the savage column swerved, broke,
and retreated.
Night shut down. Loving and Jim ate the few biscuits they had baked
and some raw bacon. Then they counselled with one another. Their
thirst was so great, it was agreed they must have water at any cost.
They knew the Indians were unlikely to attempt another attack until
dawn, and so they decided to attempt to reach the stream shortly after
midnight. Although it was scarcely more than fifteen hundred yards,
that was a terrible journey for Loving. Compelled to crawl noiselessly
to avoid alarming the enemy, Jim could give him little assistance. But
going slowly, dragging his shattered leg behind him without a murmur,
Loving followed Jim, and they reached the river safely and drank.
It was now necessary to find new cover. For long distances the banks
of the Pecos are nearly perpendicular, and ten to twenty feet high. At
flood the swift current cuts deep holes and recesses in these banks.
Prowling along the margin of the stream, Jim found one of these
recesses wide enough to hold them both, and deep enough to afford good
defence against a fire from the opposite shore, Above them the bank
rose straight for twenty feet. Thus they could not be attacked by
firing, except from the other side of the river; and while the stream
was only thirty yards wide, the opposite bank afforded no shelter for
the enemy.
In the gray dawn the Indians crept in on the first entrenchment and
sprang inside the breastworks with upraised weapons, only to find it
deserted. However, the trail of Loving's dragging leg was plain, and
they followed it down to the river, where, coming unexpectedly in range
of the new defences, two of their number were killed outright.
Throughout the day they exhausted every device of their savage cunning
to dislodge Loving, but without avail. They soon found the opposite
bank too exposed and dangerous for attack from that direction. Burning
brush dropped from above failed to lodge before the recess, as they had
hoped it might. The position seemed impregnable, so they surrounded
the spot, resolved to starve the white men out.
Loving and Jim had leisure to discuss their situation. Loving was
losing strength from his wound. They had no food but a little raw
bacon. Without relief they must inevitably be starved out. It was
therefore agreed that Jim should try to reach Goodnight and bring aid.
It was a forlorn hope, but the only one. The herds must be at least
sixty miles back down the trail. Jim was reluctant to leave, but
Loving urged it as the only chance.
As soon as it was dark, Jim removed all but his under-clothing, hung
his boots round his neck, slid softly into the river, and floated and
swam down stream for more than a quarter of a mile. Then he crept out
on the bank. On the way he had lost his boots, which more than doubled
the difficulty and hardship of his journey. Still he struck bravely
out for the trail, through cactus and over stones. He travelled all
night, rested a few hours in the morning, resumed his tramp in the
afternoon, and continued it well-nigh through the second night.
Near morning, famished and weak, with feet raw and bleeding, totally
unable to go farther, Jim lay down in a rocky recess two or three
hundred yards from the trail, and went to sleep.
It chanced that the two outfits lay camped scarcely a mile farther down
the trail. At dawn they were again _en route_, and both passed Jim
without rousing or discovering him. Then a strange thing happened.
Three or four horses had strayed away from the "horse wrangler" during
the night, and Jim's brother Bill was left behind to hunt them.
Circling for their trail, he found and followed it, followed it until
it brought him almost upon the figure of a prostrate man, nearly naked,
bleeding, and apparently dead. Dismounting and turning the body over,
Bill was startled to find it to be his brother Jim. With great
difficulty Jim was roused; he was then helped to mount Bill's horse,
and hurried on to overtake the outfit. Coffee and a little food
revived him so that he could tell his story.
Neither danger nor property was considered where help was needed, in
those days. Goodnight instantly ordered six men to shift saddles to
their strongest horses, left the outfits to get on as best they might,
and spurred away with his little band to his partner's relief.
Loving had a close call the day after Jim left. The Comanches had
other plans to carry out, or perhaps they were grown impatient. In any
event, they crossed the river and raced up and down the bluff, firing
beneath their horses' necks. It was a miracle Loving was not hit; but,
lying low and watching his chance, he returned such a destructive fire
that the Comanches were forced to draw off. The afternoon passed
without alarm. As a matter of fact, the remaining Comanches had given
up the siege as too dear a bargain, and had struck off southwest toward
Guadalupe Peak.
When night came, Loving grew alarmed over his situation. Jim might be
taken and killed. Then no chance would remain for him where he lay.
He must escape through the Indians and try to reach the trail at the
crossing in the big bend four miles north. Here his own outfits might
reach him in time. Therefore, he started early in the night, dragged
himself painfully up the bluff, and reached the plain. He might have
lain down by the trail near by; but supposing the Comanches still
about, he set himself the task of reaching the big bend.
Starving, weak from loss of blood, his shattered thigh compelling him
to crawl, words cannot describe the horror of this journey. But he
succeeded. Love of life carried him through. And so, late the next
afternoon, the afternoon of the day Goodnight started to his relief,
Loving reached the crossing, lay down beneath a mesquite bush near the
trail, and fell into a swoon. Ever since, this spot has been known as
Loving's Bend. It is half a mile below the present town of Carlsbad.
At dusk of the evening on which Loving reached the ford, a large party
of Mexican freighters, travelling south from Fort Sumner to Fort
Stockton, arrived and pitched their camp near where he lay But Loving
did not hear them. He was far into the dark valley and within the very
shadow of Death. Help must come to him; he could not go to it.
Luckily it came.
While some were unharnessing the teams, others wert out to fetch
firewood. In the darkness one Mexican, thinking he saw a big mesquite
root, seized it and gave a tug. It was Loving's leg. Startled and
frightened, the Mexican yelled to his mates:
"_Que vienen, hombres! Que vienen por el amor de Dios! Aqui esta un
muerto._"
Others came quickly, but it was not a dead man they found, as their
mate had called. Dragged from under the mesquite and carried to the
fire, Loving was found still breathing. The spark of life was very
low, however, and the mescal given him as a stimulant did not serve to
rouse him from his stupor. But the next morning, rested somewhat from
his terrible hardships and strengthened by more mescal, he was able to
take some food and tell his story. The Mexicans bathed and dressed his
wound as well as they could, and promised to remain in camp until his
friends should come up.
Before noon Goodnight and his six men galloped in. They had reached
his entrenchment that morning, guided by the Indian sign around about
it, and had discovered and followed his trail. Goodnight hired a party
of the Mexicans to take one of their _carretas_ and convey Loving
through to Fort Sumner. With the Fort still more than two hundred
miles away, there was small hope he could survive the journey, but it
must be tried. A rude hammock was improvised and slung beneath the
canvas cover of the carreta, and, placed within it, Loving was made as
comfortable as possible. After a nine days' forced march, made chiefly
by night, the Mexicans brought their crazy old carreta safely into the
post.
While with rest and food Loving had been gaining in strength, the heat
and the lack of proper care were telling badly on his wound. Goodnight
had returned to the outfits, and, after staying with them a week, he
had brought them through as far as the Rio Penasco without further
mishap. Then placing the two herds in charge of the Scott brothers, he
himself made a forced ride that brought him into Sumner only one day
behind Loving.
Goodnight found his partner's condition critical. Gangrene had
attacked the wound. It was apparent that nothing but amputation of the
wounded leg could save him. The medical officer of the post was out
with a scouting cavalry detail, and only a hospital steward was
available for the operation. To trust the case to this man's
inexperience seemed murder. Therefore, Goodnight decided to send a
rider through to Las Vegas, the nearest point where a surgeon could be
obtained.
Here arose what seemed insuperable difficulties. From Fort Sumner to
Las Vegas the distance is one hundred and thirty miles. Much travelled
by freight teams carrying government supplies, the road was infested
throughout with hostile Navajos, for whom the freight trains were the
richest spoils they could have. Offer what he would, Goodnight could
find no one at the Fort bold enough to ride through alone and fetch a
surgeon. He finally raised his offer to a thousand dollars for any one
who would make the trip. It was a great prize, but the danger was
greater than the prize. No one responded. To go himself was
impossible; their contract must be fulfilled.
At this juncture a hero appeared. His name was Scot Moore. Moore was
the contractor then furnishing wood and hay to the post. Coming in
from one of his camps and learning of the dilemma, himself a friend of
Loving, he instantly went to Goodnight.
"Charlie," he said, "why in the world did you not send for me before?
Joe shall not die here like a dog if I can save him. I've got a young
Kentucky saddle mare here that's the fastest thing on the Pecos. I'll
be in Vegas by sun-up to-morrow morning, and I'll be back here sometime
to-morrow night with a doctor, if the Navajos don't get us. Pay? Pay
be damned. I'm doin' it for old Joe; he'd go for me in a minute. If
I'm not back by nine o'clock to-morrow night, Charlie, send another
messenger and just tell old Joe that Scot did his best."
"It's mighty good of you, Scot," replied Goodnight, "I never will
forget it, nor will Joe. You know I'd go myself if I could."
"That's all right, pardner," said Scot. "Just come over to my camp a
spell and look over some papers I want you to attend to if I don't show
up."
And they strolled away. Officers and other bystanders shook their
heads sadly.
"Devilish pity old Scot had to come in."
"Might 'a known nobody could hold him from goin'."
"He'll make Vegas all right in a night run if the mare don't give out,
but God help him when he starts back with a doctor in a wagon; ain't
one chance in a thousand he'll got through."
"Well, if any man on earth can make it, bet your _alce_ Scot will."
These were some of the comments. Scot Moore was known and loved from
Chihuahua to Fort Lyon. One of the biggest-hearted, most amiable and
generous of men, ha was known as the coolest and most utterly fearless
in a country where few men were cowards.
At nightfall, the mare well fed and groomed and lightly saddled, Scot
mounted, bearing no arms but his two pistols, called a careless "_Hasta
luego, amigos_" to his friends, and trotted off up the road. For two
hours he jogged along easily over the sandy stretches beyond the Bosque
Redondo. Then getting out on firmer ground, the mare well warmed, he
gave her the rein and let her out into a long, low, easy lope that
scored the miles off famously. And so he swept on throughout the
night, with only brief halts to cool the mare and give her a mouthful
of water, through Puerta de Luna, past the Cañon Pintado, up the Rio
Gallinas, past sleeping freighters' camps and Mexican _placitas_.
Twice he was fired upon by alarmed campers who mistook him for a savage
marauder, but luckily the shots flew wild.
The last ten miles the noble mare nearly gave out, but, a friend's life
the stake he was riding for, Scot's quirt and spurs lifted her through.
Half an hour after sunrise, before many in the town were out of bed,
Scot rode into the plaza of Las Vegas and turned out the doctor, whom
he knew.
Dr. D---- was no coward by any means, but it took all Scot's eloquence
and persuasiveness to induce him to consent to hazard a daylight
journey through to Sumner, for he well knew its dangers. Scarcely a
week passed without news of some fearful massacre or desperate defence.
But, stirred by Scot's own heroism or perhaps tempted by the heavy fee
to be earned, he consented.
Having breakfasted and gotten the best team in town hitched to a light
buckboard, Scot and the doctor were rolling away into the south on the
Sumner trail before seven o'clock, over long stretches of level grassy
mesa and past tall black volcanic buttes.
Driving on without interruption or incident, shortly after noon they
approached the head of the Arroyo de los Enteros, down which the trail
descended to the lower levels of the great Pecos Valley. Enteros Cañon
is about three miles long, rarely more than two hundred yards wide, its
sides rocky, precipitous, and heavily timbered, through which wound the
wagon trail, exposed at every point to a perfect ambuscade. It was the
most dreaded stretch of the Vegas-Sumner road, but Scot and the doctor
drew near it without a misgiving, for no sign of the savage enemy had
they seen.
Just before reaching the head of the cañon, the road wound round a high
butte. Bowling rapidly along, Scot half dozing with fatigue, the
doctor, unused to the plains, alert and watchful, they suddenly turned
the hill and came out upon the immediate head of the cañon, when
suddenly the doctor cried, seizing Scot's arm:
"Good God, Scott, look! For God's sake, look!"
And it was time. There on either hand, to their right and to their
left, tied by their lariats to drooping _piñon_ bough, stood fifty or
sixty Navajo ponies. The ponies were bridled and saddled. Upon some
were tied lances and on others arms. All were dripping with sweat and
heaving of flank, their knife-marked ears drooping with fatigue; not
more than five minutes could have elapsed since their murderous riders
had left them. Apparently it was an ambush laid for them, and they
were already surrounded. Even the cool Scot shook himself in surprise
to find that he was still alive.
Overcome with terror, the doctor cried: "Turn, Scot! Turn, for
Heaven's sake! It's our only chance to pull for Vegas."
But Scot had been reflecting. With wits sharpened by a thousand perils
and trained in scores of desperate encounters, he answered: "Doc,
you're wrong; dead wrong. We're safe as if we were in Fort Union. If
they were laying for us we'd be dead now. No, they are after bigger
game. They have sighted a big freight outfit coming up from the Pecos,
and are laying for that in the cañon. We can slide through without
seeing a buck or hearing a shot. We'll go right on down Entoros, old
boy."
"Scot, you're crazy," said the doctor. "I will not go a step. Let's
run for Vegas. Any instant we may be attacked. Why, damn your fool
soul, they've no doubt got a bead on us this minute."
With a sharp stroke of his whip, Scot started the team into a smart
trot down into the cañon. Then he turned to the doctor and quietly
answered: "Doc, you seem to forget that Joe Loving is dying, and that I
_promised_ to fetch you. Reckon you'll have to go!" And down they
went into what seemed the very jaws of death.
But Scot was right. It was a triumph of logic. The Navajos were
indeed lying for bigger game.
And so it happened that, come safely through the cañon, out two miles
on the plain they met a train off eight freight teams travelling toward
Vegas. They stopped and gave the freighters warning, told what they
had seen, begged them to halt and corral their wagons. But it was no
use. The freighters thought themselves strong enough to repel any
attack, and drove on into the cañon.
None of them came out.
And to this day the traveller through Enteros may see pathetic evidence
of their foolhardiness in a scattered lot of weather-worn and rusted
wheel tires and hub bands.
Before midnight Scot and the doctor reached Sumner, having changed
teams twice at Mexican _placitas_. Covering two hundred and sixty
miles in less than thirty hours, Scot Moore had kept his word!
Unhappily, however, Joe Loving had become so weak that he died under
the shock of the operation.
Now Scot Moore himself is dead and gone, but the memory of his heroic
ride should live as long as noble deeds are sung.
CHAPTER II
A COW-HUNTERS' COURT
The recent death of Shanghai Rhett, at Llano, Texas, makes another hole
in the rapidly thinning ranks of the pioneer Texas cow-hunters.
Cow-hunting in early days was the industry upon which many of the
greatest fortunes of the State were founded, and from it sprang the
great cattle-ranch industry that between the years 1866 and 1885
converted into gold the rich wild grasses of the tenantless plains and
mountains of Texas, New Mexico, the Indian Territory, Kansas, Nebraska,
Colorado, Wyoming, Dakota, and Montana.
The economic value of this great industrial movement in promoting the
settlement and development of that vast region of the West lying
between the ninety-eighth and one hundred and twentieth meridians, and
embracing half the total area of the United States, is comprehended by
few who were not personally familiar with the conditions of its rise
and progress. There can be no question that the ranch industry
hastened the occupation and settlement of the Plains by at least thirty
years. Farming in those wilds was then an impossibility. Remote from
railways, unmapped, and untrod by white men, it was under the sway of
hostile Indians, before whose attacks isolated farming settlements,
with houses widely scattered, would have been defenceless,--alike in
their position and in their inexperience in Indian warfare. Then,
moreover, there was neither a market nor means of transportation or the
farmer's product. All these conditions the Texas cow-hunters changed,
and they did it in little more than a decade.
In Texas were bred the leaders and the rank and file of that great army
of cow-hunters whose destiny it was to become the pioneers of this vast
region. Pistol and knife were the treasured toys of their childhood;
they were inured to danger and to hardship; they were expert horsemen,
trained Indian-fighters, reckless of life but cool in its defence; and
thus they were an ideal class for the pacification of the Plains.
Shanghai Rhett's death removed one of the comparatively few survivors
of this most interesting and eventful past.
In Texas after the war, when Shang was young, a pony, a lariat, a
six-shooter, and a branding iron were sufficient instruments for the
acquisition of wealth. A trained eye and a practised hand were
necessary for the effective use of pistol and lariat; the running iron
anybody could wield; therefore, while a necessary feature of equipment,
the iron was a secondary affair. The pistol was useful in settling
annoying questions of title; the horse and the lariat, in taking
possession after title was settled; the iron, in marking the property
with a symbol of ownership. The property in question was always cattle.
Before the war, cattle were abundant in Texas. Fences were few.
Therefore, the cattle roamed at will over hill and plain. To determine
ownership each owner adopted a distinctive "mark and brand." The
owner's mark and brand were put upon the young before they left their
mothers, and upon grown cattle when purchases were made. Thus the
broad sides and quarters of those that changed hands many times were
covered over with this barbarous record of their various transfers.
The system of marking and branding had its origin among the Mexicans.
Marking consists in cutting the ears or some part of the animal's hide
in such a way as to leave a permanent distinguishing mark. One owner
would adopt the "swallow fork," a V-shaped piece cut out of the tip of
the ear; another, the "crop," the tip of the ear cut squarely off;
another, the "under-half crop," the under half of the tip of the ear
cut away; another, the "over-half crop," the reverse of the last;
another, the "under-bit," a round nick cut in the lower edge of the
ear; another, the "over-bit," the reverse of the last; another, the
"under-slope," the under half of the ear removed by cutting diagonally
upward; another, the "over-slope," the reverse of the last; another,
the "grub," the ear cut off close to the head; another, the "wattle," a
strip of the hide an inch wide and two or three inches long, either on
forehead, shoulder, or quarters, skinned and left hanging by one end,
where before healing it leaves a conspicuous lump; another, the
"dewlap," three or four inches of the loose skin under the throat
skinned down and left hanging.
Branding consists in applying a red-hot iron to any part of the animal
for six or eight seconds, until the hide is seared. Properly done,
hair never again grows on the seared surface and the animal is "branded
for life." A small five-inch brand on a young calf becomes a great
twelve-to-eighteen-inch mark by the time the beast is fully grown.
In Mexico the art of branding dates back to the time when few men were
lettered and most men used a _rubrica_ mark or flourish instead of a
written signature. Thus, in Mexico the brand is always a device,
whatever complex combination of lines and circles the whim of the owner
may conceive. In this country the brand was usually a combination of
letters or numerals, though sometimes shapes and forms are represented.
Branding and marking cattle and horses is certainly a most cruel
practice, but under the old conditions of the open range, where
individual ownerships numbered thousands of head, no other means
existed of contradistinguishing title.
During the war these vast herds grew and increased unattended,
neglected by owners, who were in the field with the armies of the
Confederacy. So it happened that hundreds of thousands of cattle
ranged the plains of Texas after the war, unmarked and unbranded, wild
as the native game, to which no man could establish title. This
situation afforded an opportunity which the hard-riding and desperate
men who found themselves stranded on this far frontier after the wreck
of the Confederacy were quick to seize. Shang Rhett was one of them.
From chasing Federal soldiers they turned to chasing unbranded steers,
and found the latter occupation no less exciting and much more
profitable than the former.
First, bands of free companions rode together and pooled their gains.
Then the thrift of some and the improvidence of others set in motion
the immutable laws of distribution. Soon a class of rich and powerful
individual owners was created, who employed great outfits of ten to
fifty men each, splendidly mounted and armed. These outfits were in
continually moving camps, and travelled light, without wagons or tents.
The climate being mild even in winter, seldom more than two blankets to
the man were carried for bedding. The cooking paraphernalia were
equally simple, at the most consisting of a coffee pot, a frying-pan, a
stew kettle, and a Dutch oven. Each man carried a tin cup tied to his
saddle. Plates, knives, and forks were considered unnecessary
luxuries, as every man wore a bowie knife at his belt, and was
dexterous in using his slice of bread as a plate to hold whatever
delicacy the frying-pan or kettle might contain. Sometimes even the
Dutch oven was dispensed with, and bread was baked by winding thin
rolls of dough round a stick and planting the stick in the ground,
inclined over a bed of live coals. Often the frying-pan was left
behind, and the meat roasted on a stick over the fire; and no meat in
the world was ever so delicious as a good fat side of ribs so roasted.
The wild, unbranded cattle were everywhere--in the cross-timbers of the
Palo Pinto, in the hills and among the post oaks of the Concho and the
Llano, on the broad savannas of the Lower Guadalupe and the Brazos, in
the plains and mesquite thickets of the Nueces and the Frio. And
through these wild regions, on the outer fringe of settlement, ranged
the cow-hunters, as merry and happy a lot as ever courted adventure,
careless of their lives.
Of adventure and hazard the cow-hunters had quite enough to keep the
blood tingling. They had to deal with wild men as well as wild cattle.
Comanches and Kiowas, the old lords of the manor, were bitterly
disputing every forward movement of the settler along the whole
frontier. No community, from Griffin to San Antonio, escaped their
attacks and depredations. Indeed, these incursions were regular
monthly visitations, made always "in the light of the moon." A war
party of naked bucks on naked horses, the lightest and most dexterous
cavalry in the world, would slip softly near some isolated ranch or
lonely camp by night. The cleverest and cunningest would dismount and
steal swiftly in upon their quarry. Slender, sinewy, bronze figures
creeping and crouching like panthers, crafty as foxes, fierce and
merciless as maddened bulls, their presence was rarely known until the
blow fell. Sometimes they were content to steal the settlers' horses,
and by daylight be many miles away to the west or north. Sometimes
they fired buildings and shot down the inmates as they ran out.
Sometimes they crept silently into camps, knifed or tomahawked one or
more of the sleepers, and stole away, all so noiselessly that others
sleeping near were undisturbed. Sometimes they lay in ambush about a
camp till dawn, and then with mad war-whoops charged among the sleepers
with their deadly arrows and tomahawks.
Against these wily marauders the cow-hunters could never abate their
guard. And it was these same cow-hunters the Indians most dreaded, for
they were tireless on a trail and utterly reckless in attack. It was
not often the Indians got the best of them, and then only by ambush, or
overwhelming numbers. Better armed, of stouter hearts in a stand-up
fight, little bands of these cow-hunters often soundly thrashed war
parties out-numbering them ten to one.
Then it not infrequently fell out that collisions occurred between
rival outfits of cow-hunters, disputes over territory or cattle, which
led to bitter feuds not settled till one side or the other was killed
off or run out of the country. Battles royal were fought more than
once in which a score or more of men were killed, wherein the _casus
belli_ was a difference as to the ownership of a brindle steer.
These men were a law unto themselves. Courts were few and far between
on the line of the outer settlements. Powder and lead came cheaper
than attorneys' fees, and were, moreover, found to be more effective.
Thus the rifle and pistol were almost invariably the cow-hunters' court
of first and last resort for disputes of every nature. Except in rare
instances where there happened to be survivors among the families of
the original plaintiff and defendant, this form of litigation was never
prolonged or tiresome. When there were any survivors the case was sure
to be re-argued.
Occasionally, of course, in the immediate settlements a case would be
brought to formal trial before a judge and jury. While, as a rule, the
procedure of these courts conformed to the statutes and was formal
enough, rather startling informalities sometimes characterized their
sessions. A case in point, of which Shang Rhett was the hero, occurred
at Llano.
At that time the town of Llano could boast of only one building, a big
rough stone house, loop-holed for defence against the Indians. Under
this one roof the enterprising owner assembled a variety of industries
and performed a variety of functions that would dismay the most
versatile man of any older community. Here he kept a general store,
operated blacksmith and wheelwright shops, served as post-master, ran a
hotel, and sat as justice of the peace. Indeed, he got so much in the
habit of self-reliance in all emergencies, that in more than one
instance he subjected himself to some criticism by calmly sitting as
both judge and jury in cases wherein he had no jurisdiction. Getting a
jury at Llano was no easy task. Often the country for miles around
might be scoured without producing a full panel.
Llano being the county seat, and this the only house in town, it
somewhat naturally from time to time enjoyed temporary distinction as a
court house, when at long intervals the Llano County court met. The
accommodations, however, were inconveniently limited--so limited in
fact that on one occasion at least they were responsible for a sad
miscarriage of justice.
A murder trial was on. One of the earliest settlers, a man well known
and generally liked, had killed a newcomer. It was felt that he had
given his victim no chance for his life, else he probably would not
have been brought to trial at all. And even in spite of the prevailing
disapproval, there was an undercurrent of sympathy for him in the
community.
However, court met and the case was called. Several settlers were
witnesses in the case. It was, therefore, considered a remarkable and
encouraging evidence of Llano County's growth in population when the
District Attorney succeeded in raking together enough men for a jury.
At noon of the second day of the trial the evidence was all in,
arguments of counsel finished, and the case given to the jury. The
prisoner's case seemed hopeless. A clearly premeditated murder had
been proved, against which scarcely any defence was produced.
Judge, jury, prisoner, and witnesses all had dinner together in the
"court-room," which was always demeaned from its temporary dignity as a
hall of justice, to the humble rank of a dining-room as soon as court
adjourned. Directly after dinner the jury withdrew for deliberation,
in custody of two bailiffs.
The house was large, to be sure, but its capacity was already so far
taxed that it could not provide a jury room. It was therefore the
custom of the bailiffs to use as a jury room an open, mossy glade
shaded by a great live oak tree on the farther bank of the Llano, and
distant two or three hundred yards from the court house. Here,
therefore, the jury were conducted, the bailiffs retired to some
distance, and discussion of a verdict was begun. In spite of the
weight of evidence against him, two or three were for acquittal. The
others said they were "damned sorry; Jim was a mighty good feller, but
it 'peared like they'd have to foller the evidence." So the discussion
pro and con ran on into the mid-afternoon without result.
It was an intensely hot afternoon, the air close and heavy with
humidity, an hour when all Texans who can do so take a siesta. Judge
and counsel were snoozing peacefully on the gallery of the distant
court house, and the two bailiffs guarding the "jury room," overcome by
habit and the heat, were stretched at full length on the ground,
snoring in concert. This situation made the opportunity for a friend
at court. Shang Rhett was the friend awaiting this opportunity.
Stepping lightly out of the brush where he had been concealed, a few
paces brought him among the jurors.
"Howdy! boys?" Shang drawled. "Pow'ful hot evenin', ain't it!
Moseyin' roun' sort o' lonesome like, I thought mebbe so you fellers 'd
be tired o' talkin' law, an' I'd jes' step over an' pass the time o'
day an' give you a rest."
A rude diplomat, perhaps, Shang was nevertheless a cunning one.
Several jurors expressed their appreciation of his sympathy and one
answered: "Tired o' talkin'! Wall, I reckon so. I'm jes' tireder an'
dryer 'n if I'd been tailin' down beef steers all day. My ol' tongue's
been a-floppin' till thar ain't nary 'nother flop left in her 'nless I
could git to ile her up with a swaller o' red-eye, an--"
regretfully--"I reckon thar ain't no sort o' chanst o' that."
"Thar ain't, hey?" replied Shang, producing a big jug from the brush
near by. "'Pears like, 'nless I disremember, thar's some red-eye in
this yere jug."
Upon examination the jug was found to be nearly full; but, passed and
repassed around the "jury room," it was not long before the jug was
empty, and the jury full.
Shrewdly seizing the proper moment before the jurors got drunk enough
to be obstinate and combative, Shang made his appeal. "Fellers," he
said, "I allows you all knows that Jim's my friend, an' I reckon you
cain't say but what he 's been a mighty good friend to more'n one o'
you. Course, I know he got terrible out o' luck when he had t' kill
this yer Arkinsaw feller. But then, boys, Arkinsawyers don't count fer
much nohow, do they? Pow'ful onery, no account lot, sca'cely fit to
practise shootin' at. We fellers ain't a-goin' to lay that up agin
Jim, air we? We ain't a-goin' to help this yer jack-leg prosecutin'
attorney send ol' Jim up. Why, fellers, we knows well enough that airy
one o' us might 'a done the same thing ef we'd been out o' luck, like
Jim was, in meetin' up with this yer Arkinsawyer afore we'd had our
mornin' coffee. What say, boys? Bein' as how any o' us might be in
Jim's boots mos' any day, reckon we'll have to turn him loose?"
Shang's pathetic appeal for Jim's life clearly won outright more than
half the jury, but there were several who, while their sympathies were
with Jim, "'lowed they'd have to bring a verdic' accordin' to the
evidence."
"Verdic'? Why, fellers," retorted Jim's advocate, "whar's the use of a
fool verdic'? 'Sposin' we fellers was goin' to be verdicked? This is
a time for us fellers to stan' together, shua'. I'll tell you what
le's do; le's all slip off inter th' brush, cotch our hosses an' pull
our freight fer home. This yer court ain't goin' to git airy jury but
us in Llano 'till a new one's growed, an' if we skip I reckon they'll
have to turn Jim loose."
This alternative met all objections. In a moment the "jury room" was
empty.
Shortly thereafter the two bailiffs, awakened by a clatter of hoofs
over the rocky hills behind them, were doubly shocked to find the only
tenant of the "jury room" an empty jug.
One of the bailiffs sighted some of the escaping jurors and opened
fire; the other hastened to alarm the court. The latter, running
toward the house, met the judge and counsel who had been roused by the
firing, and yelled out: "Jedge, the hull jury's stampeded! Bill's
winged two o' them. Gi' me a fast hoss an' a lariat an' mebbe so I'll
cotch some more."
Two or three jurors who were too much fuddled with drink to saddle and
mount were quickly captured. The rest escaped. Of course, the court
was outraged and indignant, but it was powerless. So Jim was released,
thanks to Shang's diplomacy and eloquence. And, by the way, in the
dark days that came to ranchmen in 1885, Jim, risen to be a well-known
and powerful banker in ------ City, furnished the ready money necessary
to save Shang's imperilled fortune; and when at length he heard that
Shang was at death's door, Jim found the time to leave his large
affairs and come all the way up from ------ to Llano to bid his old
friend farewell.
For two or three years after the war the cow-hunters were busy
accumulating cattle. From Palo Pinto to San Diego great outfits were
working incessantly, scouring the wilds for unbranded cattle.
Directly an animal was sighted, one or two of these riders would spur
in pursuit, rope him by horns or legs, and throw him to the ground.
Then dismounting and springing nimbly upon the prostrate beast, they
quickly fastened the beast's feet with a "hogtie" hitch so that he
could not rise, a fire was built, the short saddle iron heated, and the
beast branded. The feet were then unbound and the cow-hunter made a
flying leap into his saddle, and spurred away to escape the infuriated
charge sure to be delivered by his maddened victim.
In this work horses were often fatally gored and not a few men lost
their lives. Notwithstanding the fact that it was such a downright
desperate task, the men became so expert that they did not even
hesitate to tackle, alone and single-handed, great bulls of twice the
weight of their small ponies; they roped, held, threw, and branded
them. The least accident or mistake, a slip of the foot, a stumble by
one's horse, a breaking cinch, a failure to maintain full tension on
the lariat, slowness in dismounting to tie an animal or in mounting
after it was untied--any one of these things happening meant death,
unless the cow-hunter could save himself with a quick and accurate
shot. Indeed the boys so loved this work and were so proud of their
skill, that when an unusually vicious old "mossback" was encountered,
each strove to be the first catch and master him. And God knows they
should have loved it, as must any man with real red blood coursing
through his veins, for it was not work; I libel it to call it work; it
was rather sport, and the most glorious sport in the world. Riding to
hounds over the stiffest country, or hunting grizzly in juniper
thickets, is tame beside cow-hunting in the old days.
The happiest period of my life was my first five years on the range in
the early seventies. Indeed it was a period so happy that memory plays
me a shabby trick to recall its incidents and fire me with longings for
pleasures I may never again experience. Its scenes are all before me
now, vivid as if of yesterday.
The night camp is made beside a singing stream or a bubbling spring;
the night horses are caught and staked; there is a roaring, merry fire
of fragrant cedar boughs; a side of fat ribs is roasting on a spit
before the fire, its sweet juices hissing as they drop into the flames,
and sending off odors to drive one ravenous; the rich amber contents of
the coffee pot is so full of life and strength that it is well-nigh
bursting the lid with joy over the vitality and stimulus it is to bring
you. Supper eaten, there follow pipe and cigarette, jest and bandinage
[Transcriber's note: badinage?] over the day's events; stories and
songs of love, of home, of mother; and rude impromptu epics relating
the story of victories over vicious horses, wild beasts, or savage
Indians. When the fire has burnt low and become a mass of glowing
coals, voices are hushed, the camp is still, and each, half hypnotized
by gazing into the weirdly shifting lights of the dying embers, is
wrapped in introspection. Then, rousing, you lie down, your canopy the
dark blue vault of the heavens, your mattress the soft, curling buffalo
grass. After a night of deep refreshing sleep you spring at dawn with
every faculty renewed and tense. Breakfast eaten, you catch a favorite
roping-horse, square and heavy of shoulder and quarter, short of back,
with wide nervous nostrils, flashing eyes, ears pointing to the
slightest sound, pasterns supple and strong as steel, and of a nerve
and temper always reminding you that you are his master only by
sufferance. Now begins the day's hunt. Riding softly through cedar
brake or mesquite thicket, slipping quickly from one live oak to
another, you come upon your quarry, some great tawny yellow monster
with sharp-pointed, wide-spreading horns, standing startled and rigid,
gazing at you with eyes wide with curiosity, uncertain whether to
attack or fly. Usually he at first turns and runs, and you dash after
him through timber or over plain, the great loop of your lariat
circling and hissing about your head, the noble horse between your
knees straining every muscle in pursuit, until, come to fit distance,
the loop is cast. It settles and tightens round the monster's horns,
and your horse stops and braces himself to the shock that may either
throw the quarry or cast horse and rider to the ground, helpless, at
his mercy. Once he is caught, woe to you if you cannot master and tie
him, for a struggle is on, a struggle of dexterity and intelligence
against brute strength and fierce temper, that cannot end till beast or
man is vanquished!
Thus were the great herds accumulated in Texas after the war. But
cattle were so abundant that their local value was trifling. Markets
had to be sought. The only outlets were the mining camps and Indian
agencies of the Northwest, and the railway construction camps then
pushing west from the Missouri River. So the Texans gathered their
cattle into herds of two thousand to three thousand head each, and
struck north across the trackless Plains. Indeed this movement reached
such proportions that, excepting in a few narrow mining belts, there is
scarcely one of the greater cities and towns between the ninety-eighth
and one hundred and twentieth meridians which did not have its origin
as a supply point for these nomads. Figures will emphasize the
magnitude of the movement. The cattle-drive northward from Texas
between the years 1866 and 1885 was approximately as follows:
1866 260,000 1877 201,000
1867 35,000 1878 265,649
1868 75,000 1879 257,927
1869 350,000 1880 394,784
1870 350,000 1881 250,000
1871 600,000 1882 250,000
1872 350,000 1883 265,000
1873 404,000 1884 416,000
1874 166,000 1885 350,000
1875 151,618 ---------
1876 321,998 Total 5,713,976
The range business on a large and profitable scale was long since
practically done and ended. In Texas there remain very few open ranges
capable of turning off fair grass beef. With the good lands farmed and
the poor lands exhausted, the ranges have become narrower every year;
and every year the cost of getting fat grass steers has been eating
deeper and deeper into the rangeman's pocket. Of course, there are
still isolated ranges where the rangemen still hang on, but they are
not many, and most of them must soon fall easy prey to the ploughshare.
When the rangeman was forced to lease land in Texas, or buy water
fronts in the Territories and build fences, his fate was soon sealed.
With these conditions, he soon found that the sooner he reduced his
numbers, improved his breed, and went on tame feed, the better. A corn
shock is now a more profitable close herder than any cowpuncher who
ever wore spurs. This is a sad thing for an old rangeman to
contemplate, but it is nevertheless the simple truth. Soon the merry
crack of the six Footer will no more be heard in the land, its wild and
woolly manipulator being driven across the last divide, with faint show
of resistance, by an unassuming granger and his all-conquering hoe.
The rangeman, like many another in the past, has served his purpose and
survived his usefulness. His work is practically done, and few realize
what a noble work it has been, or what its cost in hardship and danger.
I refer, of course, not alone to the development of a great industry,
which in its time has added millions to the material wealth of the
country, but to its collateral results and influence. But for the
venturesome rangeman and his rifle, millions of acres, from the Gulf in
the South to Bow River in the far Canadian Northwest, now constituting
the peaceful, prosperous homes of hundreds of thousands of thrifty
farmers, would have remained for many years longer what it had been
from the beginning--a hunting and battle ground for Indians, and a safe
retreat for wild game.
What was the hardship, and what the personal risk with which this great
pioneer work was accomplished, few know except those who had a hand in
it, and they as a rule, were modest men who thought little of what they
did, and now that it is done, say less.
CHAPTER III
A SELF-CONSTITUTED EXECUTIONER
Some think it fair to give a man warnin' you intend to kill him on
sight, an' then get right down to business as soon as you meet. But
that ain't no equal chance for both. The man that sees his enemy first
has the advantage, for the other is sure to be more or less rattled.
"Others consider it a square deal to stan' back to back with drawn
pistols, to walk five paces apart an' then swing and shoot. But even
this way is open to objections. While both may be equally brave an'
determined, one may be blamed nervous, like, an' excitable, while the
other is cool and deliberate; one may be a better shot than the other,
or one may have bad eyes.
"I tell you, gentlemen, none o' these deals are fair; they are
murderous. If you want to kill a man in a neat an' gentlemanly way
that will give both a perfectly equal show for life, let both be put in
a narrow hole in the ground that they can't git out of, their left arms
securely tied together, their right hands holdin' bowie knives, an' let
them cut, an' cut an' cut till one is down."
His heavy brow contracted into a fierce frown; his black eyes narrowed
and glittered balefully; his surging blood reddened the bronzed cheeks.
"Let them cut, I say, cut to a finish. That's fightin', an' fightin'
dead fair. Ah!" and the hard lines of the scarred face softened into a
look of infinite longing and regret, "if only I could find another man
with nerve enough to fight me that way!"
The speaker was Mr. Clay Allison, formerly of Cimarron, later domiciled
at Pope's Crossing. His listeners were cowboys. The scene was a
round-up camp on the banks of the Pecos River near the mouth of Rocky
Arroyo. Mr. Allison was not dilating upon a theory. On the contrary,
he was eminently a man of practice, especially in the matters of which
he was speaking. Indeed he was probably the most expert taker of human
life that ever heightened the prevailing dull colors of a frontier
community. Early in his career the impression became general that his
favorite tint was crimson.
And yet Mr. Allison was in no sense an assassin. I never knew him to
kill a man whom the community could not very well spare. While engaged
as a ranchman in raising cattle, he found more agreeable occupation for
the greater part of his time in thinning out the social weeds that are
apt to grow quite too luxuriantly for the general good in new Western
settlements. His work was not done as an officer of the law either.
It was rather a self-imposed task, in which he performed, at least to
his own satisfaction, the double functions of judge and executioner.
And in the unwritten code governing his decisions all offences had a
common penalty--death.
Mr. Allison was born with a passion for fighting, and he indulged the
passion until it became a mania. The louder the bullets whistled, the
redder the gleaming blades grew, the more he loved it.
Yet no knight of old that rode with King Arthur was ever a more
chivalrous enemy. He hated a foul blow as much as many of his
contemporaries loved "to get the drop," which meant taking your
opponent unawares and at hopeless disadvantage. In fact in most cases
he actually carried a chivalry so far as to warn the doomed man, a week
or two in advance, of the precise day and hour when he might expect to
die. And as Mr. Allison was known to be most scrupulous in standing to
his word, and as the victim knew there was no chance of a reprieve,
this gave him plenty of time to settle up his affairs and to prepare to
cross the last divide. Thus the estates of gentlemen who happened to
incur Mr. Allison's disapproval were usually left in excellent
condition and gave little trouble to the probate courts.
Of course the gentlemen receiving these warnings were under no
obligations to await Mr. Allison's pleasure. Some suddenly discovered
that they had imperative business in other and remote parts of the
country. Others were so anxious to save him unnecessary trouble that
they frequented trails he was known to travel, and lay sometimes for
hours and days awaiting him, making themselves as comfortable as
possible in the meantime behind some convenient boulder or tall nopal,
or in the shady recesses of a mesquite thicket. But they might as well
have saved all this bother, for the result was the same. Mr. Allison
could always spare the time to journey even from New Mexico to Montana
where it was necessary to the fulfilment of a promise to do so.
To those who were impatient and sought him out in advance, he was ever
obliging and proved ready to meet them where and when and how they
pleased. It was all the same to him. To avoid annoying legal
complications, he was known to have more than once deliberately given
his opponent the first shot.
In the early eighties a band of horse rustlers were playing great havoc
among the saddle stock in north-eastern New Mexico. It was chiefly
through Mr. Allison's industry and accurate marksmanship that their
numbers were reduced below a convenient working majority. The leader
vowed vengeance on Allison. One day they met unexpectedly in the stage
ranch at the crossing of the Cimarron.
Mr. Allison invited the rustler to take a drink. The invitation was
accepted. It was remarked by the bystanders that while they were
drinking neither seemed to take any especial interest in the brazen
pictures that constituted a feature of the Cimarron bar and were the
pride of its proprietor. The next manoeuvre in the game was a
proposition by Mr. Allison that they retire to the dining-room and have
some oysters. Unable to plead any other engagement to dine, the
rustler accepted. As they sat down at table, both agreed that their
pistols felt heavy about their waists, and each drew his weapon from
the scabbard and laid it on his knees.
While the Cimarron ranch was noted for the best cooking on the trail,
other gentlemen at dinner seemed oddly indifferent to its delicacies,
nervously gulped down a few mouthfuls and then slipped quietly out of
the room, leaving loaded plates.
Presently Mr. Allison dropped a fork on the floor--perhaps by
accident--and bent as if to pick it up. An opening in his enemy's
guard the rustler could not resist: he grabbed the pistol lying in his
lap and raised it quickly, but in doing so he struck the muzzle beneath
the edge of the table, causing an instant's delay. It was, however,
enough; Allison had pitched sideways to the floor, and, firing beneath
the table, converted a bad rustler into a good one.
Dodge City used to be one of the hottest places on the Texas trail. It
was full of thugs and desperadoes of the worst sort, come to prey upon
the hundreds of cowboys who were paid off there. This money had to be
kept in Dodge at any cost. Usually the boys were easy game. What
money the saloons failed to get was generally gambled off against brace
games of faro or monte. And those who would neither drink nor play
were waylaid, knocked down, and robbed.
On one occasion when the Hunter and Evans "Jinglebob" outfits were in
town, they objected to some of these enforced levies as unreasonably
heavy. A pitched battle on the streets resulted. Many of the boys
were young and inexperienced, and they were getting quite the worst of
it, when Clay Allison happened along and took a hand.
The fight did not last much longer. When it was over, it was
discovered that several of Dodge's most active citizens had been
removed from their field of usefulness. For the next day or two, "Boot
Hill" (the local graveyard) was a scene of unusual activity.
From all this it fell out that a few days later when Clay Allison rode
alone out of Dodge returning home, he was ambushed a few miles from
town by three men and shot from his horse. Crippled too badly to
resist, he lay as if dead. Thinking their work well done, the three
men came out of hiding, kicked and cursed him, shot two or three more
holes in him, and rode back to town. But Allison, who had not even
lost consciousness, had recognized them. A few hours later the driver
of a passing wagon found him and hauled him into town. After lingering
many weeks between life and death, Allison recovered. As soon as they
heard that he was convalescing, the three who had attacked him wound up
their affairs and fled the town.
When able to travel Allison sold his ranch. Questioned by his friends
as to his plans, he finally admitted that he felt it a duty to hunt
down the men who had ambushed him; remarked that he feared they might
bushwhack some one else if they were not removed.
Number One of the three men he located in Cheyenne, Wyoming. Cheyenne
was then a law-abiding community, and Allison could not afford to take
any chances of court complications that would interfere with the
completion of his work. He therefore spent several days in covertly
watching the habits of his adversary. From the knowledge thus gained
he was able one morning suddenly to turn a street corner and confront
Number One. Without the least suspicion that Allison was in the
country, the man, knowing that his life hung by a thread, jerked his
pistol and fired on the instant. As Allison had shrewdly calculated,
his enemy was so nervous that his shot flew wild. Number One did not
get a second shot. At the inquest several witnesses of the affray
swore that Allison did not even draw until after the other had fired.
Several weeks later Number Two was found in Tombstone, Arizona, a town
of the good old frontier sort that had little use for coroners and
juries, so the fighting was half fair. Half an hour after landing from
the stagecoach, Allison encountered his man in a gambling-house.
Number Two remained in Tombstone--permanently--while Mr. Allison
resumed his travels by the evening coach.
The hunt for Number Three lasted several months. Allison followed him
relentlessly from place to place through half a dozen States and
Territories, until he was located on a ranch near Spearfish, Dakota.
They met at last, one afternoon, within the shadow of the Devil's
Tower. In the duel that ensued, Allison's horse was killed under him.
This occasioned him no particular inconvenience, however, for he found
that Number Three's horse, after having a few hours' rest, was able to
carry him into Deadwood, where he caught the Sidney stage.
With this task finished, Mr. Allison was able to return to commercial
pursuits. He settled at Pope's Crossing on the Pecos River, in New
Mexico, bought cattle, and stocked the adjacent range. Pecos City, the
nearest town, lay fifty miles to the south.
Started as a "front camp" during the construction of the Texas Pacific
Railway in 1880, for five or six years Pecos contrived to rock along
without any of the elaborate municipal machinery deemed essential to
the government and safety of urban communities in the effete East. It
had neither council, mayor, nor peace officer. An early experiment in
government was discouraging.
In 1883 the Texas Pacific station-agent was elected mayor. His name
was Ewing, a little man with fierce whiskers and mild blue eyes. Two
nights after the election a gang of boys from the "Hash Knife" outfit
were in town; fearing circumscription of some of their privileges, the
election did not have their approval. Gleaming out of the darkness
fifty yards away from the Lone Wolf Saloon, the light of Mayor Ewing's
office window offered a most tempting target. What followed was very
natural--in Pecos.
The Mayor was sitting at his table receiving train orders, when
suddenly a bullet smashed the telegraph key beside his hand and other
balls whistled through the room bearing him a message he had no trouble
in reading. Rushing out into the darkness, he spent the night in the
brush, and toward morning boarded an east-bound freight train. Mayor
Ewing had abdicated. The railway company soon obtained another
station-agent, but it was some years before the town got another mayor.
On Pecos carnival nights like this, when some of the cowboys were in
town, prudent people used to sleep on the floor of Van Slyke's store
with bags of grain piled round their blankets two tiers deep, for no
Pecos house walls were more than inch boards.
At this early period of its history the few wandering advance agents of
the Gospel who occasionally visited Pecos were not well received. They
were not abused; they were simply ignored. When not otherwise
occupied, the average Pecosite had too much whittling on hand to find
time to "'tend meetin'"; of this every pine drygoods box in the town
bore mute evidence, its fair sides covered with innumerable rude
carvings cut by aimless hands.
This prevailing indifference to religion shocked Mr. Allison. As
opportunity offered he tried to remedy it, and as far as his
evangelical work went it was successful. One Tuesday morning about ten
o'clock he walked into the Lone Wolf Saloon, laid two pistols on the
end of the bar next the front door, and remarked to Red Dick, the
bartender, that he intended to turn the saloon into a church for a
couple of hours and did not want any drinks sold or cards thrown during
the services.
Taking his stand just within the doorway, pistol in hand, Mr. Allison
began to assemble his congregation. The first comer was Billy Jansen,
the leading merchant of the town. As he was passing the door Clay
remarked:
"Good-mornin', Mr. Jansen, won't you please step inside? Religious
services will be held here shortly an' I reckon you'll be useful in the
choir."
The only reply to Billy's protest of urgent business was a gesture that
made Billy think going to church would be the greatest pleasure he
could have that morning.
Mr. Allison never played favorites at any game, and so all passers were
stopped: merchants, railway men, gamblers, thugs, cowboys,
freighters--all were stopped and made to enter the saloon. The least
furtive movement to draw a gun or to approach the back door received
prompt attention from the impromptu evangelist that quickly restored
order in the congregation. When fifty or sixty men had been brought
into this improvised fold, Mr. Allison closed the door and faced about.
"Fellers," he said, "this meetin' bein' held on the Pecos, I reckon
we'll open her by singin' 'Shall We Gather at the River?' Of course
we're already gathered, but the song sort o' fits. No gammon now,
fellers; everybody sings that knows her."
The result was discouraging. Few in the audience knew any hymn, much
less this one. Only three or four managed to hoarsely drawl through
two verses.
The hymn finished--as far as anybody could sing it--Mr. Allison said:
"Now, fellers, we'll pray. Everybody down!"
Only a few knelt. Among the congregation were some who regarded the
affair as sacrilegious, and others of the independent frontier type
were unaccustomed to dictation. However, a slight narrowing of the
cold black eyes and a significant sweep of the six-shooter brought
every man of them to his knees, with heads bowed over faro lay-outs and
on monte tables.
"O Lord!" began Allison, "this yere's a mighty bad neck o' woods, an' I
reckon You know it. Fellers don' think enough o' their souls to build
a church, an' when a pa'son comes here they don' treat him half white.
O Lord! make these fellers see that when they gits caught in the final
round-up an' drove over the last divide, they don' stan' no sort o'
show to git to stay on the heavenly ranch 'nless they believes an'
builds a house to pray an' preach in. Right here I subscribes a
hundred dollars to build a church, an' if airy one o' these yere
fellers don' tote up accordin' to his means, O Lord, make it Your
pers'n'l business to see that he wears the Devil's brand and ear mark
an' never gits another drop o' good spring water.
"Of course, I allow You knows I don' sport no wings myself, but I want
to do what's right ef You'll sort o' give a shove the proper way. An'
one thing I want You to understan'; Clay Allison's got a fast horse an'
is tol'able handy with his rope, and he's goin' to run these fellers
into Your corral even if he has to rope an' drag 'em there. Amen.
Everybody git up!"
While he prayed in the most reverent tone he could command, and while
his attitude was one of simple supplication, Mr. Allison never removed
his keen eyes from the congregation.
"Reckon we'll sing again, boys, an' I want a little more of it. Le's
see what you-all knows."
At length six or eight rather sheepishly owned knowing "Old Hundred,"
and it was sung.
Then the sermon was in order.
"Fellers," he began, "my ole mammy used to tell me that the only show
to shake the devil off your trail was to believe everythin' the Bible
says. What yer mammy tells you 's bound to be right, dead right, so I
think I'll take the sentiment o' this yere round-up on believin'. O'
course, as a square man I'm boun' to admit the Bible tells some pow'ful
queer tales, onlike anythin' we-'uns strikes now days. Take that tale
about a fish swallerin' a feller named Jonah; why, a fish 't could
swaller a man 'od have to be as big in the barrel as the Pecos River is
wide an' have an openin' in his face bigger'n Phantom Lake Cave.
Nobody on the Pecos ever see such a fish. But I wish you fellers to
distinctly understan' it's a _fact_. I believes it. Does you? Every
feller that believes a fish swallered Jonah, hold up his right hand!"
It is sad to have to admit that only two or three hands were raised.
"Well, I'll be durned," the evangelist continued, "you _air_ tough
cases. That's what's the matter with you; you are shy on faith. You
fellers has got to be saved, an' to be saved you got to believe, an'
believe hard, an' I'm agoin' to make you. Now hear _me_, an' mind you
don' forget it's Clay Allison talkin' to you: I tells you that when
that thar fish had done swallerin' Jonah, he swum aroun' fer a hull
hour lookin' to see if thar was a show to pick up any o' Jonah's family
or friends. Now what I tells you I reckon you're all bound to believe.
Every feller that believes that Jonah was jes' only a sort of a snack
fer the fish, hold up his right hand; an' if any feller don' believe
it, this yere ol' gun o' mine will finish the argiment."
Further exhortation was unnecessary; all hands went up.
And so the sermon ran on for an hour, a crude homily full of rude
metaphor, with little of sentiment or pleading, severely didactic,
mandatory as if spoken in a dungeon of the Inquisition. When Red Dick
passed the hat among the congregation for a subscription to build a
church, the contribution was general and generous. Many who early in
the meeting were full of rage over the restraint, and vowing to
themselves to kill Allison the first good chance they got, finished by
thinking he meant all right and had taken about the only practicable
means "to git the boys to 'tend meetin'."
In the town of Toyah, twenty miles west of Pecos, a gentleman named Jep
Clayton set the local spring styles in six-shooters and bowie knives,
and settled the hash of anybody who ventured to question them. A
reckless bully, he ruled the town as if he owned it.
One day John McCullough, Allison's brother-in-law and ranch foreman,
had business in Toyah. Clayton had heard of Allison but knew little
about him. Drunk and quarrelsome, he hunted up McCullough, called him
every abusive name he could think of before a crowd, and then suggested
that if he did not like it he might send over his brother-in-law
Allison, who was said to be a gun fighter. A mild and peaceable man
himself, McCullough avoided a difficulty and returned to Pecos.
Two days later a lone horseman rode into Toyah, stopped at Youngbloods'
store, tied his horse, and went in. Approaching the group of loafers
curled up on boxes at the rear of the store, he inquired:
"Can any of you gentlemen tell me if a gentleman named Clayton, Jep
Clayton, is in town, an' where I can find him?"
They replied that he had been in the store an hour before and was
probably near by.
As the lone horseman walked out of the door, one the loungers remarked:
"I believe that's Clay Allison, an' ef it is it's all up with Jep."
He slipped out and gave Jep warning, told him Allison was in town, that
he had known him years before, and that Jep had better quit town or say
his prayers. Concluding, he said, "You done barked up the wrong tree
this time, sure."
Allison went on from one saloon to another, at each making the same
polite inquiry for Mr. Clayton's whereabouts. At last, out on the
street Allison met a party of eight men, a crowd Clayton had gathered,
and repeated his inquiry. A man stepped out of the group and said: "My
name's Clayton, an' I reckon yours is Allison. Look here, Mr. Allison,
this is all a mistake. I----"
"Why, what's a mistake? Didn't you meet Mr. McCullough the other day?"
"Yes."
"Didn't you abuse him shamefully?"
"Well, yes, but----"
"Didn't you send me an invite to come over here?"
"Well, yes, I did, but it was a mistake, Mr. Allison; I was drunk. It
was whiskey talkin'; nothin' more. I'm terrible sorry. It was jes'
whiskey talk."
"Whiskey talk, was it? Well, Mr. Clayton, le's step in the saloon here
and get some whiskey an' see if it won't set you goin' again. I
believe I'd enjoy hearin' jes' a few words o' your whiskey talk."
They entered a saloon. For an hour Clayton was plied with whiskey,
taunted and jeered until those who had admired him slunk away in
disgust, and those who had feared him laughed in enjoyment of his
humiliation. But no amount of whiskey could rouse him that day.
Allison's scarred, impassive face, low, quiet tones, and glittering
black eyes held him cowed. The terror of Toyah had found his master,
and knew it.
At last, in utter disgust, Allison concluded:
"Mr. Clayton, your invitation brought me twenty miles to meet a gun
fighter. I find you such a cur that if ever we meet again I'll lash
you into strips with a bull whip."
A month later Mr. Clayton was killed by his own brother-in-law, Grant
Tinnin, one of the quiet good men of the country, who never failed to
score in any real emergency.
"I wonder how it will all end!" Allison used often to remark while
lying idly staring into the camp-fire. "Of course I know I can't keep
up this sort o' thing; some one's sure to get me. An' I'd jes' give
anything in the world to know _how_ I'm goin to die--by pistol or
knife."
It turned out that Fate had decreed other means for his removal.
One day Allison and his brother-in-law John McCullough had a serious
quarrel. Allison left the ranch and rode into town to think it over.
In his later years killing had become such a mania with him that his
best friend could never feel entirely safe against his deadly temper;
the least difference might provoke a collision. McCullough was
therefore not greatly surprised to get a letter from Allison a few days
later, sent out by special messenger, telling him that Allison would
reach the ranch late in the afternoon of the next day and would kill
him on sight.
Early in the morning of the appointed day Allison left town in a
covered hack. He had been drinking heavily and had whiskey with him.
About half-way between town and the ranch he overtook George Larramore,
a freighter, seated out in the sun on top of his heavy load.
"Hello, George!" called Allison; "mighty hot up there, ain't it?"
"Howd'y, Mr. Allison. I don' mind the heat; I'm used to it," answered
Larramore.
"George," called Allison, after driving on a short distance, "'pears to
me the good things o' this world ain't equally divided. I don't see
why you should sit up there roasting in the sun an' me down here in the
shade o' the hack. We'll jes' even things a little right here. You
crawl down off that load an' jump into the hack an' I'll get up there
an' drive your team."
"Pow'ful good o' you, Mr. Allison, but----"
"Crawl down, I say, George, it's Clay tellin' you!"
And the change was made without further delay.
Five miles farther up the road John McCullough and two friends lay in
ambush all that day and far into the night, with ready Winchesters,
awaiting Allison. But he never came.
Shortly after taking his seat on top of the high load in the broiling
sun, plodding slowly along in the dust and heat, Allison was nodding
drowsily, when suddenly a protruding mesquite root gave the wagon a
sharp jolt that plunged Clay headlong into the road, where, before he
could rise, the great wheels crunched across his neck.
CHAPTER IV
TRIGGERFINGERITIS[1]
On the Plains thirty years ago there were two types of man-killers; and
these two types were subdivided into classes.
The first type numbered all who took life in contravention of law.
This type was divided into three classes: A, Outlaws to whom
blood-letting had become a mania; B, Outlaws who killed in defence of
their spoils or liberty; C, Otherwise good men who had slain in the
heat of private quarrel, and either "gone on the scout" or "jumped the
country" rather than submit to arrest.
The second type included all who slew in support of law and order.
This type included six classes: A, United States marshals; B, Sheriffs
and their deputies; C, Stage or railway express guards, called
"messengers"; D, Private citizens organized as Vigilance
Committees--these often none too discriminating, and not infrequently
the blind or willing instruments of individual grudge or greed; E,
Unorganized bands of ranchmen who took the trail of marauders on life
or property and never quit it; F, "Inspectors" (detectives) for Stock
Growers' Associations.
Throughout the seventies and well into the eighties, in Wyoming,
Dakota, western Kansas and Nebraska, New Mexico, and west Texas, courts
were idle most of the time, and lawyers lived from hand to mouth. The
then state of local society was so rudimentary that it had not acquired
the habit of appeal to the law for settlement of its differences. And
while it may sound an anachronism, it is nevertheless the simple truth
that while life was far less secure through that period, average
personal honesty then ranked higher and depredations against property
were fewer than at any time since.
As soon as society had advanced to a point where the victim could be
relied on to carry his wrongs to court, judges began working overtime
and lawyers fattening. But of the actual pioneers who took their lives
in their hands and recklessly staked them in their everyday goings and
comings (as, for instance, did all who ventured into the Sioux country
north of the Platte between 1875 and 1880) few long stayed--no matter
what their occupation--who were slow on the trigger: it was back to
Mother Earth or home for them.
Of the supporters of the law in that period Boone May was one of the
finest examples any frontier community ever boasted. Early in 1876 he
came to Cheyenne with an elder brother and engaged in freighting thence
overland to the Black Hills. Quite half the length of the stage road
was then infested by hostile Sioux. This meant heavy risks and high
pay. The brothers prospered so handsomely that, toward the end of the
year, Boone withdrew from freighting, bought a few cattle and horses,
and built and occupied a ranch at the stage-road crossing of Lance
Creek, midway between the Platte and Deadwood, in the very heart of the
Sioux country. Boone was then well under thirty, graceful of figure,
dark-haired, wore a slender downy moustache that served only to
emphasize his youth, but possessed that reserve and repose of manner
most typical of the utterly fearless.
The Sioux made his acquaintance early, to their grief. One night they
descended on his ranch and carried off all the stage horses and most of
Boone's. Although the "sign" showed there were fifteen or twenty in
the party, at daylight Boone took their trail, alone. The third day
thereafter he returned to the ranch with all the stolen stock, besides
a dozen split-eared Indian ponies, as compensation for his trouble,
taken at what cost of strategy or blood Boone never told.
Learning of this exploit from his drivers, Al. Patrick, the
superintendent of the stage line, took the next coach to Lance Creek
and brought Boone back to Deadwood, enlisted in his corps of
"messengers"; he was too good timber to miss.
At that time every coach south-bound from Deadwood to Cheyenne carried
thousands in its mail-pouches and express-boxes; and once a week a
treasure coach armored with boiler plate, carrying no passengers, and
guarded by six or eight "messengers" or "sawed-off shotgun men,"
conveyed often as high as two hundred thousand dollars of hard-won
Black Hills gold bars.
Thus it naturally followed that, throughout 1877 and 1878, it was the
exception for a coach to get through from the Chugwater to Jenny's
stockade without being held up by bandits at least once.
Any that happened to escape Jack Wadkins in the south were likely to
fall prey to Dune Blackburn in the north--the two most desperate
bandit-leaders in the country.
In February, 1878, I had occasion to follow some cattle thieves from
Fort Laramie to Deadwood. Returning south by coach one bitter evening
we pulled into Lance Creek, eight passengers inside, Boone May and
myself on the box with 'Gene Barnett the driver; Stocking, another
famous messenger, roosted behind us atop of the coach, fondling his
sawed-off shotgun.
From Lance Creek southward lay the greatest danger zone. At that
point, therefore, Boone and Stocking shifted from the coach to the
saddle, and, as 'Gene popped his whip and the coach crunched away
through the snow, both dropped back perhaps thirty yards behind us.
An hour later, just as the coach got well within a broad belt of plum
bushes that lined the north bank of Old Woman's Fork, out into the
middle of the road sprang a lithe figure that threw a snap shot over
'Gene's head and halted us.
Instantly six others surrounded the coach and ordered us down. I
already had a foot on the nigh front wheel to descend, when a shot out
of the brush to the west, (Boone's, I later learned) dropped the man
ahead of the team.
Then followed a quick interchange of shots for perhaps a minute,
certainly no more, and then I heard Boone's cool voice:
"Drive on, 'Gene!"
"Move an' I'll kill you!" came in a hoarse bandit's voice from the
thicket east of us.
"Drive on, 'Gene, or _I'll kill_ you," came then from Boone, in a tone
of such chilling menace that 'Gene threw the bud into the leaders, and
away we flew at a pace materially improved by three or four shots the
bandits sent singing past our ears and over the team! The next down
coach brought to Cheyenne the comforting news that Boone and Stocking
had killed four of the bandits and stampeded the other three.
Within six months after Boone was employed, both Dune Blackburn and
Jack Wadkins disappeared from the stage road, dropped out of sight as
if the earth had opened and swallowed them, as it probably had. Boone
had a way of absenting himself for days from his routine duties along
the stage road. He slipped off entirely alone after this new quarry
precisely as he had followed the Sioux horse-raiders and, while he
never admitted it, the belief was general that he had run down and
"planted" both. Indeed it is almost a certainty this is true, for
beasts of their type never change their stripes, and sure it is that
neither were ever seen or heard of after their disappearance from the
Deadwood trail.
Late in the Autumn of the same year, 1878, and also at or near the
stage-crossing of Old Woman's Fork, Boone and one companion fought
eight bandits led by a man named Tolle, on whose head was a large
reward. This was earned by Boone at a hold-up of a U. P. express train
near Green River.
This band was, in a way, more lucky, for five of the eight escaped; but
of the three otherwise engaged one furnished a head which Boone toted
in a gunny sack to Cheyenne and exchanged for five thousand dollars, if
my memory rightly serves.
This incident was practically the last of the serious hold-ups on the
Cheyenne road. A few pikers followed and "stood up" a coach
occasionally, but the strong organized bands were extinct.
Throughout 1879 Boone's activities were transferred to the
Sidney-Deadwood road, where for several months before Boone's coming,
Curly and Lame Johnny had held sway. Lame Johnny was shortly
thereafter captured, and hanged on the lone tree that gave the Big
Cottonwood Creek its name. A few months later, Curly was captured by
Boone and another, but was never jailed or tried: when nearing
Deadwood, he tried to escape from Boone, and failed.
With the Sioux pushed back within the lines of their new reservation in
southern Dakota and semi-pacified, and with the Sidney road swept clean
of road-agents, life in Boone's old haunts became for him too tame.
Thus it happened that, while trapping was then no better within than
without the Sioux reservation, the Winter of 1879-80 found Boone and
four mates camped on the Cheyenne River below the mouth of Elk Creek,
well within the reserve, trapping the main stream and its tributaries.
For a month they were undisturbed, and a goodly store of fur was fast
accumulating. Then one fine morning, while breakfast was cooking, out
from the cover of an adjacent hill and down upon them charged a Sioux
war party, one hundred and fifty strong.
Boone's four mates barely had time to take cover below the hard-by
river bank--under Boone's orders--before fire opened. Down straight
upon them the Sioux charged in solid mass, heels kicking and quirts
pounding their split-eared ponies, until, having come within a hundred
yards, the mass broke into single file and raced past the camp, each
warrior lying along the off side of his pony and firing beneath its
neck--the usual but utterly stupid and suicidal Sioux tactics, for
accurate fire under such conditions is of course impossible.
Meantime Boone stood quietly by the camp-fire, entirely in the open,
coolly potting the enemy as regularly and surely as a master wing-shot
thinning a flight of ducks. Three times they so charged and Boone so
received them, pouring into them a steady, deadly fire out of his
Winchester and two pistols. And when, after the third charge, the war
party drew off for good, forty-odd ponies and twenty-odd warriors lay
upon the plain, stark evidence of Boone's wonderful nerve and
marksmanship. Shortly after the fight one of his mates told me that
while he and three others were doing their best, there was no doubt
that nearly all the dead fell before Boone's fire.
A type diametrically opposite to that of the debonair Boone May was
Captain Jim Smith, one of the best peaceofficers the frontier ever
knew. Of Captain Smith's early history nothing was known, except that
he had served with great credit as a captain of artillery in the Union
Army. He first appeared on the U. P. during construction days in the
late sixties. Serving in various capacities as railroad detective,
marshal, stock inspector, and the like, for eighteen years Captain
Smith wrote more red history with his pistol (barring May's work on the
Sioux) than any two men of his time.
The last I knew of him he had enough dead outlaws to his
credit--thirty-odd--to start, if not a respectable, at least, a
fair-sized graveyard. Captain Jim's mere look was almost enough to
still the heart-beat and paralyze the pistol hand of any but the
wildest of them all. His great burning black eyes, glowering deadly
menace from cavernous sockets of extraordinary depth, were set in a
colossal grim face; his straight, thin-lipped mouth never showed teeth;
his heavy, tight-curling black moustache and stiff black imperial
always had the appearance of holding the under lip closely glued to the
upper. In years of intimacy, I never once saw on his lips the faintest
hint of a smile. He had tremendous breadth of shoulders and depth of
chest; he was big-boned, lean-loined, quick and furtive of movement as
a panther. In short, Captain Jim was altogether the most
fearsome-looking man I ever saw, the very incarnation of a relentless,
inexorable, indomitable, avenging Nemesis.
Like most men lacking humor, Captain Jim was devoid of vices; like all
men lacking sentiment, he cultivated no intimacies. Throughout those
years loved nothing, animate or inanimate, but his guns--the full
length "45" that nestled in its breast scabbard next his heart, and the
short "45," sawed off two inches in front of the cylinder, that he
always carried in a deep side-pocket of his long sack coat. This was
often a much patched pocket, for Jim was a notable economist of time,
and usually fired from within the pocket. That he loved those guns I
know, for often have I seen him fondle them as tenderly as a mother her
first-born.
In 1879 Sidney, Neb., was a hell-hole, filled with the most desperate
toughs come to prey upon overland travellers to and from the Black
Hills. Of these toughs McCarthy, proprietor of the biggest saloon and
gambling-house in town, was the leading spirit and boss. Nightly, men
who would not gamble were drugged or slugged or leaded. Town marshals
came and went--either feet first or on a keen run.
So long as its property remained unmolested the U. P. management did
not mind. But one night the depot was robbed of sixty thousand dollars
in gold bullion. Of course, this was the work of the local gang. Then
the U. P. got busy. Pete Shelby summoned Captain Jim to Omaha and
committed the Sidney situation to his charge. Frequenting haunts where
he knew the news would be wired to Sidney, Jim casually mentioned that
he was going out there to clean out the town, and purposed killing
McCarthy on sight. This he rightly judged would stampede, or throw a
chill into, many of the pikers--and simplify his task.
Arrived in Sidney, Jim found McCarthy absent, at North Platte, due to
return the next day. Coming to the station the next morning, Jim found
the express reported three hours late, and returned to his room in the
railway House, fifty yards north of the depot. He doffed his coat,
shoulder scabbard, and boots, and lay down, shortly falling into a doze
that nearly cost him his life. Most inconsiderately the train made up
nearly an hour of its lost time. Jim's awakening was sudden, but not
soon enough. Before he had time to rise at the sound of the softly
opening door, McCarthy was over him with a pistol at his head.
Jim's left hand nearly touched the gun pocket of his coat, and his
right lay in reach of the other gun; but his slightest movement meant
instant death.
"Heerd you come to hang my hide up an' skin the town, but you're under
a copper and my open play wins, Black Jim! See?" growled McCarthy.
"Well, Mac," coolly answered Jim, "you're a bigger damn fool than I
allowed. Never heard of you before makin' a killin' there was nothin'
in. What's the matter with you and your gang? I'm after that bullion,
and I've got a straight tip: Lame Johnny's the bird that hooked onto
it. If you're standing in with him, you better lead me aplenty, for if
you don't I'll sure get him."
"Honest? Is that right, Jim? Ain't lyin' none?" queried McCarthy,
relieved of the belief that his gang were suspected.
"Sure, she's right, Mac."
"But I heerd you done said you was comin' to do me," persisted McCarthy.
"Think I'm fool enough to light in diggin' my own grave, by sendin'
love messages like that to a gun expert like you, Mac?" asked Captain
Jim.
Whether it was the subtle flattery or Jim's argument, Mac lowered his
gun, and while backing out of the room, remarked: "Nothin' in mixin' it
with you, Jim, if you don't want me."
But Mac was no more than out of the room when Jim slid off the bed
quick as a cat; softly as a cat, on his noiseless stockinged feet he
followed Mac down the hall; crafty as a cat, he crept down the creaking
stairs, tread for tread, a scant arm's length behind his prey--why, God
alone knows, unless for a savage joy in longer holding another thug's
life in his hands. So he hung, like a leech to the blood it loves,
across the corridor and to the middle of the trunk room that lay
between the hall and the hotel office. There Jim spoke:
"Oh! Mr. McCarthy!"
Mac whirled, drawing his gun, just in time to receive a bullet squarely
through the heart.
During the day Jim got two more scalps. The rest of the McCarthy gang
got the impression that it was up to them to pull their freight out of
Sidney, and acted on it.
In 1882 the smoke of the Lincoln County War still hung in the timber of
the Ruidoso and the Bonito, a feud in which nearly three hundred New
Mexicans lost their lives. Depredations on the Mescalero Reservation
were so frequent that the Indians were near open revolt.
Needing a red-blooded agent, the Indian Bureau sought and got one in
Major W. H. H. Llewellyn, since Captain of Rough Riders, Troup H, then
a United States marshal with a distinguished record. The then Chief of
the Bureau offered the Major two troops of cavalry to preserve order
among the Mescaleros and keep marauders off the reservation, and was
astounded when Llewellyn declined and said he would prefer to handle
the situation with no other aid than that of one man he had in mind.
Captain Jim Smith was the man. And pleased enough was he when told of
the turbulence of the country and the certainty of plenty doing in his
line.
But by the time they reached the Mescalero Agency, the feud was ended;
the peace of exhaustion after years of open war and ambush had
descended upon Lincoln County, and the Mescaleros were glad enough
quietly to draw their rations of flour and coffee, and range the
Sacramentos and Guadalupes for game. For Jim and the band of Indian
police which he quickly organized there was nothing doing.
Inaction soon cloyed Captain Jim. It got on his nerves. Presently he
conceived a resentment toward the agent for bringing him down there
under false pretences of daring deeds to be done, that never
materialized. One day Major Llewellyn imprudently countermanded an
order Jim had given his Chief of Police, under conditions which the
Captain took as a personal affront. The next thing the Major knew, he
was covered by Jim's gun listening to his death sentence.
"Major," began Captain Jim, "right here is where you cash in. Played
me for a big fool long enough. Toted me off down here on the guarantee
of the best show of fightin' I've heard of since the war--here where
there ain't a man in the Territory with nerve enough left to tackle a
prairie dog, 's far 's I can see. Lied to me a plenty, didn't you?
Anything to say before you quit?"
Since that time Major Llewellyn has become (and is now) a famous
pleader at the New Mexican bar, but I know he will agree that the most
eloquent plea he has t this day made was that in answer to Captain
Jim's arraignment. Luckily it won.
A month later Jim called on me at El Paso. At the time I was President
of the West Texas Cattle Growers' Association, organized chiefly to
deal with marauding rustlers.
"Howd'y, Ed," Jim began, "I've jumped the Mescalero Reservation, headed
north. Nothin' doin' down here now. But, say, Ed, I hear they're
crowdin' the rustlers a plenty up in the Indian Territory and the Pan
Handle, and she's a cinch they'll be down on you thick in a few months.
And, say, Ed, don't forget old Jim; when the rustlers come, send for
him. You know he's the cheapest proposition ever--never any lawyers'
fees or court costs, nothin' to pay but just Jim's wages."
That was the last time we ever met, and lucky it will probably be for
me if we never meet again; for if Jim still lives and there is aught in
this story he sees occasion to take exception to, I am sure to be due
for a mix-up I can very well get on without.
From 1878 to 1880 Billy Lykins was one of the most efficient inspectors
of the Wyoming Stock Growers' Association, a short man of heavy
muscular physique and a round, cherubic, pink and white face, in which
a pair of steel-blue glittering eyes looked strangely out of place. A
second glance, however, showed behind the smiling mouth a set of the
jaw that did not belie the fighting eyes. So far as I can now recall,
Billy never failed to get what he went after while he remained in our
employ.
Probably the toughest customer Billy ever tackled was Doc Middleton.
As an outlaw, Doc was the victim of an error of judgment. When he
first came among us, hailing from Llano County, Texas, Doc was as fine
a puncher and jolly, good-tempered range-mate as any in the Territory.
Sober and industrious, he never drank or gambled. But he had his bit
of temper, had Doc, and his chunk of good old Llano nerve. Thus, when
a group of carousing soldiers, in a Sidney saloon, one night lit in to
beat Doc up with their six-shooters for refusing to drink with them,
the inevitable happened in a very few seconds; Doc killed three of
them, jumped his horse, and split the wind for the Platte.
And therein lay his error.
The killing was perfectly justifiable; surrendered and tried, he would
surely have been acquitted. But his breed never surrender, at least,
never before their last shell is emptied. Flight having made him an
outlaw, the Government offered a heavy reward for him, dead or alive.
For a time he was harbored among his friends on the different ranches;
indeed was a welcome guest of my Deadman Ranch for several days; but in
a few weeks the hue and cry got so hot that he had to jump for the Sand
Hills south of the Niobrara.
Ever pursued, he found that honest wage-earning was impossible.
Presently he was confronted with want, not of much, indeed of very
little, but that want was vital--he wanted cartridges. At this time
the Sand Hills were full of deer and antelope; and therefore to him
cartridges meant more even than defence of his freedom, they meant
food. It was this want that drove him into his first actual crime, the
stealing of Sioux ponies, which he ran into the settlements and sold.
The downward path of the criminal is like that of the limpid,
clean-faced brook, bred of a bubbling spring nestled in some shady nook
of the hills, where the air is sweet and pure, and pollution cometh
not. But there it may not stay; on and yet on it rushes, as helpless
as heedless, till one day it finds itself plunged into some foul
current carrying the off-scourings of half a continent. So on and down
plunged Doc; from stealing Indian ponies to lifting ranch horses was no
long leap in his new code.
Then our stock Association got busy and Billy Lykins took his trail.
Oddly, in a few months the same type of accident in turn saved the life
of each. Their first encounter was single-handed. With the better
horse, Lykins was pressing Doc so close that Doc raced to the crest of
a low conical hill, jumped off his mount, dropped flat on the ground
and covered Lykins with a Springfield rifle, meantime yelling to him:
"Duck, you little Dutch fool; I don't want to kill you"; for they knew
each other well, and in a way were friends.
But Billy never knew when to stop. Deeper into his pony's flank sank
the rowels, and up the hill on Doc he charged, pistol in hand. At
thirty yards Doc pulled the trigger, when--wonder of wonders--the
faithful old Springfield missed fire. Before Doc could throw in
another shell or draw his pistol, Billy was over him and had him
covered.
If my memory rightly serves, the Sidney jail held Doc almost a
fortnight. A few weeks later Doc had assembled a strong gang about
him, rendezvoused on the Piney, a tributary of the lower Niobrara.
There he was far east of Lykins's bailiwick, but a good many degrees
within Lykins's disposition to quit his trail. Accompanied by Major W.
H. H. Llewellyn and an Omaha detective (inappropriately named Hassard),
Lykins located Doc's camp, and the three lay near for several days
studying their quarry.
One morning Llewellyn and Hassard started up the creek, mounted, on a
scout, leaving Lykins and his horse hidden in the brush near the trail.
At a sharp bend of the path the two ran plunk into Doc and five of his
men. Both being unknown to Doc's gang, and the position and odds
forbidding hostilities, they represented themselves as campers hunting
lost stock, and turned and rode back down the trail with the outlaws,
alert for any play their leader might make.
Recognizing his man, Billy lay with his "45" and "70" Sharps
comfortably resting across a log; and when the band were come within
twenty yards of him, he drew a careful bead on Doc's head and pulled
the trigger. By strange coincidence his Sharps missed fire, precisely
as had Doc's Springfield a few weeks before.
Hearing the snap of the rifle hammer, with a curse Doc jerked his gun
and whirled his horse toward the brush just as Billy sprang out into
the open and threw a pistol shot into Doc that broke his thigh.
Swaying in saddle, Doc cursed Hassard for leading him into a trap, and
shot him twice before himself pitching to the ground. Hassard stood
idly, stunned apparently by a sort of white-hot work he was not used
to, and received his death wound without any effort even to draw.
Meantime, the firm of Lykins and Llewellyn accounted for two more
before Doc's mates got out of range. Thus, like the brook, Doc had
drifted down the turbid current of crime till he found himself
impounded in the Lincoln penitentiary with the off-scourings of the
state.
While it is true that back into such impounding most who once have been
there soon return, Doc turned out to be one of the rare exceptions
proving the rule; for the last I heard of him, he was the lame but
light-hearted and wholly honest proprietor of a respectable Rushville
saloon.
When in the early eighties the front camps of the Atchison, Topeka, and
Santa Fe and the Texas Pacific met at El Paso, then a village called
Franklin, within a few weeks the population jumped from a few hundred
to nearly three thousand. Speculators, prospectors for business
opportunities, mechanics, miners, and tourists poured in--a
chance-taking, high-living, free-spending lot that offered such rich
pickings for the predatory that it was not long before nearly every fat
pigeon had a hungry, merciless vulture hovering near, watching for a
chance to fasten its claws and gorge itself.
The low one-story adobes, fronted by broad, arched portals, that then
lined the west side of El Paso Street for several blocks, was a long
solid row of variety theatres, dance halls, saloons, and
gambling-houses, never closed by day or by night. They were packed
with a roistering mob that drifted from one joint to another, dancing,
gambling, carousing, fighting. Naturally, at first the predatory
confined their attentions to the roisterers.
Of course every lay-out was a brace game, from which no player arose
with any notable winning except occasionally when the "house" felt it a
good bit of advertising to graduate a handsome winner--and then it was
usually a "capper," whose gains were in a few minutes passed back into
the till.
The faro boxes were full of springs as a watch; faro decks were
carefully cut "strippers." An average good dealer would shuffle and
arrange as he liked the favorite cards of known high-rollers. These
had been neatly split on either edge and a minute bit of bristle pasted
in, which no ordinary touch would feel, but which the sand-papered
finger tips of an expert dealer would catch and slip through on the
shuffle and place where they would do (the house) the most good. The
"tin horns" gave out few but false notes; the roulette balls were
kicked silly out of the boxes representing heavily played numbers. Not
content with the "Kitty's" rake-off, every stud poker table had one or
more "cappers" sitting in, to whom the dealers could occasionally throw
a stiff pot. The backs of poker decks were so cunningly marked that
while the wise ones could read their size and suit across the table, no
untaught eye could detect their guile. And wherever a notable roll was
once flashed, greedy eyes never left it until it was safe in the till
of some game, or its owner "rolled" and relieved of it by force.
For months orgy ran riot and the predatory band grew bolder and cruder
in their methods. Killings were frequent. Few nights passed without
more or less street hold-ups--usually more. Respectable citizens took
the middle of the street, literally gun in hand, when forced to be out
of nights. The Mayor and City Council were powerless. City marshals
and deputies they hired in bunches, but all to no purpose. Each fresh
lot of appointees were short-lived, literally or officially--mostly
literally. Finally, a vigilance committee was formed, made up of good
citizens not a few of whom were gun experts with their own bit of red
record. But nothing came of it. The predatories openly flouted and
defied them.
On one notable night when the committee were assembled in front of the
old Grand Central Hotel, a mob of two hundred toughs lined up before
the thirty-odd of the committee and dared them to open the ball; and it
was a miracle the little Plaza was not then and there turned into a
slaughter pen bloody as the Alamo. It really looked as if nothing
short of martial law and a strong body of troops could pacify the town.
But one night, into the chamber of the City Council stalked a man, the
man of the hour, unheralded and unknown. He gave the name of Bill
Stoudenmayer. About all that was ever learned of him was that he
hailed from Fort Davis. His type was that of a course, brutal,
Germanic gladiator, devoid of strategy; a bluff, stubborn,
give-and-take fighter, who drove bull-headed at whatever opposed him.
But El Paso soon learned that he could handle his guns with as deadly
dexterity as did his forebears their nets and tridents.
Asked his business with the Council, he said he had heard they had
failed to find a marshal who could hold the town down, and allowed he'd
like to try the job if the Council would make it worth his while.
Questioned as to his views, he explained that he was there to make some
good money for himself and save the city more; if they would pay him
five hundred dollars a month for two months, they could discharge all
their deputies and he would go it alone and agree to clear the town of
toughs or draw no pay. The Mayor and Council were paralyzed in a
double sense: by the wild audacity of this proposal, and by their
memory of recent threats of the thug-leaders that they would massacre
the Council to a man if any further attempts were made to circumscribe
their activities. Some were openly for declining the offer, but in the
end a majority gained heart of Stoudenmayer's own hardihood
sufficiently to hire him.
The rest of the night Stoudenmayer employed in quietly familiarizing
himself with the personnel of the enemy. He lost no time. At daylight
the next morning, several notices, manually written in a rude hand and
each bearing the signature of the rude hand that wrote it, were found
conspicuously posted between Oregon Street and the Plaza. The
signature was, "Bill Stoudenmayer, City Marshal."
The notice was brief but pointed:
"Any of the hold-ups named below I find in town after three o'clock
to-day, I'm going to kill on sight."
Then followed seventy names. The list was carefully chosen: all
"pikers" and "four-flushers" were omitted; none but the _élite_ of the
gun-twirling, black-jack swinging toughs was included. Hardly a single
man was named in the list lacking a more or less gory record.
By the toughs Stoudenmayer was taken as a jest, by respectable citizens
as a lunatic. Heavy odds were offered that he would not last till
noon, with few takers. And yet throughout the morning Stoudenmayer
quietly walked the streets, unaccompanied save by his two guns and his
conspicuously displayed marshal's star.
Nothing happened until about two o'clock, when two men sprang out from
ambush behind the big cottonwood tree that then stood on the northeast
corner of El Paso and San Antonio Streets, one armed with a shotgun and
the other with a pistol, and started to "throw down" on Stoudenmayer,
who was approaching from the other side of the street. But before
either got his artillery into action, the Marshal jerked his two
pistols and killed both, then quietly continued his stroll, over their
prostrate bodies, and past them, up the street. It was such an
obviously workmanlike job that it threw a chill into the hardiest of
the sixty-eight survivors,--so much of a chill that, though
Stoudenmayer paraded streets and threaded saloon and dance-hall throngs
all the rest of the afternoon, seeking his prey, not a single man of
them could he find; all stayed close in their dens.
But that the thug-leaders were not idle Stoudenmayer was not long
learning. In the last moments of twilight, just before the pall of
night fell upon the town, the Marshal was standing on the east side of
El Paso Street, midway between Oregon and San Antonio Streets, no cover
within reach of him. Suddenly, without the slightest warning, a heavy
fusillade opened on him from the opposite side of the street, a
fusillade so heavy it would have decimated a company of infantry. At
least a hundred men fired at him at the word, and it was a miracle he
did not go down at the first volley. But he was not even scathed.
Drawing his pistols, Stoudenmayer marched upon the enemy, slowly but
steadily, advancing straight, it seemed, into the jaws of death, but
firing with such wonderful rapidity and accuracy that seven of his foes
were killed and two wounded in almost as many seconds, although all
kept close as possible behind the shelter of the _portal_ columns. And
every second he was so engaged, at least a hundred guns, aimed by cruel
trained eyes, that scarce ever before had missed whatever they sought
to draw a bead on, were pouring out upon him a hell of lead that must
have sounded to him like a flight of bees.
But stand his iron nerve and fatal snap-shooting the thugs could not.
Before he was half way across the street, the hostile fire had ceased,
and his would-be assassins were flying for the nearest and best cover
they could find. Out of the town they slipped that night, singly and
in squads, boarding freight trains north and east, stages west and
south, stealing teams and saddle stock, some even hitting the trails
afoot, in stark terror of the man. The next morning El Paso found
herself evacuated of more than two hundred men who, while they had been
for a time her most conspicuous citizens, were such as she was glad
enough to spare. In twenty-four hours Bill Stoudenmayer had made his
word good and fairly earned his wages; indeed he had accomplished
single-handed what the most hopeful El Pasoites had despaired of seeing
done with less authority and force than two or three troops of regular
cavalry.
Then El Paso settled down to the humdrum but profitable task of laying
the foundations for the great metropolis of the Farther Southwest.
Since then, an occasional sporadic case of _triggerfingeritis_ has
developed in El Paso, usually in an acute form; but never once since
the night Stoudenmayer turned the El Paso Street Portals into a
shambles has it threatened as an epidemic.
Unluckily, Bill Stoudenmayer did not last long to enjoy the glory of
his deed. He was a marked man, merely from motives of revenge harbored
by friends of the departed (dead or live), but as a man with a
reputation so big as to hang up a rare prize in laurels for any with
the strategy and hardihood to down him. It was therefore matter of no
general surprise when, a few weeks after his resignation as City
Marshal, he fell the victim of a private quarrel.
A few years later, Hal Gosling was the U. S. Marshall for the Western
District of Texas. Early in Gosling's regime, Johnny Manning became
one of his most efficient and trusted deputies. The pair were wide
opposites: Gosling, a big, bluff, kindly, rollicking dare-devil afraid
of nothing, but a sort that would rather chaff than fight; Manning a
quiet, reserved, slender, handsome little man, not so very much bigger
than a full-grown "45," who actually sought no quarrels but would
rather fight than eat. Each in his own may [Transcriber's note: way?],
the pair made themselves a holy terror to such of the desperadoes as
ventured any liberties with Uncle Sam's belongings.
One of their notable captures was a brace of road-agents who had
appropriated the Concho stage road and about everything of value that
travelled it. The two were tried in the Federal Court at Austin and
sentenced to hard labor at Huntsville. Gosling and Manning started to
escort them to their new field of activity. Handcuffed but not
otherwise shackled, the two prisoners were given a seat together near
the middle of a day coach. By permission of the Marshal, the wife of
one and the sister of the other sat immediately behind them--dear old
Hal Gosling never could resist any appeal to his sympathies. The seat
directly across the aisle from the two prisoners was occupied by
Gosling and Manning. With the car well filled with passengers and
their men ironed, the Marshal and his Deputy were off their guard.
When out of Austin barely an hour, the train at full speed, the two
women slipped pistols into the hands of the two convicted bandits,
unseen by the officers. But others saw the act, and a stir of alarm
among those near by caused Gosling to whirl in his seat next the aisle,
reaching for the pistol in his breast scabbard. But he was too late.
Before he was half risen to his feet or his gun out, the prisoners
fired and killed him.
Then ensued a terrible duel, begun at little more than arm's length,
between Manning and the two prisoners, who presently began backing
toward the rear door. Quickly the car filled with smoke, and in it
pandemonium reigned, women screaming, men cursing, all who had not
dropped in a faint ducking beneath the car seats and trying their best
to burrow in the floor. When at length the two prisoners reached the
platform and sprang from the moving train, Johnny Manning, shot full of
holes as a sieve, lay unconscious across Hal Gosling's body; and the
sister of one of the bandits hung limp across the back of the seat the
prisoners had occupied, dead of a wild shot.
But Johnny had well avenged Hal's death and his own injuries; one of
the prisoners was found dead within a few yards of the track, and the
other was captured, mortally wounded, a half-mile away.
After many uncertain weeks, when Manning's system had successfully
recovered from the overdose of lead administered by the departed, he
quietly resumed his star and belt, and no one ever discovered that the
incident had made him in the least gun-shy.
Whenever the history of the Territory of New Mexico comes to be
written, the name of Colonel Albert J. Fountain deserves and should
have first place in it. Throughout the formative epoch of her
evolution from semi-savagery to civilization, an epoch spanning the
years from 1866 to 1896, Colonel Fountain was far and away her most
distinguished and most useful citizen. As soldier, scholar, dramatist,
lawyer, prosecutor, Indian fighter, and desperado-hunter, his was the
most picturesque personality I have ever known. Gentle and
kind-hearted as a woman, a lover of his books and his ease, he
nevertheless was always as quick to take up arms and undergo any hazard
and hardship in pursuit of murderous rustlers as he was in 1861 to join
the California Column (First California Volunteers) on its march across
the burning deserts of Arizona to meet and defeat Sibley at Val Verde.
A face fuller of the humanities and charities of life than his would be
hard to find; but, roused, the laughing eyes shone cold as a wintry
sky. He despised wrong, and hated the criminal, and spent his whole
life trying to right the one and suppress or exterminate the other. In
this work, and of it, ultimately, he lost his life.
In the early eighties, while the New Mexican courts were well-nigh
idle, crime was rampant, especially in Lincoln, Dona Ana, and Grant
Counties. To the east of the Rio Grande the Lincoln County War was at
its height, while to the west the Jack Kinney gang took whatever they
wanted at the muzzle of their guns; and they wanted about everything in
sight. County peace officers were powerless.
At this stage Fountain was appointed by the Governor "Colonel of State
Militia," and given a free hand to pacify the country. As an organized
military body, the militia existed only in name. And so Fountain left
it. Serious and effective as was his work, no man loved a grand-stand
play more than he. He liked to go it alone, to be the only thing in
the spot light. Thus most of his work as a desperado-hunter was done
single-handed.
On only one occasion that I can recall did he ever have with him on his
raids more than one or two men, always Mexicans, temporarily deputized.
That was when he met and cleaned out the Kinney gang over on the
Miembres, and did it with half the number of the men he was after.
Among those who escaped was Kinney's lieutenant. A few weeks later
Colonel Fountain learned that this man was in hiding at Concordia, a
_placita_ two miles below El Paso. He was one of the most desperate
Mexican outlaws the border has ever known, a man who had boasted he
would never be taken alive, and that he would kill Fountain before he
was himself taken dead, a human tiger, whom the bravest peace officer
might be pardoned for wanting a great deal of help to take. Yet
Fountain merely took his armory's best and undertook it alone: and by
mid-afternoon of the very next day after the information reached him he
had his man safely manacled at the El Paso depot of the Santa Fe
Railway.
While waiting for the train, Colonel George Baylor, the famous Captain
of Texas Rangers, chided Fountain for not wearing a cord to fasten his
pistol to his belt, as then did all the Rangers, to prevent its loss
from the scabbard in a running fight; and he finished by detaching his
own cord, and looping one end to Fountain's belt and the other to his
pistol. Then Fountain bade his old friend good-bye and boarded the
train with his prisoner, taking a seat near the centre of the rear car.
When well north of Canutillo and near the site of old Fillmore,
Fountain rose and passed forward to speak to a friend who was sitting a
few seats in front of him, a safe enough proceeding, apparently, with
his prisoner handcuffed and the train doing thirty-five miles an hour.
But scarcely had he reached his friend's side, when a noise behind him
caused him turn--just in time to see his Mexican running for rear door.
Instantly Fountain sprang after him, before he got to the door the man
had leaped from platform. Without the slightest hesitation, Fountain
jumped after him, hitting the ground only a few seconds behind him but
thirty or forty yards away, rolling like a tumbleweed along the ground.
By the time Fountain had regained his feet, his prisoner was running at
top speed for the mesquite thickets lining the river, in whose shadows
he must soon disappear, for it was already dusk. Reaching for his
pistol and finding it gone--lost evidently in the tumble--and fearing
to lose his prisoner entirely if he stopped to hunt for it, Fountain
hit the best pace he could in pursuit. But almost at the first jump
something gave him a thump on the shin that nearly broke it, and,
looking down, there, dangling on Colonel Baylor's pistol-cord, he saw
his gun.
Always a cunning strategist, Fountain dropped to the ground, sky-lined
his man on the crest of a little hillock he had to cross, and took a
careful two-handed aim which enabled Rio Grande ranchers thereafter to
sleep easier of nights.
And now, just as I am finishing this story, the wires bring the sad
news that dear old Pat Garrett, the dean and almost the last survivor
of the famous man-hunted of west Texas and New Mexico, has gone the way
of his kind--"died with his boots on." I cannot help believing that he
was the victim of a foul shot, for in his personal relations I never
knew him to court a quarrel or fail to get an adversary. Many a night
we have camped, eaten, and slept together. Barring Colonel Fountain,
Pat Garrett had stronger intellectuality and broader sympathies than
any of his kind I ever met. He could no more do enough for a friend
than he could do enough to an outlaw. In his private affairs so
easy-going that he began and ended a ne'er-do-well, in his official
duties as a peace officer he was so exacting and painstaking that he
ne'er did ill. His many intrepid deeds are too well known to need
recounting here.
All his life an atheist, he was as stubbornly contentious for his
unbelief as any Scotch Covenanter for his best-loved tenets.
Now, laid for his last rest in the little burying-ground of Las Cruces,
a tiny, white-paled square of sandy, hummocky bench land where the pink
of fragile nopal petals brightens the graves in Spring and the mesquite
showers them with its golden pods in Summer; where the sweet scent of
the _juajilla_ loads the air, and the sun ever shines down out of a
bright and cloudless sky; where a diminutive forest of crosses of wood
and stone symbolize the faith he in life refused to accept--now,
perhaps, Pat Garrett has learned how widely he was wrong.
Peace to his ashes, and repose to his dauntless spirit!
[1] _Triggerfingeritis_ is an acute irritation of the sensory nerves of
the index finger of habitual gun-packers; usually fatal--to some one.
CHAPTER V
A JUGGLER WITH DEATH
This is the story of a man, a virile, strong, resourceful man, all of
whose history from his youth to his untimely death thrills one at the
reading and points lessons worth learning.
The most careful study and the most just comparison would doubtless
concede to Washington Harrison Donaldson the high rank--high, indeed,
in a double sense--of having been the greatest aeronaut the world has
ever known.
While a few men have done some great deeds in aeronautics which he did
not accomplish, nevertheless Donaldson did more things never even
undertaken by any other aeronaut that any man who has ever lived.
Indeed, much of his work would be deemed by mankind at large downright
absurd, hair-brained, foolhardy, and reckless to the point of actual
madness; and yet no man ever possessed a saner mind than Donaldson; no
man was ever more fond of family, friends, and life in general, or
normally more reluctant to undertake what he regarded as a needlessly
hazardous task. His boldest and most seemingly reckless feats were to
him no more than the every-day work of a man of a strong mind, of a
stout heart, and of a perfectly trained body, who had so completely
mastered every detail of his profession as gymnast, acrobat, and
aeronaut, that he had come to have absolute faith in himself, downright
abiding certainty that within his sphere of work not only must he
succeed, but that, in the very nature of things it was quite impossible
for him to fail.
Donaldson's story may well serve as an inspiration, as does that of
every man who, with a cool head and high courage, takes his life in his
hands for adventure into the world's untrodden fields. While he was
regarded by average onlookers as little better than a "Merry Andrew," a
public shocker, doing feats before the multitude to still the heart and
freeze the blood, those whose fortune it was to know him intimately
realized him to be a man of the most serious purpose, with a great
faith in the future of aerial navigation. He seemed to be possessed by
the conviction that it was one day to become wholly practicable and
generally useful; for he was keen to do all he could to popularize and
advance it, and to demonstrate its large measure of safety where
practised under reasonable conditions.
To many still living his memory is dear--to all indeed who ever knew
him well, and it is to his memory and to the surviving friends who held
him dear I dedicate this little story.
Washington Harrison Donaldson was the son of David Donaldson, an artist
of no mean ability of Philadelphia, where the boy was born October 10,
1840. The mother, of straight descent from a line of patriots active
during the Revolution, gave the boy the name of Washington; the father,
an ardent worker for General Harrison's candidacy for the presidency in
the "Tippecanoe-and-Tyler-too" campaign, added the name of Harrison.
It is not conceivable that this christening with two names so closely
linked with notable deeds of high emprise in the early history of this
country, had its influence upon the boy.
As a mere youth he showed the most adventurous spirit and ardent
ambition to excel his mates, to do deeds of skill and dexterity that
others could not do. When still a child he was running up an
unsupported eight-foot ladder, and balancing himself upon the topmost
round in a way to startle the cleverest professional athletes. A
little later, getting hold of any old rope, stretching it in any old
way as a "slack-rope," he was busy perfecting himself as a slack-rope
walker. Naturally, school held him only a very few years, for his type
of mind obviously was not that of a student.
While still in early youth, he got his father's consent to work in the
parental studio, and persevered long enough to acquire some ability in
sketching. Later he employed this art in illustrating some of his
aerial voyages. During these studio days he studied legerdemain and
ventriloquism, and became one of the most expert sleight-of-hand
wizards and ventriloquial entertainers of his time.
Donaldson's first appearance before the public was at the old Long's
Varieties on South Third Street in Philadelphia. His feats as a
rope-walker have probably never been surpassed. In 1862 a rope twelve
hundred feet long was stretched across the Schuylkill River at
Philadelphia at a height of twelve hundred feet above the water. After
passing back and forth repeatedly over this rope, he finished his
exhibition by leaping from a rope into the river from a height of
approximately ninety feet. Two years later he successfully walked a
rope eighteen hundred feet long and two hundred feet high, stretched
across the Genesee Falls at Rochester, N. Y. Five years later he was
riding a velocipede on a tight-wire from stage to gallery of a
Philadelphia theatre, the first to do this performance.
Thus his years were spent between 1857 and 1871; and great as were the
dangers and severe the tasks incident to this period of his career, to
him it was not work but the play he loved. While the work in itself
was not one to emulate--for there are perhaps few less useful tasks
than those that made up his occupation--nevertheless, he was training
himself for his career; and the absolute mastery over it which he
accomplished, the boldness with which he did it, the readiness,
certainty, and complete success with which he carried out everything he
undertook make a lesson worth studying.
Donaldson's career as an aeronaut was brief. His first ascent was made
August 30, 1871; his last, July 15, 1875. The story of the first is
characteristic of the man. In his lexicon there was no such word as
"fail." His balloon was small, holding only eight thousand cubic feet
of gas. The gas was of poor quality, and when ready to rise he found
it impossible even to make a start until all ballast had been thrown
from the basket; and when at length the start was made, it was only to
alight in a few minutes on the roof of a neighboring house. Bent upon
winning and doing at all hazards what he had undertaken, Donaldson
quickly cast overboard all loose objects in the basket--ropes, anchors,
provisions, even down to his boots and coat. Thus relieved of weight,
he was able to make a voyage of about eighteen miles.
There are two essentials to safe ballooning: first, the easy working of
the cord which controls the safety valve at the top of the netting, by
which descent may be effected when the balloon is going too high; and
surplus ballast, which may be thrown out to lighten the balloon when
approaching the ground, to avoid striking the earth at dangerously
rapid speed. Hence it followed that, his car having been stripped of
every bit of weight to obtain the ascent, Donaldson's descent was so
violent that he was not a little bruised before he got his balloon
safety [Transcriber's note: safely?] anchored again upon the earth.
The difficulties and risks of this first trip, arising from the poor
appliances he had, were enough to discourage, if not deter, a heart
less bold than his, but to him a new difficulty only meant the letting
out of another reef in his resolution to conquer it. Thus it was that
immediately upon his return from this, his first trip, he not only
announced that he would make another ascent the ensuing week, but that
he would undertake something never previously undertaken in aerial
navigation, namely, that he would dispense with the basket or car swung
beneath the concentrating ring of every normal balloon, and in its
place would have nothing but a simple trapeze bar suspended beneath the
ring, upon which in mid-air, at high altitude, he proposed to perform
all feats done by then most highly trained gymnasts in trapeze
performances.
His experience on this first trip, to quote his own phraseology, was
"so glorious that I decided to abandon the tight-rope forever."
The second ascent was made in a light breeze. When approximately a
mile in height, to quote a chronicler:
"Suddenly the aeronaut threw himself backward and fell, catching with
his feet on the bar, thus sending a thrill through the crowd; but with
another spring he was upstanding on the bar, and then followed one feat
after another--hanging by one hand, one foot, by the back of his head,
etc., until the blood ceased to curdle in the veins of the awe-stricken
crowd, and they gave vent to their feelings in cheer after cheer. His
glittering dress sparkled in the sun long after his outline was lost to
the naked eye."
Intending no long journey, Donaldson climbed from the trapeze into the
concentrating ring, where he seized the cord operating the safety valve
and sought to open the valve. But the valve stuck and did not open
readily, thus when Donaldson gave a more violent tug at the cord in his
effort to open the valve, a great rent was torn in the top of the gas
bag, through which the gas poured, causing the balloon to fall with
appalling rapidity. Long afterwards Donaldson said that this was the
first time in his life that he had ever felt actually afraid. Luckily
he dropped into the top of a large tree, which broke his fall
sufficiently to enable him to land without any serious injury.
Donaldson's sincerity and downright joy in his work, and the poetic
temperament, which in him was always struggling for utterance, are
pointed out by a chronicler in the words added by him to the
description Donaldson gave of his trip after his return to Norfolk in
1872:
"The people of Norfolk cannot form the remotest conception of the grand
appearance of Norfolk from a balloon. The city looks almost surrounded
by water, and the various tributaries to the Elizabeth River appear
magnificently beautiful, looking like streams of silver. Floating over
a field of foliage, the trees appear all blended together like blades
of grass."
The chronicler adds:
"Donaldson seemed to be perfectly enraptured by his subject, as was
evinced by the beaming expression of his countenance while relating his
experience. The motion of the balloon he describes as delightful,
particularly in ascent, as it appears to be perfectly motionless, and
any object within view beneath looks as if it were receding from you."
As a token of appreciation of this particular exploit, a handsome gold
medal was given to Donaldson by the citizens of Norfolk.
A later ascent from Norfolk resulted in one of the most perilous
experiences ever endured by any aeronaut, and indeed developed
conditions from which none could possibly have hoped to escape with
life except a perfectly trained and fearless aeronaut. His experience
on this trip he told as follows:
"After cutting the basket loose, the balloon shot up very rapidly. I
pulled the valve cord and the gas escaped too freely. I was then
almost at the water's edge, and going at the rate of one mile a minute.
Quick work must be done, or a watery grave. I had either to cut a hole
in the balloon or go to sea, and as there were no boats in sight, I
chose the lesser evil. Seizing three of the cords, I swung out of the
ring, into the netting, the balloon careening on her side. I climbed
half way up the netting, opened my knife with my teeth, and cut a hole
about two feet long. The instant I cut the hole the gas rushed out so
fast that could scarcely get back to the ring. After reaching the ring
I lashed myself fast to it with a rope. While I was climbing up the
rigging to cut the hole in the side of the balloon, my cap fell off,
and so fast did I descend that before I got half way down I caught up
with and passed the cap. Continuing to descend, I struck the ground in
a large corn field, and was dragged nearly a thousand feet, the wind
blowing a perfect gale. Crashing against a rail fence, I was rendered
insensible. When I came to, I found myself hanging to one side of a
tree, and the balloon to the other side, ripped to shreds. This was
the _last tree_. I could have thrown a stone into the ocean from where
I landed. On this trip I travelled ten miles in seven minutes.
"Many want to know if the wind blows hard up there. They do not stop
to think that I am carried by the wind, and whether I am in a dead calm
or sailing at the rate of one hundred miles an hour, I am perfectly
still; and when I went the ten miles in seven minutes I did not feel
the slightest breeze; and when I cannot see the earth it is impossible
to tell whether I am going or hanging still."
Just as Donaldson was a bit of an artist and left many sketches
illustrating his experiences, so also he was a bit of a poet and left
many pieces describing in lofty thought, but crude versification, the
sentiments inspired by his ascents. The following is one of them:
"There's pleasure in a lively trip when sailing through the air,
The word is given, 'Let her go!' To land I know not where.
The view is grand, 'tis like a dream, when many miles from home.
My castle in the air, I love above the clouds to roam."
In prose Donaldson was very much more at home than in verse; indeed
many of his descriptions equal in clearness and beauty anything ever
written of the impressions that come to fliers in cloudland. Take, for
example, the following:
"It's a pleasure to be up here, as I sit and look at the grand cloud
pictures, the most splendid effects of light, unknown to all that cling
to the surface of the earth. The ever-shifting scenes, the bright,
dazzling colors, the soft roseate and purple hues, the sudden light and
fiery sun . . . and on I go as if carried by spiritual wings, far above
the diminutive objects of a liliputian world. We rise in the midst of
splendor, where light and silence combine to make one wish he never
need return."
Donaldson was a many-sided man--among other things, in no small measure
a philosopher, as when he commented as follows:
"I have noticed on different occasions a class of people who were only
half alive and who find fault with my exercise, which to them looks
frightful. They [Transcriber's note: Their?] nervous system is not
properly balanced. They have too much nerves for their system, which
is caused by want of a little moderate exercise up where the air is
pure, instead of which they spend hours in a place which they call
their office. They sit themselves in a dark corner, hidden from the
sun's rays, and in one position remain for hours, inhaling the
poisonous air with the room full of carbonic acid gas, which is as
poisonous to man as arsenic is to rats; and in addition to this, will
fill their lungs with tobacco smoke, and to steady their nerves require
a stimulation of perhaps eight or ten brandies a day. If I were as
helpless as this class of people, then my life would be swinging by a
thread, and I would wind up with a broken neck."
About as sound philosophy and scientific hygiene as could well be found.
And yet another side to his character: the kindly nature, the
gentleness and generous thought for others, reluctance to cause
needless injury or pain, which is always the characteristic of any man
of real courage. This beautiful side of his nature he once hinted at
as follows:
"I cannot look at a person cutting a chicken's head off, and as for
shooting a poor, innocent bird for sport, I think it is a great wrong
and should not be allowed. Did you ever think what a barbarous set we
were--worse than Indians or Fiji Islanders! There is nothing living
but what we torture and kill. As for fear . . . my candid opinion is
that the only time one is out of danger is when sailing through the air
in a balloon."
Early in 1873, after having made twenty-five or thirty ascents, and
well-nigh exhausted people's capacity for sensations and excitements
afforded by ballooning over _terra firma_, Donaldson began making plans
for a balloon of a capacity and equipment adequate, in his judgment, to
enable him to make a successful crossing of the Atlantic to England or
the Continent. So soon as his plans became publicly known, Professor
John Wise, who as early as 1843 had done his best to raise the funds
necessary for a transatlantic journey by balloon, joined forces with
Donaldson, and together they made application to the authorities of the
city of Boston for an adequate appropriation. This was voted by one
Board but vetoed by another. Thereupon, _The Daily Graphic_ took up
their proposition, and undertook the financing of the expedition under
a formal contract executed June 27, 1873. As a consequence of this
contract, Donaldson proceeded to build the largest balloon ever
constructed, of a gas capacity of 600,000 cubic feet, and a lifting
power of 14,000 pounds. The total weight of the balloon, including its
car, lifeboat, and equipment, was 7,100 pounds, thus leaving
approximately 6,000 pounds surplus lifting capacity for ballast,
passengers, etc.
Of course, a liberal supply of provisions was to be carried, with
tools, guns, and fishing tackle, to be available for meeting any
emergency arising from a landing in a wild, unsettled region.
Moreover, a carefully selected set of scientific instruments was
embraced in the equipment for making observations and records of
changing conditions _en route_.
The inflation of this aerial monster began in Brooklyn at the
Capitoline Grounds September 10, 1873. A high wind prevailed, and
after the bag had received 100,000 cubic feet of gas, she became so
nearly uncontrollable, notwithstanding 300 men and 100 sacks of
ballast, each sack weighing 200 pounds, were holding her down, that
Donaldson and his associates decided to empty her.
On the twelfth of September inflation was again undertaken, although a
high wind again prevailed. When something more than half full, the bag
burst, and the aeronauts concluded that she was of a size impossible to
handle. The bag and rigging were thereupon taken in hand, and she was
reduced one-half; that is, to a capacity of 300,000 cubic feet of gas.
The remodelling was finished early in October, and inflation of this
new balloon was begun at 1 p.m. on Sunday, October 6, and by 10.30 p.m.
of that day the inflation was completed, the life-boat was attached,
and she was firmly secured for the night.
At nine the next morning the crew took their places in the boat.
Donaldson as aeronaut; Alfred Ford as correspondent for the _Graphic_;
George Ashton Lunt, an experienced seaman, as navigator. Ascent was
made, without incident, the balloon drifting first to the north, and
then to the southward toward Long Island Sound.
Unhappily this voyage was brief, and very nearly tragical in its
finish. About noon the balloon entered the field of a storm of wind
and rain of extraordinary violence, and before long the cordage, etc.,
was so heavily loaded with moisture, that although practically all
available ballast was disposed of, the balloon descended in spite of
them. The speed of the balloon was so great that Donaldson did not
dare hazard a dash against some house, or into some forest or other
obstacle, but selected a piece of open ground, and advised his
companions to hang by their hands over the side of the boat and drop at
the word. The word at length given by Donaldson, both he and Ford
dropped--a distance of about thirty feet, happily without serious
injury other than a severe shaking up. Lunt, curious about the
distance and the effect of such a fall, as well as unfamiliar with the
action of a balloon when relieved of weight, hung watching the descent
of his companions--only to realise quickly that he was shooting up into
the air like a rocket. Then he clambered back into the boat. However,
it was not long before, again weighted and beaten down by the
continuing rain, the balloon descended upon a forest, where Lunt swung
himself into a tree-top, whence he dropped through its branches to the
earth, practically unhurt.
Thus ended the transatlantic voyage of the _Graphic_ balloon, a voyage
that constitutes the only serious failure I can recall of anything in
the line of his profession as an aeronaut that Donaldson ever undertook
to do. This failure is not to be counted to his discredit, for
precisely as a good soldier does not surrender until his last round of
ammunition is spent, so Donaldson did not give in until his last pound
of ballast was exhausted.
In all respects the most brilliant aerial voyage ever made by Donaldson
was his sixty-first ascension, on July 24, 1874, a voyage which
continued for twenty-six hours. This was the longest balloon voyage in
point of hours ever made up to that time, and indeed it remained a
world's record for endurance up in the air until 1900, and the
endurance record in the United States, until the recent St. Louis Cup
Race.
The ascent was made from Barnum's "Great Roman Hippodrome," which for
some years occupied the site of what is now Madison Square Garden, in a
balloon built by Mr. Barnum to attempt to break the record for time and
distance of all previous balloon voyages. An account of this thrilling
trip is given in the following chapter of this book.
The history of the ascent Donaldson made from Toronto, Canada, on June
23, 1875, is in itself a sufficient refutation of the charges made less
than a month later, that on his last trip he sacrificed his passenger,
Grimwood, to save his own life. On his Toronto trip he was accompanied
by Charles Pirie, of the _Globe_; Mr. Charles, of the _Leader_; and Mr.
Devine, of the _Advertiser_. On this occasion Donaldson accepted the
three passengers under the strongest protest, after having told them
plainly that the balloon was leaky, the wind blowing out upon the lake,
and that the ascent must necessarily be a peculiarly dangerous one.
Nevertheless, they decided to take the hazard. Later they regretted
their temerity. Husbanding his ballast as best he could, nevertheless,
the loss of gas through leakage was such that by midnight, when well
over the centre of Lake Ontario, the balloon descended into a rough,
tempestuous sea, and was saved from immediate destruction only by the
cutting away of both the anchor and the drag rope. This gave them a
temporary lease of life, but at one o'clock the car again struck the
waters and dragged at a frightful speed through the lake, compelling
the passengers to stand on the edge of the basket and cling to the
ropes, the cold so intense they were well-nigh benumbed. At length
they were rescued by a passing boat, but this was not until after three
o'clock in the morning.
Of Donaldson's conduct in these hours of terrible tremity, a passenger
wrote:
"But for his judicious use of the ballast, his complete control of the
balloon as far as it could be controlled, his steady nerve, kindness,
and coolness in the hour of danger, the occupants would never have
reached land. . . . The party took no provisions with them excepting
two small pieces of bread two inches square, which Mr. Devine happened
to have in his pocket. At eleven at night, the Professor, having had
nothing but a noon lunch, was handed up the bread. . . . About three
o'clock in the morning, when the basket was wholly immersed in the
water, and the inmates clinging almost lifelessly to the ropes, the
Professor climbed down to them, and they were surprised to see in his
hand the two small pieces of bread they had given him the night before.
He had hoarded it up all night, and instead of eating it he said with
cheery voice, 'Well, boys, all is up. Divide this among you. It may
give you strength enough to swim.' There was not a man among them that
would touch it until the Professor first partook of it. It was only a
small morsel for each. . . . He said that he had but one
life-preserver on board, and suggested we should draw lots for the man
who should leave and lighten the balloon."
While this discussion was on, the boat approached that saved them.
This simple story of Donaldson's true courage, cheerfulness,
self-denial, readiness to sacrifice himself for others, is no less than
an epic of the noblest heroism that stands an irrefutable answer to the
charge later made that Donaldson sacrificed Grimwood.
Three weeks later--to be precise, on the fifteenth of July--Donaldson
and his beloved airship, the _P. T. Barnum_, made their last ascent,
from Chicago. The balloon was already old--more than a year old--the
canvas weakened and in many places rent and patched, the cordage frail.
In short, the balloon was in poor condition to stand any extraordinary
stress of weather.
His companion on this trip was Mr. Newton S. Grimwood, of _The Chicago
Evening Journal_. Donaldson had expected to be able to take two men;
and Mr. Maitland, of the _Post & Mail_, was present with the other two
in the basket immediately before the hour of starting. At the last
moment Donaldson concluded that it was unwise to take more than one,
and required lots to be drawn. Maitland tossed a coin, called "Heads,"
and won; but Mr. Thomas, the press agent, insisted that the usual
method of drawing written slips from a hat be followed, and on this
second lot-casting Maitland lost his place in the car, but won his life.
The ascent was made about 5 p.m., the prevailing wind carrying them out
over Lake Michigan. About 7 p.m., a tug-boat sighted the balloon, then
about thirty miles off shore, trailing its basket along the surface of
the lake. The tug changed her course to intercept the balloon, but
before it was reached, probably through the cutting away of the drag
rope and anchor, the balloon bounded into the air, and soon
disappeared, and never again was aught of Donaldson or the balloon
_Barnum_ seen by human eye. A little later a storm of extraordinary
fury broke over the lake--a violent electric storm accompanied by heavy
rain.
Weeks passed with no news of the voyagers or their ship. A month later
the body of Grimwood was found on the shores of Lake Michigan and fully
identified.
The precise story of that terrible night will never be written, but
knowing the man and his trade, sequence of incident is as plain to me
as if told by one of the voyagers. Evidently the balloon sprung a leak
early. The last ballast must have been spent before the tug saw her
trailing in the lake. Then anchor and drag ropes were sacrificed.
This would inevitably give the balloon travelling power for a
considerable time,--time of course depending on the measure of the leak
of gas,--but ultimately she must again have descended upon the raging
waters of the lake, where Grimwood, of untrained strength, soon became
exhausted while trying to hold himself secure in the ring, and fell out
into the lake. Thus again relieved of weight, the balloon received a
new lease of life, and travelled on probably, to a fatal final descent
in some untrodden corner of the northern forest, where no one ever has
chanced to stumble across the wreck. For had the balloon made its
final descent into the lake, it would have been only after the basket
was utterly empty, all the loose cordage cut away, and a type of wreck
left that would float for weeks or months and would almost certainly
have been found. Indeed, for months afterwards the writer and many
others of Donaldson's friends held high hopes of hearing of him
returned in safety from some remote distance in the wilds. But this
was not to be.
One more incident and I have done.
Six or seven years ago I read in the columns of the _Sun_ an article
copied from a Chicago paper, evidently written by some close friend of
the unfortunate Grimwood, making a bitter attack upon Donaldson for
having sacrificed his passenger's life to save his own. The story
moved me so much that I wrote an open letter to the Sun over my own
signature, in which I sought to refute the charge by recounting the
story of Donaldson's noble conduct, and his constant readiness for
self-sacrifice in other situations quite as dire.
A few days later, sitting in my office, I was frozen with astonishment
when a written card was handed in to me bearing the name "Washington H.
Donaldson"! As soon as I could recover myself, the bearer of the card
was asked in. He was a man within a year or two of my friend's age at
the time of his death, Wash Donaldson's very self in face and figure!
He had the same bright, piercing eye, that looked straight into mine;
the same lean, square jaws and resolute mouth; the same waving hair,
the same low, cool, steady voice--such a resemblance as to dull my
senses, and make me wonder and grope to understand how my friend could
thus come back to me, still young after so many years.
It was Donaldson's son, a babe in arms at the time his father sailed
away to his death!
In a few simple words he told me that he and his family lived in a
small village. With infinite grief they had read the article charging
his father with unmanly conduct--a grief that was the greater because
they possessed no means to refute the charge. Brokenly, with tears of
gratitude, he told of their joy in reading my statements in his
father's defence, and how he had been impelled to come and try in
person to express to me the gratitude he felt he could not write.
Poor though this man may be in this world's goods, in the record of his
father's character and deeds he owns a legacy fit to give him place
among the Peers of Real Manhood.
Through some mischance I have lost the address of Donaldson's son.
Should he happen to read these lines I hope he will communicate with me.
CHAPTER VI
AN AERIAL BIVOUAC
In the history of contests since man first began striving against his
fellows, seldom has a record performance stood so long unbroken as that
of the good airship _Barnum_, made thirty-three years ago. Of her
captain and crew of five men, six all told, the writer remains the sole
survivor, the only one who may live to see that record broken in this
country.
The _Barnum_ rose at 4 p.m. July 26, 1874, from New York and made her
last landing nine miles north of Saratoga at 6.07 p.m. of the
twenty-seventh, thus finishing a voyage of a total elapsed time of
twenty-six hours and seven minutes. In the interim she made four
landings, the first of no more than ten minutes; the second, twenty;
the third, ten; the fourth, thirty-five; and these descents cost an
expenditure of gas and ballast which shortened her endurance capacity
by at least two or three hours.
Tracing on a map her actual route traversed, gives a total distance of
something over four hundred miles, which gave her the record of second
place in the history of long-distance ballooning in this country, a
record which she still holds.
So far as my knowledge of the art goes, and I have tried to read all of
its history, the _Barnum's_ voyage of twenty-six hours, seven minutes
was then and remained the world's endurance record until 1900; and it
still remains, in point of hours up, the longest balloon voyage ever
made in the United States.
The longest voyage in point of distance ever made in this country was
that of John Wise and La Mountain, in the fifties, from St. Louis, Mo.,
to Jefferson County, N. Y., a distance credited under the old custom of
a little less than twelve hundred miles, while the actual distance
under the new rules is between eight hundred and nine hundred miles,
the time being nineteen hours. This voyage also remained, I believe,
the world's record for distance until 1900, and still remains the
American record--and lucky, indeed, will be the aeronaut who beats it.
P. T. Barnum's "Great Roman Hippodrome," now for many years Madison
Square Garden, was never more densely crowded than on the afternoon of
July 26, 1874. Early in the Spring of that year Mr. Barnum had
announced the building of a balloon larger than any theretofore made in
this country. His purpose in building it was to attempt to break all
previous records for time and distance, and he invited each of five
daily city papers of that time to send representatives on the voyage.
So when the day set for the ascent arrived, not only was the old
Hippodrome packed to the doors, but adjacent streets and squares were
solid black with people, as on a _fête_ day like the Dewey Parade.
Happily the day was one of brilliant sunshine and clear sky, with
scarcely a cloud above the horizon.
The captain of the _Barnum_ was Washington. H. Donaldson, by far the
most brilliant and daring professional aeronaut of his day, and a
clever athlete and gymnast. For several weeks prior to the ascent of
the _Barnum_, Donaldson had been making daily short ascents of an hour
or two from the Hippodrome in a small balloon--as a feature of the
performance. Sometimes he ascended in a basket, at other times with
naught but a trapeze swinging beneath the concentrating ring of his
balloon himself in tights perched easily upon the bar of the trapeze.
And when at a height to suit his fancy--of a thousand feet or
more--many a time have I seen him do every difficult feat of trapeze
work ever done above the security of a net.
Such was Donaldson, a man utterly fearless, but reckless only when
alone, of a steadfast, cool courage and resource when responsible for
the safety of others that made him the man out of a million best worth
trusting in any emergency where a bold heart and ready wit may avert
disaster.
Donaldson's days were never dull.
The day preceding our ascent his balloon was released with insufficient
lifting power. As soon as he rose above neighboring roofs, a very high
southeast wind caught him, and, before he had time to throw out
ballast, drove his basket against the flagstaff on the Gilsey House
with such violence that the staff was broken, and the basket
momentarily upset, dumping two ballast bags to the Broadway sidewalk
where they narrowly missed several pedestrians.
That he himself was not dashed to death was a miracle. But to him this
was no more than a bit unusual incident of the day's work.
The reporters assigned as mates on this skylark in the _Barnum_ were
Alfred Ford, of the _Graphic_; Edmund Lyons, of the _Sun_; Samuel
MacKeever, of the _Herald_; W. W. Austin, of the _World_ (every one of
these good fellows now dead, alas!) and myself, representing the
_Tribune_.
Lyons, MacKeever, and myself were novices in ballooning, but the two
others had scored their bit of aeronautic experience. Austin had made
an ascent a year or two before at San Francisco, was swept out over the
bay before he could make a landing, and, through some mishap, dropped
into the water midway of the bay and well out toward Golden Gate, where
he was rescued by a passing boat. Ford had made several balloon
voyages, the most notable in 1873, in the great _Graphic_ balloon.
After the voyage of the _Barnum_ was first announced and it became
known that the _Tribune_ would have a pass, everybody on the staff
wanted to go. For weeks it was the talk of the office. Even grave
graybeards of the editorial rooms were paying court for the preference
to Mr. W. F. G. Shanks, that prince of an earlier generation of city
editors, who of course controlled the assignment of the pass. But when
at length the pass came, the enthusiasm and anxiety for the distinction
waned, and it became plain that the piece of paper "Good for One Aerial
Trip," etc., must go begging.
At that time I was assistant night city editor, and a special detail to
interview the Man in the Moon was not precisely in the line of my
normal duties. I was therefore greatly surprised (to put it
conservatively) when, the morning before the ascent, Mr. Shanks, in
whose family I was then living, routed me out of bed to say:
"See here, Ted, you know Barnum's balloon starts tomorrow on her trial
for the record, but what you don't know is that we are in a hole.
Before the ticket came every one wanted to go, from John R. G. Hassard
down to the office boy. Now no one will go--all have funked it, and I
suppose you will want to follow suit!"
Thus diplomatically put, the hinted assignment was not to be refused
without too much personal chagrin.
So it happened that about 3.30 p.m. the next day I arrived at the
Hippodrome, loaded down with wraps and a heavy basket nigh bursting
with good things to eat and drink, which dear Mrs. Shanks had insisted
on providing.
The _Barnum_ was already filled with gas, tugging at her leash and
swaying restlessly as if eager for the start. And right here, at first
sight of the great sphere, I felt more nearly a downright fright than
at any stage of the actual voyage; the balloon appeared such a
hopelessly frail fabric to support even its own car and equipment. The
light cord net enclosing the great gas-bag looked, aloft, where it
towered above the roof, little more substantial than a film of lace;
and to ascend in that balloon appeared about as safe a proposition as
to enmesh a lion in a cobweb.
Already my four mates for the voyage were assembled about the basket,
and Donaldson himself was busy with the last details of the equipment.
My weighty lunch basket had from my mates even a heartier reception
than I received, but their joy over the prospect of delving into its
generous depths was short-lived. The load as Donaldson had planned it
was all aboard, weight carefully adjusted to what he considered a
proper excess lifting power to carry us safely up above any chance of a
collision with another flagstaff, as on the day before above the Gilsey
House. Thus the basket and all its bounty (save only a small flask of
brandy I smuggled into a hip pocket) were given to a passing acrobat.
At 4 p.m. the old Hippodrome rang with applause; a brilliant equestrian
act had just been finished. Suddenly the applause ceased and that
awful hush fell upon the vast audience which is rarely experienced
except in the presence of death or of some impending disaster! We had
been seen to enter the basket, and people held their breath.
Released, the balloon bounded seven hundred feet the air, stood
stationary for a moment, and then drifted northwest before the
prevailing wind.
In this prodigious leap there was naught of the disagreeable sensation
one experiences in a rapidly rising elevator. Instead it rather seemed
that we were standing motionless, stationary in space, and that the
earth itself had gotten loose and was dropping away beneath us to
depths unknown. Every cord and rope of the huge fabric was tensely
taut, the basket firm and solid beneath our feet. Indeed, the balloon,
with nothing more substantial in her construction than cloth and twine,
and hempen ropes and willow wands (the latter forming the basket), has
always, while floating in mid-air free of the drag rope's tricks, the
rigid homogeneity of a rock, a solidity that quickly inspires the most
timid with perfect confidence in her security.
Ballast was thrown out by Donaldson,--a little. At Seventh Avenue and
Forty-second Street our altitude was 2,000 feet. The great city lay
beneath us like an unrolled scroll. White and dusty, the streets
looked like innumerable strips of Morse telegraph paper--the people the
dots, the vehicles the dashes. Central Park, with its winding waters,
was transformed into a superb mantle of dark green velvet splashed with
silver, worthy of a royal _fête_. Behind us lay the sea, a vast field
of glittering silver. Before us lay a wide expanse of Jersey's hills
and dales that from our height appeared a plain, with many a
reddish-gray splash upon its verdant stretches that indicated a village
or a town.
Above and about us lay an immeasurable space of which we were the only
tenants, and over which we began to feel a grand sense of dominion that
wrapped us as in royal ermine: if we were not lords of this aerial
manor, pray, then, who were? Beneath us, lay--home. Should we ever
see it again? This thought I am sure came to all of us. I know it
came to me. But the perfect steadiness of the balloon won our
confidence, and we soon gave ourselves up to the gratification of our
enviable position; and enviable indeed it was. For who has not envied
the eagle his power to skim the tree-tops, to hover above Niagara, to
circle mountain peaks, to poise himself aloft and survey creation, or
to mount into the zenith and gaze at the sun?
Indeed our sense of confidence became such that, while sitting on the
edge of the basket to reach and pass Donaldson a rope he asked for, I
leaned so far over that the bottle of brandy resting in my hip pocket
slipped out and fell into the Hudson.
Oddly, Ford, who was the most experienced balloonist of the party after
Donaldson himself, seemed most nervous and timid, but it was naught but
an expression of that constitutional trouble (dizziness) so many have
when looking down from even the minor height of a step-ladder. In all
the long hours he was with us, I do not recall his once standing erect
in the basket, and when others of us perched upon the basket's edge, he
would beg us to come down. But mind, there was no lack of stark
courage in Alfred Ford, sufficiently proved by the fact that he never
missed a chance for an ascent.
But safe? Confident? Why, before we were up ten minutes, Lyons and
MacKeever were sitting on the edge of the basket, with one hand holding
to a stay, tossing out handfuls of small tissue paper circulars bearing
"News from the Clouds." Many-colored, these little circulars as they
fell beneath us looked like a flight of giant butter-flies, and we kept
on throwing out handfuls of them until our pilot warned us we were
wasting so much weight we should soon be out of easy view of the earth!
Indeed, the balance of the balloon is so extremely fine that when a
single handful of these little tissue circulars was thrown out,
increased ascent was shown on the dial of our aneroid barometer!
At 4.30 p.m. we had drifted out over the Hudson at an altitude of 2,500
feet. Here Donaldson descended from the airy perch which he had been
occupying since our start on the concentrating ring, when one of us
asked how long he expected the cruise to last. He replied that he
hoped to be able to sail the _Barnum_ at least three or four days.
"But," he added, "I shall certainly be unable, to carry all of you for
so long a journey, and shall be compelled to drop you one by one. So
you had best draw lots to settle whom I shall drop first, and in what
order the rest shall follow."
Sailing then 2,500 feet above the earth, Lyons voiced a thought racing
from my own brain for utterance when he blurted out: "What the deuce do
you mean by 'drop' us?" Indeed, the question must have been on three
other tongues as well, for Donaldson's reply, "Oh, descend to the earth
and let you step out then," was greeted by all five of us with a salvo
of deep, lusty sighs of relief.
Then we drew lots for the order of our going, MacKeever drawing first,
Austin second, Lyons third, Ford fourth, and I fifth.
Meantime, beneath us on the river vessels which from our height looked
like the toy craft on the lake in Central Park were whistling a shrill
salute that, toned down by the distance, was really not unmusical.
Having crossed the Hudson and swept above Weehawken, we found ourselves
cruising northwest over the marshes of the Hackensack.
As the heat of the declining sun lessened, our cooling gas contracted
and the balloon sank steadily until at 5.10 we were 250 feet above the
earth and 100 feet of our great drag rope was trailing on the ground.
Within hailing distance of people beneath us, a curious condition was
observed. We could hear distinctly all they said, though we could not
make them understand a word; our voices had to fill a sphere of air;
theirs, with the earth beneath them, only a hemisphere. Thus the
modern megaphone is especially useful to aeronauts.
Hereabouts our fun began. Many countrymen thought the balloon running
away with us and tried to stop and save us--always by grasping the drag
rope, bracing themselves, and trying literally to hold us; when the
slack of the rope straightened, they performed somersaults such as our
pilot vowed no acrobat could equal. And yet the balance of the balloon
is so fine that even a child of ten can pull one down, if only it has
strength enough to withstand occasional momentary lifts off the ground.
Occasionally one more clever would run and take a quick turn of the
rope about a gate or fence--and then spend the rest of the evening
gathering the scattered fragments and repairing the damage.
And when there was not fun enough below, Donaldson himself would take a
hand and put his steed through some of her fancy paces--as when,
approaching a large lake, he told us to hold tightly to the stays, let
out gas and dropped us, bang! upon the lake. Running at a speed of
twelve or fifteen miles an hour, we hit the water with a tremendous
shock, bounded thirty or forty feet into the air, descended again and
literally skipped in great leaps along the surface of the water,
precisely like a well-thrown "skipping stone." Then out went ballast
and up and on we went, no worse for the fun beyond a pretty thorough
wetting!
At 6.20 p.m. we landed on the farm of Garrett Harper in Bergen County,
twenty-six miles from New York. After drinking our fill of milk at the
farmhouse, we rose again and drifted north over Ramapo until, at 7.30,
a dead calm came upon us and we made another descent. We then found
that we had landed near Bladentown on the farm of Miss Charlotte
Thompson, a charming actress of the day whose "Jane Eyre" and "Fanchon"
are still pleasant memories to old theatre-goers. Loading our balloon
with stones to anchor it, our party paid her a visit and were cordially
received. An invitation to join us hazarded by Donaldson, Miss
Thompson accepted with delight. I do not know if she is still living,
but it she is, she cannot have forgotten her half-hour's cruise in the
good airship _Barnum_, wafted silently by a gentle evening breeze, the
lovely panorama beneath her half hid, half seen through the purple haze
of twilight.
After landing Miss Thompson at 8.18 we ascended for the night, for a
night's bivouac among the stars. The moon rose early. We were soon
sailing over the Highlands of the Hudson. Off in the east we could see
the river, a winding ribbon of silver. We were running low, barely
more than 200 feet high. Below us the great drag rope was hissing
through meadows, roaring over fences, crashing through tree-tops. And
all night long we were continually ascending and descending, sinking
into valleys and rising over hills, following closely the contours of
the local topography.
During the more equable temperature of night the balloon's height is
governed by the drag rope. Leaving a range of hills and floating out
over a valley, the weight of the drag pulls the balloon down until the
same length of rope is trailing through the valley that had been
dragging on the hill. This habit of the balloon produces startling
effects. Drifting swiftly toward a rocky precipitous hillside against
which it seems inevitable you must dash to your death, suddenly the
trailing drag rope reaches the lower slopes and you soar like a bird
over the hill, often so low that the bottom of the basket swishes
through the tree-tops.
But, while useful in conserving the balloon's energy, the drag rope is
a source of constant peril to aeronauts, of terror to people on the
earth, and of damage to property. It has a nasty clinging habit,
winding round trees or other objects, that may at any moment upset
basket and aeronauts. On this trip our drag rope tore sections out of
scores of fences, upset many haystacks, injured horses and cattle that
tried to run across it, whipped off many a chimney, broke telegraph
wires, and seemed to take malicious delight in working some havoc with
everything it touched.
At ten o'clock we sighted Cozzen's Hotel, and shortly drifted across
the parade ground of West Point, its huge battlemented gray walls
making one fancy he was looking down into the inner court of some great
mediaeval castle. Then we drifted out over the Hudson toward Cold
Spring until, caught by a different current, we were swept along the
course of the river.
As we sailed over mid-stream and two hundred feet above it, with the
tall cliffs and mysterious, dark recesses of the Highlands on either
hand, the waters turned to a livid gray under the feeble light of the
waning moon. No part of our voyage was more impressive, no scene more
awe-inspiring. It was a region of such weird lights and gruesome
shadows as no fancy could people with aught but gaunt goblins and dread
demons, come down to us through generations untold, an unspent legacy
of terror, from half-savage, superstitious ancestors.
Suddenly Ford spoke in a low voice: "Boys, I was in nine or ten battles
of the Civil War, from Gaines's Mill to Gettysburg, but in none of them
was there a scene which impressed me as so terrible as this, no
situation that seemed to me so threatening of irresistible perils."
Nearing Fishkill at eleven, a land breeze caught and whisked us off
eastward. At midnight we struck the town of Wappinger's Falls--and
struck it hard. Our visitation is doubtless remembered there yet. The
town was in darkness and asleep. We were running low before a stiff
breeze, half our drag rope on the ground. The rope began to roar
across roofs and upset chimneys with shrieks and crashes that set the
folk within believing the end of the world had come. Instantly the
streets were filled with flying white figures and the air with men's
curses and women's screams. Three shots were fired beneath us. Two of
our fellows said they heard the whistle of the balls, so Donaldson
thought it prudent to throw out ballast and rise out of range.
Here the moon left us and we sailed on throughout the remainder of the
night in utter darkness and without any extraordinary incident, all but
the watch lying idly in the bottom of the basket viewing the stars and
wondering what new mischief the drag rope might be planning.
The only duty of the watch was to lighten ship upon too near descent to
the earth, and for this purpose a handful of Hippodrome circulars
usually proved sufficient. Indeed, only eight pounds of ballast were
used from the time we left Miss Thompson till dawn, barring a half-sack
spent in getting out of range of the Wappinger's Falls sportsmen, who
seemed to want to bag us.
Ford and Austin were assigned as the lookout from 12.00 to 2.00, Lyons
and myself from 2.00 to 3.00, and Donaldson and MacKeever from 3.00 to
4.00.
From midnight till 3.00 a.m. Donaldson slept as peaceful as a baby,
curled up in the basket with a sandbag for a pillow. The rest of us
slept little through the night and talked less, each absorbed in the
reflections and speculations inspired by our novel experience.
At the approach of dawn we had the most unique and extraordinary
experience ever given to man. The balloon was sailing low in a deep
valley. To the east of us the Berkshires rose steeply to summits
probably fifteen hundred feet above us. Beneath us a little village
lay, snuggled cosily between two small meeting brooks, all dim under
the mists of early morning and the shadows of the hills. No flush of
dawn yet lit the sky. Donaldson had been consulting his watch,
suddenly he rose and called, pointing eastward across the range:
"Watch, boys! Look there!"
He then quickly dumped overboard half the contents of a ballast bag.
Flying upward like an arrow, the balloon soon shot up above the
mountain-top, when, lo! a miracle. The phenomenon of sunrise was
reversed! We our very selves instead had risen on the sun! There he
stood, full and round, peeping at us through the trees crowning a
distant Berkshire hill, as if startled by our temerity.
Shortly thereafter, when we had descended to our usual level and were
running swiftly before a stiff breeze over a rocky hillside, Donaldson
yelled:
"Hang on, boys, for your lives!"
The end of the drag rope had gotten a hitch about a large tree limb.
Luckily Donaldson had seen it in time to warn us, else we had there
finished our careers. We had barely time to seize the stays when the
rope tautened with a shock that nearly turned the basket upside down,
spilled out our water-bucket and some ballast, left MacKeever and
myself hanging in space by our hands, and the other four on the lower
side of the basket, scrambling to save themselves. Instantly, of
course, the basket righted and dropped back beneath us.
And then began a terrible struggle.
The pressure of the wind bore us down within a hundred feet of the
ragged rocks. Groaning under the strain, the rope seemed ready to
snap. Like a huge leviathan trapped in a net, the gas-bag writhed,
twisted, bulged, shrank, gathered into a ball and sprang fiercely out.
The loose folds of canvas sucked up until half the netting stood empty,
and then fold after fold darted out and back with all the angry menace
of a serpent's tongue and with the ominous crash of musketry.
It seemed the canvas must inevitably burst and we be dashed to death.
But Donaldson was cool and smiling, and, taking the only precaution
possible, stood with a sheath-knife ready to cut away the drag rope and
relieve is of its weight in case our canvas burst.
Happily the struggle was brief. The limb that held us snapped, and the
balloon sprang forward in mighty bounds that threw us off our feet and
tossed the great drag rope about like a whip-lash. But we were free,
safe, and our stout vessel soon settled down to the velocity of the
wind.
By this time we all were beginning to feel hungry, for we had supped
the night before in mid-air from a lunch basket that held more
delicacies than substantials. So Donaldson proposed a descent and
began looking for a likely place. At last he chose a little village,
which upon near approach we learned lay in Columbia County of our own
good State.
We called to two farmers to pull us down, no easy task in the rather
high wind then blowing. They grasped the rope and braced themselves as
had others the night before, and presently were flying through the air
in prodigious if ungraceful somersaults. Amazed but unhurt, they again
seized the rope and got a turn about a stout board fence, only to see a
section or two of the fence fly into the air as if in pursuit of us.
Presently the heat of the rising sun expanded our gas and sent us up
again 2,000 feet, making breakfast farther off than ever. Thus, it
being clear that we must sacrifice either our stomachs or our gas,
Donaldson held open the safety valve until we were once more safely
landed on mother earth, but not until after we had received a pretty
severe pounding about, for such a high wind blew that the anchor was
slow in holding.
This landing was made at 5.24 a.m. on the farm of John W. Coons near
the village of Greenport, four miles from Hudson City, and about one
hundred and thirty miles from New York.
Here our pilot decided our vessel must be lightened of two men, and
thus the lot drawn the night before compelled us to part, regretfully,
with MacKeever of the _Herald_, and Austin of the _World_. Ford,
however, owing allegiance to an afternoon paper, the _Graphic_, and
always bursting with honest journalistic zeal for a "beat," saw an
opportunity to win satisfaction greater even than that of keeping on
with us. So he, too, left us here, with the result that the _Graphic_
published a full story of the voyage up to this point, Saturday
afternoon, the twenty-fifth, the _Herald_ and the _World_ trailed along
for second place in their Sunday editions, while _Sun_ and _Tribune_
readers had to wait till Monday morning for such "News from the Clouds"
as Lyons and I had to give them, for wires were not used as freely then
as now.
Our departing mates brought us a rare good breakfast from Mr. Coons'
generous kitchen--a fourteen-quart tin pail well-nigh filled with good
things, among them two currant pies on yellow earthen plates, gigantic
in size, pale of crust, though anything but anaemic of contents. Lyons
finished nearly the half of one before our reascent, to his sorrow, for
scarcely were we off the earth before he developed a colic that seemed
to interest him more, right up to the finish of the trip, than the
scenery.
Bidding our mates good-bye, we prepared to reascend. Many farmers had
been about us holding to our ropes and leaning on the basket, and later
we realized we had not taken in sufficient ballast to offset the weight
of the three men who had left us.
Released, the balloon sprang upward at a pace that all but took our
breath away. Instantly the earth disappeared beneath us. We saw
Donaldson pull the safety valve wide open, draw his sheath knife ready
to cut the drag rope, standing rigid, with his eyes riveted upon the
aneroid barometer. The hand of the barometer was sweeping across the
dial at a terrific rate. I glanced at Donaldson and saw him smile.
Then I looked back the barometer and saw the hand had stopped--at
10,200 feet! How long we were ascending we did not know. Certain it
is that the impressions described were all there was time for, and that
when Donaldson turned and spoke we saw his lips move but could hear no
sound. Our speed had been such that the pressure of the air upon the
tympanum of the ear left us deaf for some minutes. We had made a dash
of two miles into cloudland and had accomplished it, we three firmly
believed, in little more than a minute.
Presently Donaldson observed the anchor and grapnel had come up badly
clogged with sod, and a good heavy tug he and I had of it to pull them
in, for Lyons was still much too busy with his currant pie to help us.
Nor indeed were the currant pies yet done with us, for at the end of
our tug at the anchor rope, I found| had been kneeling very precisely
in the middle of pie No. 2, and had contrived to absorb most of it into
the knees of my trousers. Thus at the end of the day, come to Saratoga
after all shops were closed, I had to run the gauntlet of the porch and
office crowd of visitors at the United States Hotel in a condition that
only needed moccasins and a war bonnet to make me a tolerable imitation
of an Indian.
We remained aloft at an altitude of one or two and one half miles for
three hours and a half, stayed there until the silence became
intolerable, until the buzz of a fly or the croak of a frog would have
been music to our ears. Here was _absolute silence_, the silence of
the grave and death, a silence never to be experienced by living man in
any terrestrial condition.
Occasionally the misty clouds in which we hung enshrouded parted
beneath us and gave us glimpses of distant earth, opened and disclosed
landscapes of infinite beauty set in grey nebulous frames. Once we
passed above a thunderstorm, saw the lightning play beneath us, felt
our whole fabric tremble at its shock--and were glad enough when we had
left it well behind. Seen from a great height, the earth looked to be
a vast expanse of dark green velvet, sometimes shaded to a deeper hue
by cloudlets floating beneath the sun, splashed here with the silver
and there with the gold garniture reflected from rippling waters.
Toward noon we descended beneath the region of clouds into the realm of
light and life, and found ourselves hovering above the Mountain House
of the Catskills. And thereabouts we drifted in cross-currents until
nearly 4.00 p.m., when a heavy southerly gale struck us and swept us
rapidly northward past Albany at a pace faster than I have ever
travelled on a railway.
We still had ballast enough left to assure ten or twelve hours more
travel. But we did not like our course. The prospects were that we
would end our voyage in the wilderness two hundred or more miles north
of Ottawa. So we rose to 12,500 feet, seeking an easterly or westerly
current, but without avail. We could not escape the southerly gale.
Prudence, therefore, dictated a landing before nightfall. Landing in
the high gale was both difficult and dangerous, and was not
accomplished until we were all much bruised and scratched in the oak
thicket Donaldson chose for our descent.
Thus the first voyage of the good airship _Barnum_ ended at 6.07 p.m.
on the farm of E. R. Young, nine miles north of Saratoga.
A year later the _Barnum_ rose for the last time--from Chicago--and to
this day the fate of the stanch craft and her brave captain remains an
unsolved mystery.
CHAPTER VII
THE EVOLUTION OF A TRAIN ROBBER
Life was never dull in Grant County, New Mexico, in the early eighties.
There was always something doing--usually something the average
law-abiding, peace-loving citizen would have been glad enough to dispense
with. To say that life then and there was insecure is to describe
altogether too feebly a state of society and an environment wherein
Death, in one violent form or another, was ever abroad, seldom long idle,
always alert for victims.
When the San Carlos Apaches, under Victoria, Ju, or Geronimo, were not
out gunning for the whites, the whites were usually out gunning for one
another over some trivial difference. Everybody carried a gun and was
more or less handy with it. Indeed, it was a downright bad plan to carry
one unless you were handy. For with gunning--the game most played, if
not precisely the most popular--every one was supposed to be familiar
with the rules and to know how to play; and in a game where every hand is
sure to be "called," no one ever suspected another of being out on a
sheer "bluff." Thus the coroner invariably declared it a case of suicide
where one man drew a gun on another and failed to use it.
This highly explosive state of society was not due to the fact that there
were few peaceable men in the country for there were many of them, men of
character and education, honest, and as law-abiding as their peculiar
environment would permit. Moreover, the percentage of professional "bad
men"--and this was a profession then--was comparatively small. It was
due rather to the fact that every one, no matter how peaceable his
inclinations, was compelled to carry arms habitually for self-defence,
for the Apaches were constantly raiding outside the towns, and white
outlaws inside. And with any class of men who constantly carry arms, it
always falls out that a weapon is the arbiter of even those minor
personal differences which in the older and more effete civilization of
the East are settled with fists or in a petty court.
The prevailing local contempt for any man who was too timid to "put up a
gun fight" when the etiquette of a situation demanded it, was expressed
locally in the phrase that one "could take a corncob and a lightning bug
and make him run himself to death trying to get away." It is clearly
unnecessary to explain why the few men of this sort in the community did
not occupy positions of any particular prominence. Their opinions did
not seem to carry as much weight as those of other gentlemen who were
known to be notably quick to draw and shoot.
I even recall many instances where the pistol entered into the pastimes
of the community. One instance will stand telling:
A game of poker (rather a stiff one) had been going on for about a
fortnight in the Red Light Saloon. The same group of men, five or six
old friends, made up the game every day. All had varying success but
one, who lost every day. And, come to think of it, his luck varied too,
for some days he lost more than others. While he did not say much about
his losings, it was observed that temper was not improving.
This sort of thing went on for thirteen days. The thirteenth day the
loser happened to come in a little late, after the game was started. It
also happened that on this particular day one of the players had brought
in a friend, a stranger in the town, to join the game, When the loser
came in, therefore, he was introduced to the stranger and sat down. A
hand was dealt him. He started to play it, stopped, rapped on the table
attention, and said:
"Boys, I want to make a personal explanation to this yere stranger.
Stranger, this yere game is sure a tight wad for a smoothbore. I'm loser
in it, an' a heavy one, for exactly thirteen days, and these boys all
understand that the first son of a gun I find I can beat, I'm going to
take a six-shooter an' make him play with me a week. Now, if you has no
objections to my rules, you can draw cards."
Luckily for the stranger, perhaps, the thirteenth was as bad for the
loser as its predecessors.
Outside the towns there were only three occupations in Grant County in
those years, cattle ranching, mining and fighting Apaches, all of a sort
to attract and hold none but the sturdiest types of real manhood, men
inured to danger and reckless of it. In the early eighties no
faint-heart came to Grant County unless he blundered in--and any such
were soon burning the shortest trail out. These men were never better
described in a line than when, years ago, at a banquet of California
Forty-niners, Joaquin Miller, the poet of the Sierras, speaking of the
splendid types the men of forty-nine represented, said:
"The cowards never started, and all the weak died on the road!"
Within the towns, also, there were only three occupations: first,
supplying the cowmen and miners whatever they needed, merchandise wet and
dry, law mundane and spiritual, for although neither court nor churches
were working overtime, they were available for the few who had any use
for them; second, gambling, at monte, poker, or faro; and, third,
figuring how to slip through the next twenty-four hours without getting a
heavier load of lead in one's system than could be conveniently carried,
or how to stay happily half shot and yet avoid coming home on a shutter,
unhappily shot, or, having an active enemy on hand, how best to "get" him.
Thus, while plainly the occupations of Grant County folk were somewhat
limited in variety, in the matter of interest and excitement their games
were wide open and the roof off.
Nor did all the perils to life in Grant County lurk within the burnished
grooves of a gun barrel, according to certain local points of view, for
always it is the most unusual that most alarms, as when one of my cowboys
"allowed he'd go to town for a week," and was back on the ranch the
evening of the second day. Asked why he was back so soon, he replied:
"Well, fellers, one o' them big depot water tanks burnt plumb up this
mawnin', an' reckonin' whar that'd happen a feller might ketch fire
anywhere in them little old town trails, I jes' nachally pulled my
freight for camp!"
But a cowboy is the subject of this story--Kit Joy. His genus, and
striking types of the genus, have been cleverly described, especially by
Lewis and by Adams (some day I hope to meet Andy) that I need say little
of it here. Still, one of the cowboy's most notable and most admirable
traits has not been emphasized so much as it deserves: I mean his
downright reverence and respect for womanhood. No real cowboy ever
wilfully insulted any woman, or lost a chance to resent any insult
offered by another. Indeed, it was an article of the cowboy creed never
broken, and all well knew it. So it happened that when one day a cowboy,
in a crowded car of a train held up by bandits, was appealed to by an
Eastern lady in the next seat,--
"Heavens! I have four hundred dollars in my purse which I cannot afford
to lose; please, sir, tell me how I can hide it."
Instantly came the answer:
"Shucks! miss, stick it in yer sock; them fellers has nerve enough to
hold up a train an' kill any feller that puts up a fight, but nary one o'
them has nerve enough to go into a woman's sock after her bank roll!"
Kit Joy was a cowboy working on the X ranch on the Gila. He was a
youngster little over twenty. It was said of him that he had left behind
him in Texas more or less history not best written in black ink, but
whether this was true or not I do not know. Certain it is that he was a
reckless dare-devil, always foremost in the little amenities cowboys
loved to indulge in when they came to town such as shooting out the
lights in saloons and generally "shelling up the settlement,"--which
meant taking a friendly shot at about everything that showed up on the
streets. Nevertheless, Kit in the main was thoroughly good-natured and
amiable.
Early in his career in Silver City it was observed that perhaps his most
distinguishing trait was curiosity. Ultimately his curiosity got him
into trouble, as it does most people who indulge it. His first display
of curiosity in Silver was a very great surprise, even to those who knew
him best. It was also a disappointment.
A tenderfoot, newly arrived, appeared on the streets one day in
knickerbockers and stockings. Kit was in town and was observed watching
the tenderfoot. To the average cowboy a silk top hat was like a red flag
to a bull, so much like it in fact that the hat was usually lucky to
escape with less than half a dozen holes through it. But here in these
knee-breeches and stockings was something much more bizarre and
exasperating than a top hat, from a cowboy's point of view. The effect
on Kit was therefore closely watched by the bystanders.
No one fancied for a moment that Kit would do less than undertake to
teach the tenderfoot "the cowboy's hornpipe," not a particularly graceful
but a very quick step, which is danced most artistically when a bystander
is shooting at the dancer's toes. Indeed, the ball was expected to open
early. To every one's surprise and disappointment, it did not. Instead,
Kit dropped in behind the tenderfoot and began to follow him about
town--followed him for at least an hour. Every one thought he was
studying up some more unique penalty for the tenderfoot. But they were
wrong, all wrong.
As a matter of fact. Kit was so far consumed with curiosity that he
forgot everything else, forgot even to be angry. At last, when he could
stand it no longer, he walked up to the tenderfoot, detained him gently
by the sleeve and asked in a tone of real sympathy and concern: "Say,
mistah! 'Fo' God, won't yo' mah let yo' wear long pants?"
Naturally the tenderfoot's indignation was aroused and expressed, but
Kit's sympathies for a man condemned to such a juvenile costume were so
far stirred that he took no notice of it.
Kit was a typical cowboy, industrious, faithful, uncomplaining, of the
good old Southern Texas breed. In the saddle from daylight till dark,
riding completely down to the last jump in them two or three horses a
day, it never occurred to him even to growl when a stormy night, with
thunder and lightning, prolonged his customary three-hour's turn at night
guard round the herd to an all-night's vigil. He took it as a matter of
course. And his rope and running iron were ever ready, and his weather
eye alert for a chance to catch and decorate with the X brand any stray
cattle that ventured within his range. This was a peculiar phase of
cowboy character. While not himself profiting a penny by these inroads
on neighboring herds, he was never quite so happy as when he had added
another maverick to the herd bearing his employer's brand, an increase
always obtained at the expense of some of the neighbors.
One night on the Spring round-up, the day's work finished, supper eaten,
the night horses caught and saddled, the herd in hand driven into a close
circle and bedded down for the night in a little glade in the hills, Kit
was standing first relief. The day's drive had been a heavy one, the
herd was well grazed and watered in the late afternoon, the night was
fine; and so the twelve hundred or fifteen hundred cattle in the herd
were lying down quietly, giving no trouble to the night herders. Kit,
therefore, was jogging slowly round the herd, softly jingling his spurs
and humming some rude love song of the sultry sort cowboys never tire of
repeating. The stillness of the night superinduced reflection. With
naught to interrupt it, Kit's curiosity ran farther afield than usual.
Recently down at Lordsburg, with the outfit shipping a train load of
beeves, he had seen the Overland Express empty its load of passengers for
supper, a crowd of well-dressed men and women, the latter brilliant with
the bright colors cowboys love and with glittering gems. To-night he got
to thinking about them.
Wherever did they all come from? How ever did they get so much money?
Surely they must come from 'Frisco. No lesser place could possibly turn
out such magnificence. Then Kit let his fancy wander off into crude
cowboy visions of what 'Frisco might be like, for he had never seen a
city.
"What a buster of a town 'Frisco must be!" Kit soliloquized. "Must have
more'n a hundred saloons an' more slick gals than the X brand has
heifers. What a lot o' fun a feller could have out thar! Only I reckon
them gals wouldn't look at him more'n about onct unless he was well fixed
for dough. Reckon they don't drink nothin' but wine out thar, nor eat
nothin' but oysters. An' wine an' oysters costs money, oodles o' money!
That's the worst of it! S'pose it'd take more'n a month's pay to git a
feller out thar on the kiars, an' then about three months' pay to git to
stay a week. Reckon that's jes' a little too rich for Kit's blood. But,
jiminy! Wouldn't I like to have a good, big, fat bank roll an' go thar!"
Here was a crisis suddenly come in Kit's life, although he did not then
realize it. It is entirely improbable he had ever before felt the want
of money. His monthly pay of thirty-five dollars enabled him to sport a
pearl-handled six-shooter and silver-mounted bridle bit and spurs, kept
him well clothed, and gave him an occasional spree in town. What more
could any reasonable cowboy ask?
But to-night the very elements and all nature were against him. Even a
light dash of rain to rouse the sleeping herd, or a hungry cow straying
out into the darkness, would have been sufficient to divert and probably
save him; but nothing happened. The night continued fine. The herd
slept on. And Kit was thus left an easy prey, since covetousness had
come to aid curiosity in compassing his ruin.
"A bank roll! A big, fat, full-grown, long-horned, four-year-old roll!
_That's_ what a feller wants to do 'Frisco right. Nothin' less. But
whar's it comin' from, an' when? S'pose I brands a few mavericks an'
gits a start on my own? No use, Kit; that's too slow! Time you got a
proper roll you'd be so old the skeeters wouldn't even bite you, to say
nothin' of a gal a-kissin' of you. 'Pears like you ain't liable to git
thar very quick, Kit, 'less you rustles mighty peart somewhar. Talkin'
of rustlin', what's the matter with that anyway?"
A cold glitter came in Kit's light blue eyes. The muscles of his lean,
square jaws worked nervously. His right hand dropped caressingly on the
handle of his pistol.
"That's the proper caper, Kit. Why didn't you think of it before?
Rustle, damn you, an', ef you're any good, mebbe so you can git to
'Frisco afore frost comes, or anywhere else you likes. Rustle! By
jiminy, I've got it; I'll jes' stand up that thar Overland Express. Them
fellers what rides on it's got more'n they've got any sort o' use for.
What's the matter with makin' 'em whack up with a feller! 'Course
they'll kick, an' thar'll be a whole passle o' marshals an' sheriffs out
after you, but what o' that? Reckon Old Blue'll carry you out o' range.
He's the longest-winded chunk o' horse meat in these parts. Then you'll
have to stay out strictly on the scout fer a few weeks, till they gits
tired o' huntin' of you, so you can slip out o' this yere neck o' woods
'thout leavin' a trail.
"An' Lord! but won't it be fun! 'Bout as much fun, I reckon, as doin'
'Frisco. Won't them tenderfeet beller when they hears the guns
a-crackin' an' the boys a-yellin'! Le' see; wonder who I'd better take
along?"
Scruples? Kit had none. Bred and raised a merry freebooter on the
unbranded spoils of the cattle range, it was no long step from stealing a
maverick to holding up a train.
With a man of perhaps any other class, a plan to engage in a new business
enterprise of so much greater magnitude than any of those he had been
accustomed to would have been made the subject of long consideration.
Not so with Kit. Cowboy life compels a man to think quickly, and often
to act quicker than he finds it convenient to think. The hand skilled to
catch the one possible instant when the wide, circling loop of the lariat
may be successfully thrown, and the eye and finger trained to accurate
snap-shooting, do not well go with a mind likely to be long in reaching a
resolution or slow to execute one.
So Kit at once began to cast about for two or three of the right sort of
boys to join him. Three were quickly chosen out of his own and a
neighboring outfit. They were Mitch Lee and Taggart, two white cowboys
of his own type and temper, and George Cleveland, a negro, known as a
desperate fellow, game for anything. It needed no great argument to
secure the co-operation of these men. A mere tip of the lark and the
loot to be had was enough.
The boys saw their respective bosses. They "allowed they'd lay off for a
few days and go to town." So they were paid off, slung their Winchesters
on their saddles, mounted their favorite horses, and rode away. They met
in Silver City, coming in singly. There they purchased a few provisions.
Then they separated and rode singly out of town, to rendezvous at a
certain point on the Miembres River.
The point of attack chosen was the little station of Gage (tended by a
lone operator), on the Southern Pacific Railway west of Deming, a point
then reached by the west-bound express at twilight. The evening of the
second day after leaving the Gila, Kit and his three compadres rode into
Gage. One or two significant passes with a six-shooter hypnotized the
station agent into a docile tool. A dim red light glimmered away off in
the east. As the minutes passed, it grew and brightened fast. Then a
faint, confused murmur came singing over the rails to the ears of the
waiting bandits. The light brightened and grew until it looked like a
great dull red sun, and then the thunder of the train was heard.
Time for action had come!
The agent was made to signal the engineer to stop. With lever reversed
and air brakes on, the train was nearly stopped when the engine reached
the station. But seeing the agent surrounded by a group of armed men,
the engineer shut off the air and sought to throw his throttle open. His
purpose discovered, a quick snapshot from Mitch Lee laid him dead, and,
springing into the cab, Mitch soon persuaded the fireman to stop the
train.
Instantly a fusillade of pistol shots and a mad chorus of shrill cowboy
yells broke out, that terrorized train crew and passengers into docility.
Within fifteen minutes the express car was sacked, the postal car gutted,
the passengers were laid under unwilling contribution, and Kit and his
pals were riding northward into the night, heavily loaded with loot.
Riding at great speed due north, the party soon reached the main
travelled road up the Miembres, in whose loose drifting sands they knew
their trail could not be picked up. Still forcing the pace, they reached
the rough hill-country east of Silver early in the night, _cached_ their
plunder safely, and a little after midnight were carelessly bucking a
monte game in a Silver City saloon. The next afternoon they quietly rode
out of town and joined their respective outfits, to wait until the
excitement should blow over.
Of course the telegraph soon started the hue and cry. Officers from
Silver, Deming, and Lordsburg were soon on the ground, led by Harvey
Whitehill, the famous old sheriff of Grant County. But of clue there was
none. Naturally the station agent had come safely out of his trance, but
with that absence of memory of what had happened characteristic of the
hypnotized. The trail disappeared in the sands of the Miembres road.
Shrewd old Harvey Whitehill was at his wits' end.
Many days passed in fruitless search. At last, riding one day across the
plain at some distance from the line of flight north from Gage, Whitehill
found a fragment of a Kansas newspaper. As soon as he saw it he
remembered that a certain merchant of Silver came from the Kansas town
where this paper was published. Hurrying back to Silver, Whitehill saw
the merchant, who identified the paper and said that he undoubtedly was
its only subscriber in Silver. Asked if he had given a copy to any one,
he finally recalled that some time before, about the period of the
robbery, he had wrapped in a piece this newspaper some provisions he had
sold to a negro named Cleveland and a white man he did not know.
Here was the clue, and Whitehill was quick to follow it. Meeting a negro
on the street, he pretended to want to hire a cook. The negro had a job.
Well, did he not know some one else? By the way, where was George
Cleveland?
"Oh, boss, he done left de Gila dis week an' gone ober to Socorro," was
the answer.
Two days later Whitehill found Cleveland in a Socorro restaurant, got the
"drop" on him, told him his pals were arrested and had confessed that
they were in the robbery, but that he, Cleveland, had killed Engineer
Webster. This brought the whole story.
"'Foh God, boss, I nebber killed dat engineer. Mitch Lee done it, an'
him an' Taggart an' Kit Joy, dey done lied to you outrageous."
Within a few days, caught singly, in ignorance of Cleveland's arrest, and
taken completely by surprise, Joy, Taggart, and Lee were captured on the
Gila and jailed, along with Cleveland, at Silver City, held to await the
action of the next grand jury.
But strong walls did not a prison make adequate hold these men. Before
many weeks passed, an escape was planned and executed. Two other
prisoners, one a man wanted in Arizona, and the other a Mexican
horse-thief, were allowed to participate in the outbreak.
Taken unawares, their guard was seized and bound with little difficulty.
Quickly arming themselves in the jail office, these six desperate men
dashed out of the jail and into a neighboring livery stable, seized
horses, mounted, and rode madly out of town, firing at every one in
sight. In Silver in those days no gentleman's trousers fitted
comfortably without a pistol stuck in the waistband. Therefore, the
flying desperadoes received as hot a fire as they sent. By this fire
Cleveland's horse was killed before they got out of town, but one of his
pals stopped and picked him up.
Instantly the town was in an uproar of excitement. Every one knew that
the capture of these men meant a fight to the death. As usual in such
emergencies, there were more talkers than fighters. Nevertheless, six
men were in pursuit as soon as they could saddle and mount. The first to
start was the driver of an express wagon, a man named Jackson, who cut
his horse loose from the traces, mounted bareback, and flew out of town
only a few hundred yards behind the prisoners. Six others, led by
Charlie Shannon and La Fer, were not far behind Jackson. The men of this
party were greatly surprised to find that a Boston boy of twenty, a
tenderfoot lately come to town, who had scarcely ever ridden a horse or
fired a rifle, was among their number, well mounted and armed--a man with
a line of ancestry worth while, and himself a worthy survival of the best
of it.
The chase was hot. Jackson was well in advance, engaging the fugitives
with his pistol, while the fugitives were returning the fire and throwing
up puffs of dust all about Jackson. Behind spurred Shannon and his party.
At length the pursuit gained. Five miles out of Silver, in the Piñon
Hills to the northwest, too close pressed to run farther, the fugitives
sprang from their horses and ran into a low post oak thicket covering
about two acres, where, crouching, they could not be seen. The six
pursuers sent back a man to guide the sheriff's party and hasten
reinforcements, and began shelling the thicket and surrounding it. A few
minutes later Whitehill rode up with seven more men, and the thicket was
effectually surrounded. To the surprise of every one, a hot fire poured
into the thicket failed to bring a single answering shot. Whitehill was
no man to waste ammunition on such chance firing, so he ordered a charge.
His little command rode into and through the thicket at full speed, only
to find their quarry gone, gone all save one. The Mexican lay dead, shot
through the head! Kit's party had dashed through the thicket without
stopping, on to another, and their trail was shortly found leading up a
rugged cañon of the Pinos Altos Range.
Whitehill divided his party. Three men followed up the bottom of the
cañon on foot, five mounted flankers were thrown out on either side. At
last, high up the cañon, Kit's party was found at bay, lying in some
thick underbrush. It was a desperate position to attack, but the
pursuers did not hesitate. Dismounting, they advanced on foot with
rifles cocked, but with all the caution of a hunter trailing a wounded
grizzly. The negro opened the ball at barely twenty yards' range with a
shot that drove a hole through the Boston boy's hat. Dropping at first
with surprise, for he had not seen the negro till the instant he rose to
fire, the Boston boy returned a quick shot that happened to hit the negro
just above the centre of the forehead and rolled him over dead.
Approaching from another direction, Shannon was first to draw Taggart's
file. Taggart was lying hidden in the brush; Shannon standing out in the
open. Shot after shot they exchanged, until presently a ball struck the
earth in front of Taggart's face and filled his eyes full of gravel and
sand. Blinded for the time, he called for quarter, and came out of the
brush with his hands up and another man with him. Asked for his pistol,
Taggart replied:
"Damn you, that's empty, or I'd be shooting yet."
Meantime, Whitehill was engaging Mitch Lee. In a few minutes, shot
through and helpless, Lee surrendered.
It was quick, hot work!
All but Kit were now killed or captured. He had been separated from his
party, and La Fer was seen trailing him on a neighboring hillside.
At this juncture the sheriff detailed Shannon to return to town and get a
wagon to bring in the dead and wounded, while he started to join La Fer
in pursuit of Kit.
An hour later, as Shannon was leaving town with a wagon to return to the
scene of the fight, a mob of men, led by a shyster lawyer, joined him and
swore they proposed to lynch the prisoners. This was too much for
Shannon's sense of frontier proprieties. So, rising in his wagon, he
made a brief but effective speech.
"Boys, none of our men are hurt, although it is no fault of our
prisoners. A dozen of us have gone out and risked our lives to capture
these men. You men have not seen fit, for what motives we will not
discuss, to help us. Now, I tell you right here that any who want can
come, but the first man to raise a hand against a prisoner I'll kill."
Shannon's return escort was small.
But once more back in the hills of the Pinos Altos, Shannon found a storm
raised he could not quell, even if his own sympathies had not drifted
with it when he learned its cause. His friend La Fer lay dead, filled
full of buckshot by Kit before Whitehill's reinforcements had reached
him, while Kit had slipped away through the underbrush, over rocks that
left no trail.
La Fer's death maddened his friends. There was little discussion. Only
one opinion prevailed. Taggart and Lee must die.
Nothing was known of the prisoner wanted in Arizona, so he was spared.
Taggart and Lee were put in the wagon, the former tightly bound, the
latter helpless from his wound. Short rope halters barely five feet long
were stripped from the horses, knotted round the prisoners' necks, and
fastened to the limb of a juniper tree. Taggart climbed to the high
wagon seat, took a header and broke his neck. The wagon was then pulled
away and Lee strangled.
With Cleveland, Lee, and Taggart dead, Engineer Webster and La Fer were
fairly well avenged. But Kit was still out, known as the leader and the
man who shot La Fer, and for days the hills were full of men hunting him.
Hiding in the rugged, thickly timbered hills of the Gila, taking needed
food at night, at the muzzle of his gun, from some isolated ranch, he was
hard to capture.
Had Kit chosen to mount himself and ride out of the country, he might
have escaped for good. But this he would not do. Dominated still by the
fatal curiosity and covetousness that first possessed him, later mastered
him, and then drove him into crime, bound to repossess himself of his
hidden treasure and go out to see the world, Kit would not leave the
Gila. He was alone, unaided, with no man left his friend, with all men
on the alert to capture or to kill him, the unequal contest nevertheless
lasted for many weeks.
There was only one man Kit at all trusted, a "nester" (small ranchman)
named Racketty Smith. One day, looking out from a leafy thicket in which
he lay hid, saw Racketty going along the road. A lonely outcast, craving
the sound of a human voice, believing Racketty at least neutral, Kit
hailed him and approached. As he drew near, Racketty covered him with
his rifle and ordered him to surrender. Surprised, taken entirely
unawares, Kit started to jump for cover, when Racketty fired, shattered
his right leg and brought him to earth. To spring upon and disarm Kit
was the work of an instant.
Kit was sentenced to imprisonment at Santa Fe. A few years ago, having
gained three years by good behavior, Kit was released, after having
served fourteen years.
However Kit may still hanker for "a big, fat, four-year-old, long-horned
bank roll," and whatever may be his curiosity to "do 'Frisco proper," it
is not likely he will make any more history as a train robber, for at
heart Kit was always a better "good man" than "bad man."
CHAPTER VIII
CIRCUS DAY AT MANCOS
Cowboys were seldom respecters of the feelings of their fellows. Few
topics were so sacred or incidents so grave they were not made the
subject of the rawest jests. Leading a life of such stirring adventure
that few days passed without some more or less serious mishap, reckless
of life, unheedful alike of time and eternity, they made the smallest
trifles and the biggest tragedies the subjects of chaff and badinage
till the next diverting occurrence. But to the Cross Cañon outfit Mat
Barlow's love for Netty Nevins was so obviously a downright worship, an
all-absorbing, dominating cult, that, in a way, and all unknown to her,
she became the nearest thing to a religion the Cross Cañonites ever had.
Eight years before Mat had come among them a green tenderfoot from a
South Missouri village, picked up in Durango by Tom McTigh, the
foreman, on a glint of the eye and set of the jaw that suggested
workable material. Nor was McTigh mistaken. Mat took to range work
like a duck to water. Within a year he could rope and tie a mossback
with the best, and in scraps with Mancos Jim's Pah-Ute horse raiders
had proved himself as careless a dare-devil as the oldest and toughest
trigger-twitcher of the lot.
But persuade and cajole as much as they liked, none of the outfit were
ever able to induce Mat to pursue his education as a cowboy beyond the
details incident to work and frolic on the open range. Old
past-masters in the classics of cowboy town deportment, expert light
shooters, monte players, dance-hall beaux, elbow-crookers, and red-eye
riot-starters labored faithfully with Mat, but, all to no purpose. To
town with them he went, but with them in their debauches he never
joined; indeed as a rule he even refused to discuss such incidents with
them academically. Thus he delicately but plainly made it known to the
outfit that he proposed to keep his mind as clean as his conduct.
Such a curiosity as Mat was naturally closely studied. The combined
intelligence of the outfit was trained upon him, for some time without
result. He was the knottiest puzzle that ever hit Cross Cañon. At
first he was suspected of religious scruples and nicknamed "Circuit
Rider." But presently it became apparent that he owned ability and
will to curse a fighting outlaw bronco till the burning desert air felt
chill, and it became plain he feared God as little as man. Mat had
joined the outfit in the Autumn, when for several weeks it was on the
jump; first gathering and shipping beeves, then branding calves, lastly
moving the herd down to its Winter range on the San Juan. Throughout
this period Cross Cañon's puzzle remained hopeless; but the very first
evening after the outfit went into Winter quarters at the home ranch,
the puzzle was solved.
Ranch mails were always small, no matter how infrequent their coming or
how large the outfit. The owner's business involved little
correspondence, the boys' sentiments inspired less. Few with close
home-ties exiled themselves on the range. Many were "on the scout"
from the scene of some remote shooting scrape and known by no other
than a nickname. For most of them such was the rarity of letters that
often have I seen a cowboy turning and studying an unopened envelope
for a half-day or more, wondering whoever it was from and guessing
whatever its contents could be. Thus it was one of the great
sensations of the season for McTigh and his red-sashers, when the ranch
cook produced five letters for Circuit Rider, all addressed in the same
neat feminine hand, all bearing the same post mark. And when, while
the rest were washing for supper, disposing of war sacks, or "making
down" blankets, Mat squatted in the chimney corner to read his letters,
Lee Skeats impressively whispered to Priest:
"Ben, I jest nachally hope never to cock another gun ef that thar
little ol' Circuit hain't got a gal that's stuck to him tighter'n a
tick makin' a gotch ear, or that ain't got airy damn thing to do to hum
but write letters. Size o' them five he's got must 'a kept her settin'
up nights to make 'em ever since Circuit jumped the hum reservation.
Did you _ever_ hear of a feller gettin' five letters from a gal to
wonst?"
"I shore never did," answered Ben; "Circuit must 'a been 'prentice to
some big Medicine Man back among his tribe and have a bagful o' hoodoos
hid out somewhere. He ain't so damn hijus to look at, but he shore
never knocked no gal plum loco that away with his p'rsn'l beauty. Must
be some sort o' Injun medicine he works."
"Ca'n't be from his mother," cogitated Lee. "Writin' ain't trembly
none--looks like it was writ by a school-marm, an' a lally-cooler at
that. Circuit will have to git one o' them pianer-like writin' makers
and keep poundin' it on the back till it hollers, ef he allows to lope
close up in that gal's writin' class.
"Lord! but won't thar be fun for us all Winter he'pin' him 'tend to his
correspondence!
"Let's you an' me slip round and tip off the outfit to shet up till
after supper, an' then all be ready with a hot line o' useful hints
'bout his answerin' her."
Ben joyously fell in with Lee's plan. The tips were quickly passed
round. But none of the hints were ever given, not a single one. A
facer lay ahead of them beside which the mere receipt of the five
letters was nothing. To be sure, the letters were the greatest
sensation the outfit had enjoyed since they stood off successfully two
troops of U. S. Cavalry, come to arrest them for killing twenty
maurauding Utes. But what soon followed filled them with an
astonishment that stilled their mischievous tongues, stirred sentiments
long dormant, and ultimately, in a measure, tuned their own
heart-strings into chord with the sweet melody ringing over Circuit's
own.
Supper was called, and upon it the outfit fell--all but Circuit. They
attacked it wolf-fashion according to their habit, bolting the steaming
food in a silence absolute but for the crunching of jaws and the shrill
hiss of sipped coffee. The meal was half over before Circuit, the last
letter finished, tucked his five treasures inside his shirt, stepped
over the bench to a vacant place at the table, and hastily swallowed a
light meal; in fact he rose while the rest were still busy gorging
themselves. And before Lee or the others were ready to launch at
Circuit any shafts of their rude wit, his manoeuvres struck them dumb
with curiosity.
Having hurried from the table direct to his bunk, Circuit was observed
delving in the depths of his war sack, out of which he produced a set
of clean under-clothing, complete from shirt to socks, and a razor.
Besides these he carefully laid out his best suit of store clothes, and
from beneath the "heading" of the bunk he pulled a new pair of boots.
All this was done with a rapidity and method that evinced some set
purpose which the outfit could not fathom, a purpose become the more
puzzling when, five minutes later, Circuit returned from the kitchen
bearing the cook's wash-tub and a pail of warm water. The tub he
deposited and filled in an obscure corner of the bunkroom, and shortly
thereafter was stripped to the buff, laboriously bathing himself. The
bath finished, Circuit carefully shaved, combed his hair, and dressed
himself in his cleanest and best.
While he was dressing, Bill Ball caught breath enough to whisper to
Lee: "By cripes! I've got it. Circuit's got a hunch some feller's
tryin' to rope an' hobble his gal, an' he's goin' to ask Tom for his
time, fork a cayuse, an' hit a lope for a railroad that'll take him to
whatever little ol' humanyville his gal lives at."
"Lope hell," answered Lee; "it's a run he's goin' to hit, with one spur
in the shoulder an' th' other in th' flank. Why, th' way he's throwin'
that whisker-cutter at his face, he's plumb shore to dewlap and wattle
his fool self till you could spot him in airy herd o' humans as fer as
you could see him."
But Bill's guess proved wide of the mark.
As soon as Circuit's dressing was finished and he had received
assurance from the angular fragment of mirror nailed above the
wash-basin that his hair was smoothly combed and a new neckerchief
neatly knotted, he produced paper and an envelope from his war sack,
seated himself at the end of the long dinner-table, farthest from the
fireplace, lighted a fresh candle, spread out his five treasures,
carefully sharpened a stub pencil, and duly set its lead end a-soak in
his mouth, preparatory to the composition of a letter. The surprise
was complete. Such painstaking preparation and elaborate costuming for
the mere writing of a letter none present--or absent, for that
matter--had ever heard of. But it was all so obviously eloquent of a
most tender respect for his correspondent that boisterous voices were
hushed, and for at least a quarter of an hour the Cross Cañonites sat
covertly watching the puckered brows, drawn mouth, and awkwardly
crawling pencil of the writer.
Presently Lee gently nudged Ball and passed a wink to the rest; then
all rose and softly tiptoed their way to the kitchen.
Comfortably squatted on his heels before the cook's fireplace, Lee
quietly observed: "Fellers, I allow it's up to us to hold a inquest on
th' remains o' my idee about stringin' Circuit over that thar gal o'
his'n. I moves that th' idee's done died a-bornin', an' that we bury
her. All that agrees, say so; any agin it, say so, 'n' then git their
guns an' come outside."
There were no dissenting votes. Lee's motion was unanimously carried.
"Lee's plumb right," whispered McTigh; "that kid's got it harder an'
worse than airy feller I ever heerd tell of, too hard for us to lite in
stringin' him 'bout it. Never had no gal myself; leastways, no good
one; been allus like a old buffalo bull whipped out o' th' herd, sorta
flockin' by my lonesome, an'--an'--" with a husky catch of the voice,
"an' that thar kid 'minds me I must a' been missin' a _hell_ of a lot
hit 'pears to me I wouldn't have no great trouble gittin' to like."
Then for a time there was silence in the kitchen.
Crouching over his pots, the black cook stared in surprised inquiry at
the semicircle of grim bronzed faces, now dimly lit by the flickering
embers and then for a moment sharply outlined by the flash of a
cigarette deeply inhaled by nervous lips. The situation was tense. In
each man emotions long dormant, or perhaps by some never before
experienced, were tumultuously surging; surging the more tumultuously
for their long dormancy or first recognition. Presently in a low,
hoarse voice that scarcely carried round the semicircle, Chillili Jim
spoke:
"Fellers, Circuit shore 'minds me pow'ful strong o' my ol' mammy. She
was monstrous lovin' to we-uns; an' th' way she scrubbed an' fixed up
my ol' pa when he comes home from the break-up o' Terry's Rangers, with
his ol' carcass 'bout as full o' rents an' holes as his ragged gray war
clothes! Allus have tho't ef I could git to find a gal stuck on me
like mammy on pa, I'd drop my rope on her, throw her into th' home
ranch pasture, an' nail up th' gate fer keeps."
"'Minds me o' goin' to meetin' when I was a six-year-old," mused Mancos
Mitch; "when Circuit's pencil got to smokin' over th' paper an' we-uns
got so dedburned still, 'peared to me like I was back in th' little ol'
meetin'-house in th' mosquito clearin', on th' banks o' th' Lee in ol'
Uvalde County. Th' air got that quar sort o' dead smell 'ligion allus
'pears to give to meetin'-houses, a' I could hear th' ol' pa'son
a-tellin' us how it's th' lovinest that allus gits th' longest end o'
th' rope o' life. Hits me now that ther ol' sky scout was 'bout right.
Feller cain't possibly keep busy _all_ th' love in his system, workin'
it off on nothing but a pet hoss or gun; thar's allus a hell of a lot
you didn't know you had comes oozin' out when a proper piece o' calico
lets you next."
"Boys," cut in Bill Ball, the dean of the outfit's shooters-up of town
and shooters-out of dance-hall lights; "boys, I allow it 's up to me to
'pologize to Circuit. Ef I wasn't such a damned o'nery kiyote I'd o'
caught on befo'. But I hain't been runnin' with th' drags o' th' she
herd so long that I can't 'preciate th' feelin's o' a feller that's got
a good gal stuck on him, like Circuit. Ef I had one, you-all kin
gamble yer _alce_ all bets would be off with them painted dance-hall
beer jerkers, an' it would be out in th' brush fo' me while th' corks
was poppin', gals cussin', red-eye flowin', an' chips rattlin'. That
thar little ol' kid has my 'spects, an' ef airy o' th' Blue Mountain
outfit tries to string him 'bout not runnin' with them oreide
propositions, I'll hand 'em lead till my belt's empty."
Ensued a long silence; at length, by common consent the inquest was
adjourned, and the members of the jury returned to the bunk-room, quiet
and solemn as men entering a death chamber. There at the table before
the guttering candle still sat Circuit, his hair now badly tousled, his
upper lip blackened with pencil lead, his brows more deeply puckered,
his entire underlip apparently swallowed, the table littered with
rudely scrawled sheets.
Slipping softly to their respective bunks, the boys peeled and climbed
into their blankets. And there they all lay, wide-awake but silent,
for an hour or two, some watching Circuit curiously, some enviously,
others staring fixedly into the dying fire until from its dull-glowing
embers there rose for some visions of bare-footed, nut-brown,
fustian-clad maids, and for others the finer lines of silk and lace
draped figures, now long since passed forever out of their lives.
Those longest awake were privileged to witness Circuit's final offering
at the shrine of his love.
His letter finished, enclosed, addressed, and stamped, he kissed it and
laid it aside, apparently all unconscious of the presence of his mates,
as he had been since beginning his letter. Then he drew from beneath
his shirt something none of them had seen before, a buckskin bag, out
of which he pulled a fat blank memorandum book, _into which he
proceeded to copy, in as small a hand as he could write, every line of
his sweetheart's letters_. Later they learned that this bag and its
contents never left Circuit's body, nestled always over his heart,
suspended by a buckskin thong!
Out of the close intimacies cow-camp life promotes, it was not long
before the well-nigh overmastering curiosity of the outfit was
satisfied. They learned how the "little ol' blue-eyed sorrel top," as
Bill Ball had christened her, had vowed to wait faithfully till Circuit
could earn and save enough to make them a home, and how Circuit had
sworn to look into no woman's eyes till he could again look into hers.
Before many months had passed, Circuit's regular weekly letter to
Netty--regular when on the ranch--and the ceremonial purification and
personal decking that preceded it, had become for the Cross Cañon
outfit a public ceremony all studiously observed. None were ever too
tired, none too grumpy, to wash, shave, and "slick up" of letter
nights, scrupulously as Moslems bathe their feet before approaching the
shrine of Mahomet and still as Moslems before their shrine all sat
about the bunk-room while Circuit wrote his letter and copied Netty's
last. Indeed, more than one well-started wild town orgy was stopped
short by one of the boys remarking: "Cut it, you kiyotes! Netty
wouldn't like it!"
And thus the months rolled on till they stacked up into years, but the
interchange of letters never ceased and the burden of Circuit's
buckskin bag grew heavier.
Twice Circuit ventured a financial _coup_, and both times
lost--invested his savings in horses, losing one band to Arizona
rustlers, and the other to Mancos Jim's Pah-Utes. After the last
experience he took no further chances and settled down to the slow but
sure plan of hoarding his wages.
Come the Fall of the eighth year of his exile from Netty, Circuit had
accumulated two thousand dollars, and it was unanimously voted by the
Cross Cañon outfit, gathered in solemn conclave at Circuit's request,
that he might venture to return to claim her. And before the conclave
was adjourned, Lee Skeats, the chairman, remarked: "Circuit, ef Netty
shows airy sign o' balkin' at th' size o' your bank roll, you kin jes'
tell her that thar 's a bunch out here in Cross Cañon that's been
lovin' her sort o' by proxy, that'll chip into your matrimonial play,
plumb double the size o' your stack, jest fo' th' hono' o' meetin' up
wi' her an' th' pleasure o' seein' their pardner hitched."
The season's work done and the herd turned loose on its Winter range on
the San Juan, the outfit decided to escort Circuit into Mancos and
there celebrate his coming nuptials. For them the one hundred and
seventy intervening miles of alternating cañon and mesa, much of the
journey over trails deadly dangerous for any creature less sure-footed
than a goat, was no more than a pleasant _pasear_. Thus it was barely
high noon of the third day when the thirty Cross Cañonites reached
their destination.
Deep down in a mighty gorge, nestled beside the stream that gave its
name alike to cañon and to town, Mancos stewed contentedly in a
temperature that would try the strength and temper of any unaccustomed
to the climate of southwestern Colorado. Framed in Franciscan-gray
sage brush, itself gray as the sage with the dust of pounding hoofs and
rushing whirlwinds, at a little distance Mancos looked like an
aggregation of dead ash heaps, save where, here and there, dabs of
faded paint lent a semblance of patches of dying embers.
While raw, uninviting, and even melancholy in its every aspect, for the
scattered denizens of a vast region round about Mancos's principal
street was the local Great White Way that furnished all the fun and
frolic most of them ever knew. To it flocked miners from their dusky,
pine-clad gorges in the north, grangers from the then new farming
settlement in the Montezuma Valley, cowboys from Blue Mountain, the
Dolores, and the San Juan; Navajos from Chillili, Utes from their
reservation--a motley lot burning with untamed elemental passions that
called for pleasure "straight."
Joyously descending upon the town at a breakneck lope before a
following high wind that completely shrouded them in clouds of dust, it
was not until they pulled up before their favorite feed corral that the
outfit learned that Mancos was revelling in quite the reddest
red-letter day of its existence, the day of its first visitation by a
circus--and also its last for many a year thereafter.
In the eighties Mancos was forty miles from the nearest railway, but
news of the reckless extravagances of its visiting miners and cowboys
tempted Fells Brothers' "Greatest Aggregation on Earth of Ring Artists
and Monsters" to visit it. Dusted and costumed outside of town, down
the main street of Mancos the circus bravely paraded that morning, its
red enamelled paint and gilt, its many-tinted tights and spangles,
making a perfect riot of brilliant colors over the prevailing dull gray
of valley and town.
Streets, stores, saloons, and dance halls were swarming with the
outpouring of the ranches and the mines, men who drank abundantly but
in the main a rollicking, good-natured lot.
While the Cross Cañonites were liquoring at the Fashion Bar (Circuit
drinking sarsaparilla), Lame Johny, the barkeeper, remarked: "You-uns
missed it a lot, not seein' the pr'cesh. She were a ring-tailed tooter
for fair, with the damnedest biggest noise-makin' band you ever heard,
an' th' p'rformers wearin' more pr'tys than I ever allowed was made.
An' say, they've got a gal in th' bunch, rider I reckon, that's jest
that damned good to look at it _hurts_. Damned ef I kin git her outen
my eyes yet. Say, she's shore prittier than airy red wagon in th' show
built like a quarter horse, got eyes like a doe, and a sorrel mane she
could hide in. She 's sure a _chile con carne_ proposition, if I ever
see one."
"Huh!" grunted Lee; "may be a good-looker, but I'll gamble she ain't in
it with our Sorrel-top; hey, boys? Here 's to _our_ Sorrel-top,
fellers, an' th' day Circuit prances into Mancos wi' her."
Several who tried to drink and cheer at the same time lost much of
their liquor, but none of their enthusiasm. After dinner at
Charpiot's, a wretched counterfeit of the splendid old Denver
restaurant of that name, the Cross Cañonites joined the throng
streaming toward the circus.
For his sobriety designated treasurer of the outfit for the day and
night, Circuit marched up to the ticket wagon, passed in a hundred
dollar bill and asked for thirty tickets. The tickets and change were
promptly handed him. On the first count the change appeared to be
correct, but on a recount Circuit found the ticket-seller had cunningly
folded one twenty double, so that it appeared as two bills instead of
one. Turning immediately to the ticket-seller, Circuit showed the
deception and demanded correction.
"Change was right; you can't dope and roll me; gwan!" growled the
ticket-agent.
"But it's plumb wrong, an' you can't rob me none, you kiyote," answered
Circuit; "hand out another twenty, and do it sudden!"
"Chase yourself to hell, you bow-legged hold-up," threatened the
ticket-seller.
When, a moment later, the ticket man plunged out of the door of his
wagon wildly yelling for his clan, it was with eyes flooding with blood
from a gash in his forehead due to a resentful tap from the barrel of
Circuit's gun.
Almost in an instant pandemonium reigned and a massacre was imminent.
Stalwart canvasmen rushed to their chief's call till Circuit's bunch
were outnumbered three to one by tough trained battlers on many a
tented field, armed with hand weapons of all sorts. Victors these men
usually were over the town roughs it was customarily theirs to handle;
but here before them was a bunch not to be trifled with, a quiet group
of thirty bronzed faces, some grinning with the anticipated joy of the
combat they loved, some grim as death itself, each affectionately
twirling a gleaming gun. One overt act on the part of the circus men,
and down they would go like ninepins and they knew it--knew it so well
that, within two minutes after they had assembled, all dodged into and
lost themselves in the throng of onlookers like rabbits darting into
their warrens.
"Mighty pore 'pology for real men, them elephant-busters," disgustedly
observed Bill Ball. "Come fellers, le's go in."
"Nix for me," spoke up Circuit; "I'm that hot in the collar over him
tryin' to rob me I've got no use for their old show. You-all go in,
an' I'll go down to Chapps' and fix my traps to hit the trail for the
railroad in the mornin'."
On the crest of a jutting bastion of the lofty escarpment that formed
the west wall of the cañon, the sun lingered for a good-night kiss of
the eastern cliffs which it loved to paint every evening with all the
brilliant colors of the spectrum; it lingered over loving memories of
ancient days when every niche of the Mancos cliffs held its little
bronze-hued line of primitive worshippers, old and young, devout,
prostrate, fearful of their Red God's nightly absences, suppliant of
his return and continued largess; over memories of ceremonials and
pastimes barbaric in their elemental violence, but none more
primitively savage than the new moon looked down upon an hour later.
Supper over, on motion of Lee Skeats the Cross Cañonites had adjourned
to the feed corral and gone into executive session.
Lee called the meeting to order.
"Fellers," he said, "that dod-burned show makes my back tired. A few
geezers an' gals flipfloopin' in swings an' a bunch o' dead ones on ol'
broad-backed work hosses that calls theirselves riders! Shucks! thar
hain't one o' th' lot could sit a real twister long enough to git his
seat warm; about th' second jump would have 'em clawin' sand.
"Only thing in their hull circus wo'th lookin' at is that red-maned
gal, an' she looks that sweet an' innercent she don't 'pear to rightly
belong in that thar bare-legged bunch o' she dido-cutters. They-all
must 'a mavericked her recent. Looks like a pr'ty ripe red apple among
a lot o' rotten ones.
"Hated like hell to see her thar, specially with next to nothin' on,
fer somehow I couldn't help her 'mindin' me o' our Sorrel-top. Reckon
ef we busted up their damn show, that gal'd git to stay a while in a
decent woman's sort o' clothes. What say, shall we bust her!"
"Fer one, I sits in an' draw cards in your play cheerful," promptly
responded Bill Ball; "kind o' hurt me too to see Reddy thar. An' then
them animiles hain't gittin' no squar' deal. Never did believe in
cagin' animiles more'n men. Ef they need it bad, kill 'em; ef they
don't, give 'em a run fo' their money, way ol' Mahster meant 'em to
have when He made 'em. Let's all saddle up, ride down thar, tie onto
their tents, an' pull 'em down, an' then bust open them cages an' give
every dod-blamed animile th' liberty I allows he loves same as humans!
An' then, jest to make sure she's a good job, le's whoop all their
hosses ove' to th' Dolores an' scatter 'em through th' piñons!"
This motion was unanimously carried, even Circuit cheerfully
consenting, from memories of the outrage attempted upon him earlier in
the day. Ten minutes later the outfit charged down upon the circus at
top speed, arriving among the first comers for the evening performance.
Flaming oil torches lit the scene, making it bright almost as day.
By united action, thirty lariats were quickly looped round guy ropes
and snubbed to saddle horns, and then, incited by simultaneous spur
digs and yells, thirty fractious broncos bounded away from the tent,
fetching it down in sheets and ribbons, ropes popping like pistols, the
rent canvas shrieking like a creature in pain, startled animals
threshing about their cages and crying their alarm. Cowboys were never
slow at anything they undertook. In three minutes more the side shows
were tentless, the dwarfs trying to swarm up the giant's sturdy legs to
safety or to hide among the adipose wrinkles of the fat lady, and the
outfit tackled the cages.
In another three minutes the elephant, with a sociable shot through his
off ear to make sure he should not tarry, was thundering down Mancos's
main street, trumpeting at every jump, followed by the lion, the great
tuft of hair at the end of his tail converted, by a happy thought of
Lee Skeats, into a brightly blazing torch that, so long as the fuel
lasted, lighted the shortest cut to freedom for his escaping mates--for
the lion hit as close a bee-line as possible trying to outrun his own
tail. For the outfit, it was the lark of their lives. Crashing pistol
shots and ringing yells bore practical testimony to their joy. But
they were not to have it entirely their own way.
Just as they were all balled up before the rhinoceros, staggered a bit
by his great bulk and threatening horn, out upon them charged a body of
canvasmen, all the manager could contrive to rally, for a desperate
effort to stop the damage and avenge the outrage. In their lead ran
the ticket seller, armed with a pistol and keen for evening up things
with the man who had hit him, dashing straight for Circuit. Circuit
did not see him, but Lee did; and thus in the very instant Circuit
staggered and dropped to the crack of his pistol, down beside Circuit
pitched the ticket man with a ball through his head. Then for two
minutes, perhaps, a hell of fierce hand-to-hand battle raged, cowboy
skulls crunching beneath fierce blows, circus men falling like autumn
leaves before the cowboys' fire. And so the fight might have lasted
till all were down but for a startling diversion.
Suddenly, just as Circuit had struggled to his feet, out from among the
wrecked wagons sprang a dainty figure in tulle and tights, masses of
hair red as the blood of the battlers streaming in waves behind her,
and fired at the nearest of the common enemy, which happened to be poor
Circuit. Swaying for a moment with the shock of the wound, down to the
ground he settled like an empty sack, falling across the legs of the
ticket-seller.
Startled and shocked, it seemed, by the consequences of her deed, the
woman approached and for a moment gazed down, horror-stricken, into
Circuit's face. Then suddenly, with a shriek of agony, she dropped
beside him, drew his head into her lap, wiped the gathering foam from
his lips, fondled and kissed him. Ripping his shirt open at the neck
to find his wound, she uncovered Circuit's buckskin bag and memorandum
book, showing through its centre the track of a bullet that had finally
spent itself in fracturing a rib over Circuit's heart, the
ticket-seller's shot, that would have killed him instantly but for the
shielding bulk Netty's treasured letters interposed. Moved, perhaps,
by some subtle instinctive suspicion of its contents, she glanced
within the book, started to remove it from Circuit's neck, and then
gently laid it back above the heart it so long had lain next and so
lately had shielded.
Meantime about this little group gathered such of the Cross Cañonites
as were still upon their legs, while, glad of the diversion, their
enemies hurriedly withdrew; round about the outfit stood, their fingers
still clutching smoking guns, but pale and sobered.
Circuit lay with eyes closed, feebly gasping for breath, and just as
the girl's nervous fingers further rent his shirt and exposed the
mortal wound through the right lung made by her own tiny pistol,
Circuit half rose on one elbow and whispered: "Boys, write--write Netty
I was tryin' to git to her."
And then he fell back and lay still.
For five minutes, perhaps, the girl crouched silent over the body,
gazing wide-eyed into the dead face, stunned, every faculty paralyzed.
Presently Lee softly spoke:
"Sis, if, as I allows, you're Netty, you shore did Mat a good turn
killin' him 'fore he saw you. Would 'a hurt him pow'ful to see you in
this bunch; hurts us 'bout enough, I reckon."
Roused from contemplation of her deed, the girl rose to her knees,
still clinging to Circuit's stiffening fingers, and sobbingly murmured,
in a voice so low the awed group had to bend to hear her:
"Yes, I'm Netty, and every day while I live I shall thank God Mat never
knew. This is my husband lying dead beneath Mat. They made me do
it--my family--nagged me to marry Tom, then a rich horse-breeder of our
county, till home was such a hell I couldn't stand it. It was four
long years ago, and never since have I had the heart to own to Mat the
truth. His letters were my greatest joy, and they breathed a love I
little have deserved.
"Reckon that's dead right, Netty," broke in Bill Ball; "hain't a bit
shore myself airy critter that ever stood up in petticoats deserved a
love big as Circuit's. Excuse _us_, please."
And at a sign from Bill, six bent and gently lifted the body and bore
it away into the town.
In the twilight of an Autumn day that happened to be the twenty-second
anniversary of Circuit's death, two grizzled old ranchmen, ambling
slowly out of Mancos along the Dolores trail, rode softly up to a
corner of the burying ground and stopped. There within, hard by, a
woman, bent and gnarled and gray as the sage-brush about her, was
tenderly decking a grave with piñon wreaths.
"Hope to never cock another gun, Bill Ball, ef she ain't thar ag'in!"
"She shore is, Lee," answered Bill; "provin' we-all mislaid no bets
reconsiderin', an' stakin' Sorrel-top to a little ranch and brand."
Thus, happily, does time sweeten the bitterest memories.
CHAPTER IX
ACROSS THE BORDER
Yes, there he was, just ahead of me on the platform of the Union Depot
in Kansas City, my partner, James Terry Gardiner, who had wired me to
meet him there a few weeks after I had closed the sale of our Deadman
Ranch, in November, 1882. While his back was turned to me, there was
no mistaking the lean but sturdy figure and alert step.
From the vigorous slap of cordiality I gave him on his shoulder, he
winced and shrank, crying: "Oh, please don't, old man. Been sleeping
in Mexican northers for a fortnight, and it's got my shoulder muscles
tied in rheumatic knots. Don Nemecio Garcia started me off from
Lampadasos with the assurance that my ambulance was generously
provisioned and provided with his own camp-bed, but when night of the
first day's journey came, I found the food limited to _tortillas,
chorisos_, and coffee, and the bed a sheepskin--no more. Stupid of an
old campaigner not to investigate his equipment before starting, was it
not?"
"Worse than that, I should say--sheer madness," I answered. "How did
it happen?"
"Well, you see, Don Nemecio is the _Alcalde_, of his city, and he
showered me with such grandiloquent Spanish phrases of concern for my
comfort that I fancied he had outfitted me in extraordinary luxury.
"But that's over now, thank goodness. And now to business.
"In the north of the State of Coahuila, one hundred miles west of the
Rio Grande border, lies the little town called Villa de Musquiz. To
the north and west of it for two hundred miles stretches the great
plain the natives call _El Desierto_, known on the map as _Bolson de
Mapini_, the resort of none but bandits, smuggler Lipans, and
Mescaleros. Into it the natives never venture, and little of it is
known except the scant information brought back by the scouting cavalry
details.
"Just south of the town lie the Cedral Coal Mines I have been
examining--but that is neither here nor there. What I want to know is,
are you game for a new ranch deal?"
When I nodded an affirmative, he continued:
"Well, immediately north of the town lies a tract of 250,000 acres in
the fork of the Rio Sabinas and the Rio Alamo, which is the greatest
ranch bargain I ever saw. Heavily grassed, abundantly watered by its
two boundary streams, the valleys thickly timbered with cottonwood, the
plains dotted with mesquite and live oak, in a perfect climate, it is
an ideal breeding range. And it can be bought, for what, do you think?
Fifty thousand Mexican dollars [29,000 gold] for a quarter of a million
acres! Go bag it, and together we'll stock it.
"Of course you'll run some rather heavy risks--else the place would not
be going so cheap--but no more than you have been taking the last five
years in the Sioux country. A little bunch of Lipans are constantly on
the warpath, Mescalero raiding parties drop in occasionally, and the
bandits seem to need a good many _prestamos_; but all that you have
been up against. Better take a pretty strong party, for the
authorities thought it necessary to give me a cavalry escort from
Lampasos to Musquiz and back. And, by the way, pick up a boy named
George E. Thornton, Socorro, N. M., on your way south. While only a
youngster, he is one of the best all-round frontiersmen I ever saw, and
speaks Spanish tolerably. Had him with me in the Gallup country."
Details were settled at breakfast, and there Gardiner resumed his
journey eastward, while I took the next train for Denver. A fortnight
later found me in Socorro, plodding through its sandy streets to an
adobe house in the suburbs where Thornton lodged.
As I neared the door a big black dog sprang fiercely out at me to the
full length of his chain, and directly thereafter the door framed an
extraordinary figure. Then barely twenty-one, and downy still of lip,
Thornton's gray eyes were as cold and calculating, the lines of his
face as severe and even hard, his movements as deliberate and
expressive of perfect self-mastery as those of any veteran of half a
dozen wars. Six feet two in height, straight as a white pine, ideally
coupled for great strength without sacrifice of activity, he looked
altogether one of the most capable and safe men one could wish for in a
scrap; and so, later, he well proved himself.
He greeted me in carefully correct English; and while quiet, reserved,
and cold of speech as of manner, the tones in which he assured me any
friend of Mr. Gardiner was welcome, conveyed faint traces of cordiality
that roused some hope that he might prove a more agreeable campmate
than his dour mien promised. We were not long coming to terms; indeed
the moment I outlined the trip contemplated, and its possible hazards,
it became plain he was keen to come on any terms. To my surprise, he
proposed bringing his dog, Curly. I objected that so heavy a dog would
be likely to play out on our forced marches, and, anyway, would be no
mortal use to us. His reply was characteristic:
"Curly goes if I go, sir; but any time you can tell me you find him a
nuisance, I'll shoot him myself. I've had him four years, had him out
all through Victoria's raid of the Gila, and he's a safer night guard
than any ten men you can string around camp: nothing can approach he
won't nail or tell you of. With Curly, a night-camp surprise is
impossible."
Whatever cross Curly represented was a mystery. Two-thirds the height
and weight of a mastiff, he had the broad narrow pointed muzzle of a
bear, and a shaggy reddish-black coat that further heightened his
resemblance to a cinnamon, with great gray eyes precisely the color of
his master's, and as fierce. Whichever character was formed on that of
the other I never learned--the man's on the dog's, or the dog's on the
man's. Certain it is that not even the luckiest chance could have
brought together man and beast so nearly identical in all their traits.
Both were honest, almost to a fault. Neither possessed any vice I ever
could discover. Each was wholly happy only when in battle, the more
desperate the encounter the happier they. Neither ever actually forced
a quarrel, or failed to get in the way of one when there was the least
color of an attempt to fasten one on them. And yet both were always
considerate of any weaker than themselves, and quick to go to their
defence. Many a time have I seen old Curly seize and throttle a big
dog he caught rending a little one--as I have seen George leap to the
aid of the defenceless. Each weighed carefully his kind, and found
most wanting in something requisite to the winning of his confidence;
and such as they did admit to familiar intimacy, man or beast, were the
salt of their kind.
On the train, south-bound for San Antonio, I learned something of
Thornton's history. The son of a judge of Peoria, Ill., he had until
fifteen the advantage of the schools of his city. Then, possessed with
a longing for a life of adventure in the West, he ran away from home,
worked in various places at various tasks, until, at sixteen (in 1887)
he had made his way to Socorro. Arrived there, he attached himself to
a small party of prospectors going out into the Black Range, into a
region then wild and hostile as Boone found Kentucky. And there for
the last five years he had dwelt, ranging through the Datils and the
Mogallons, prospecting whenever the frequently raiding Apaches left him
and his mates time for work. Indeed, it was Thornton who discovered
and first opened the Gallup coal field, and he held it until Victoria
ran him out. During this time he was in eight desperate fights--the
only man to escape from one of them; but out of them he came unscathed,
and trained to a finish in every trick of Apache warfare.
At San Antonio we were met by Sam Cress, who for the last four years
had been foreman of my Deadman Ranch. Cress was born on Powell River,
Virginia, but had come to Texas as a mere lad and joined a cow outfit.
He had really grown up in the Cross Timbers of the Palo Pinto, where,
in those years, any who survived were past masters not only of the
weird ways and long hours and outlaw broncos, but also of the cunning
strategy of the Kiowas and Comanches who in that time were raiding
ranches and settlements every "light of the moon." Cress was then
twenty-five--just my age--and one of the rare type of men who actually
hate and dread a fight, but where necessary, go into it with a jest and
come out of it with a laugh, as jolly a camp-mate and as steady a
stayer as I ever knew. Charlie Crawford, a half-breed Mexican, taken
on for his fluency in Spanish, completed our outfit. Two mornings
later the Mexican National Express dropped us at the Lampasos depot
about daylight, from which we made our way over a mile of dusty road
winding through mesquite thickets to the Hotel Diligencia, on the main
plaza.
A norther was blowing that chilled us to the marrow, and of course,
according to usual Mexican custom, not a room in the hotel was heated.
The best the little Italian proprietor could do for us was a pan of
charcoal that warmed nothing beyond our finger tips. As soon as the
sun rose, we squatted along the east wall of the hotel and there
shivered until Providence or his own necessity brought past us a peon
driving a burro loaded with mesquite roots. We bought this wood and
dumped it in the central patio of the hotel and there lighted a
campfire that made us tolerably comfortable until breakfast.
Ignorant then of Mexico and its customs, I had fancied that when a
proper hour arrived for a call on the _Alcalde_, Don Nemecio Garcia, I
should have a chance to warm myself properly and had charitably asked
my three mates to accompany me on the visit. But when at ten o'clock
Don Nemecio received us in his office, we found him tramping up and
down the room, wrapped in the warm folds of an ample cloak; his neck
and face swathed in mufflers to the eyes, arctics on his feet, and no
stove or fireplace in the room. As leading merchant of the town, he
soon supplied us with provisions and various articles, and with four
saddle and three pack horses for our journey.
The next day, while my men were busy arranging our camp outfit, I took
train for Monterey to get a letter from General Treviño, commanding the
Department of Coahuila, to the _comandante_ of the garrison at Musquiz.
On this short forenoon's journey I had my first taste of the disordered
state of the country.
About ten o'clock our train stopped at the depot of Villaldama, where I
observed six _guardias aduaneras_ (customs guards) removing the packs
from a dozen mules, and transferring them to the baggage car. Just as
this work was nearing completion, a band of fourteen _contradistas_
dashed up out of the surrounding chaparral, dropped off their horses,
and opened at thirty yards a deadly fire on the guards. With others in
the smoker, next behind the baggage car, I had a fine view of the
battle, but a part of the time we were directly in the line of fire,
for four of our car windows were smashed by bullets, and many bullets
were buried in the car body. Such encounters between guards and
smugglers in Mexico were always a fight to the death, for under the law
the guards received one-half the value of their captures, while of
course the smugglers stood to win or lose all.
As soon as fire opened, the guards jumped for the best cover available,
and put up the best fight they could. But the odds were hopelessly
against them. In five minutes it was all over. Three of the guards
lay dead, one was crippled, and the other two were in flight. To be
sure two of the smugglers were bowled over, dead, and two badly
wounded, but the remaining ten were not long in repossessing themselves
of their goods; and when our train pulled out, the baggage car riddled
with bullets till it looked like a sieve, the ten were hurriedly
repacking their mules for flight west to the Sierras. Later I learned
that early that morning the guards had caught the _conducta_ with only
two men in charge, who had shrewdly skipped and scattered to gather the
party that arrived just in time to save their plunder.
Mexican import duties in those days were so enormous that very many of
the best people then living along the border engaged regularly in
smuggling, as the most profitable enterprise offering. American hams,
I remember, were then sixty cents a pound, and everything else in
proportion. Even in the city of Monterey, stores that displayed on
their open shelves little but native products, had warehouses where you
could buy (at three times their value in the States) almost any
American or European goods you wanted.
Well recommended to General Treviño from kinsmen of his wife, who was a
daughter of General Ord of our army, he gave me a letter to Captain
Abran de la Garza, commanding at Musquiz, directing him to furnish me
any cavalry escort or supplies I might ask for, and the following day
we started north from Lampasos on our one-hundred-mile march to Musquiz.
The first two days of the journey, for fully sixty miles, we travelled
across the lands of Don Patricio Milmo, who thirty years earlier had
arrived in Monterey, a bare-handed Irish lad, as Patrick Miles.
Through thrift, cunning trading, and a diplomatic marriage into one of
the most powerful families of the city, he had oreid his name and
gilded the prospects of his progeny, for he had become the richest
merchant of Monterey and the largest landholder of the state.
On this march north Curly's value was well demonstrated. The first two
nights I divided our little party into four watches, so that one man
should always be awake, and on the _qui vive_. But it took us no more
than these two nights to discover that Curly was a better guard than
all of us put together. Throughout the noon and early evening camp he
slept, but as soon as we were in our blankets he was on the alert, and
nothing could move near the camp that he did not tell us of it in low
growls, delivered at the ear of one or another of the sleepers.
However, nothing happened on the journey up, save at the camp just
north of Progreso, where some of the villagers tried slip up on our
horses toward midnight, and Curly's growls kept them off. Their trails
about our camp were plain in the morning. The evening of the third day
we reached Musquiz, one of the oldest towns of the northern border,
nestled at the foot of a tall sierra amid wide fields of sugar cane,
irrigated by the clear, sweet waters of the Sabinas.
At eight o'clock the next morning I called on Captain Abran de la
Garza, the _Comandante_, to present my letter from General Treviño.
Like the monarch of all he surveyed, he received me in his bed-chamber.
As soon as I entered, it became apparent the Captain was a sportsman as
well as a soldier.
The room was perhaps thirty by twenty feet in size. Midway of the
north wall stood a rude writing table on which were a few official
papers. Ranged about the room were a dozen or more rawhide-seated
chairs, each standing stiffly at "attention" against the wall
scrupulously equidistant order. Glaring at me in crude lettering from
a broad rafter facing the door was the grimly patriotic sentiment,
"Libertad o Muerte." (Liberty or Death!) In the southwest corner of
the room stood a low and narrow cot, beneath whose thin serape covering
a tall, gaunt cadaverous frame was plainly outlined. From the headpost
of the cot dangled a sword and two pistols. _And to every bed, table,
stand, and chair was hobbled a gamecock_--a rarely high-bred lot by
their looks, that joined in saluting my entrance with a volley of
questioning crows! It was, I fancy, altogether the most startling
reception visitor ever had.
In a momentary pause in the crowing, there issued from a throat riven
and deep-seamed from frequent floodings with fiery torrents of mescal,
and out of lungs perpetually surcharged with cigarette smoke, a hoarse
croaking, but friendly toned, "_Buenos dias, señor. Sirvase tomar un
asiento. Aqui tiene vd su casa!_" and peering more closely into the
dusky corner, I beheld a great face, lean to emaciation, dominated by a
magnificent Roman nose with two great dark eyes sunk so deep on either
side of its base they must forever remain strangers to one another.
The nose supported a splendid breadth of high forehead, which was
crowned with a shock of coal-black hair, while the jaws were bearded to
the eyes. It was the face of an ascetic Crusader, sensualized in a
measure by years of isolated frontier service and its attendant vices
and degeneration, but still a face full of the noble melancholy of a
Quixote.
Propping himself on a great bony knot of an elbow, the Captain made
polite inquiry respecting my journey, and then asked in what could he
serve me. But when I had explained that I wanted to meet the owner of
the Santa Rosa Ranch, and contemplated going out to see it, it was only
to learn, to my great disappointment, that it had been sold the week
previous to two Scotchmen. Fancy! in a country visited by foreigners,
as a rule, not so often as once a year.
Nor was I consoled when, noting my obvious chagrin, the Captain sought
to lighten the blow by saying: "But, my dear sir, this is indeed
evidence God is guarding you. That ranch has been a legacy of
contention and feud for generations. Besides, what good could you get
of it? Its nearest line to the town is six miles distant, and no life
or property would be safe there a fortnight. Far the best cattle ranch
in this section, a fourth of it irrigable, and as fine sugar-cane land
as one could find, do you fancy it would be tenantless as when God
first made it if safe for occupancy? Why, my dear sir, within the last
six months Juan Gaian's Lipans have killed no less than seventy of our
townsmen, some in their fields, some in the very suburbs of the town,
while Mescaleros are raiding a little lower down the river, and Nicanor
Rascon is apt to sweep down any day with his _bandidos_ and plunder
strong boxes and stores. It is with shame I admit it, for I, Don
Abran, am responsible for the peace and safety of this district. But,
_mil demonios_! what can I do with one troop of cavalry against bandits
ruthless as savages, and savages cunning as bandits?
"Oh! but if I only had horses! Those devils take remounts when they
like from the _remoudas_ of ranchers, but I, _carajo_! I am always
limited to my troop allotment.
"Burn a hundred candles to the Virgin, _amigo mio_, as a thank offering
for your deliverance, and wait and see what happens to the Scotchmen;
and while waiting, it will be my great pleasure to show you some of the
grandest cock-fighting you ever saw. Look at them! Beauties, are they
not? Purest blood in all Mexico! Kept me poor four years getting them
together! But now! Ah! now, it will not be long till they win me
ranches and _remoudas_!
"Ah! me. Time was not so very long ago when Abran de la Garza was
called the most dashing _jefe de tropa_ in the service, when señoritas
fell to him as alamo leaves shower down to autumn winds; when pride
consumed him, and ambition for a Division was burning in his brain.
But now this demon of a frontier has scorched and driven him till
naught remains to him but the chance of an occasional fruitless
skirmish, his thirst for mescal, his greed for _aguilas_, and his cocks
to win them! But, señor, bet no money against them, for it would
grieve me to win from a stranger introduced by my General."
Then, with a grave nod of friendly warning, he turned an affectionate
gaze upon his pets. Meantime, as if conscious of his pride in them,
the cocks were boastfully crowing paeans to their own victories, past
and to come, in shrill and ill-timed but uninterrupted concert, bronze
wings flapping, crimson crests truculently tossing insolent challenge
for all comers.
With the one plan of my trip completely smashed, I felt too much upset
to continue the interview, and excused myself. But after a forenoon
spent alone beside the broad and swift current the Sabinas was pouring
past me, gazing at the dim blue mountain-crests in the west that I had
learned marked its source, the irresistible call to penetrate the
unknown impressed and then possessed me so completely that, at our
midday breakfast, I announced to the Captain I had decided to follow
the river to its head, and pass thence into the desert for a
thirty-days' circle to the north and west.
"But, _valga nu Dios_, man," he objected, "I have no force I can spare
for sufficient time to give you adequate escort for such a journey. It
would be madness to undertake it with less than fifty men. I am
responsible to my General for your safety, and cannot sanction it.
Beyond the Alamo Cañon the only waters are in isolated springs in the
plains and in natural rain-fall tanks along the mountain crests, known
to none except the Indians and Tomas Alvarez, an old half-breed
Kickapoo long attached to my command as scout, who ranged that country
years ago with his tribe, and who guides my troop on such short scouts
as we have been able to make beyond the Alamo, and--"
"Pardon," I ventured to interrupt, "that will do nicely; give me
Alvarez and one good trustworthy soldier, and we'll make the circle
without trouble."
"Six of you! Why, you'd never get twenty miles out of town in that
direction. I can't permit it."
"Pardon again, Don Abran," I broke in, "but we have for years been
accustomed to move in small parties through country that held a hundred
times more hostiles than you have here, and you can trust us to take
care of ourselves. Go we shall in any event, without your men if you
withhold them."
"Well, well, _hijo mio_," he responded, "if you are bound to go, we
will see. Only I shall write my General that I have sought to restrain
you."
To us the prevailing local fears seemed absurd. Admittedly there were
only sixteen of the Lipans then left, men, women, and children, their
chief, Juan Galan, the son by a Lipan squaw, of the father of Garza
Galan, then the leading merchant of the town, and later a distinguished
Governor of his State. Originally a powerful tribe occupying both
banks of the lower Rio Grando to the south of the Comanches, in their
wars with Texans and Mexicans the Lipans had dwindled until only this
handful remained. Three years earlier the entire band had been
captured after a desperate fight, and removed by the Mexican
authorities to a small reservation five hundred miles southwest of
Musquiz. But at the end of two years, as soon as the guard over them
relaxed, indomitable as Dull Knife and his Cheyennes in their desperate
fight (in 1879) to regain their northern highland home, Juan Galan and
his pathetically small following jumped their reservation and dodged
and fought their way back to the Musquiz Mountains; and there for the
last ten months, constantly harassed and harassing, they had been
fighting for the right to die among the hills they loved. To the
natives they were blood-thirsty wolves, beasts to be exterminated; to
an impartial onlooker they were a heroic band courting death in a
splendid last fight for fatherland. Their bold deeds would fill a
book. Even in this town of fifteen hundred people guarded by a troop
of cavalry, no one ventured out at night except from the most pressing
necessity; and of the seventy killed by them since their return, nearly
a third were macheted in the streets of Musquiz during Juan Galan's
night raids on the town.
The most effective work against them was done by a band of about a
hundred Seminole-negro half-breeds, to whom the Government had made a
grant of four square leagues twenty-five miles west of Musquiz, on the
Nacimiento. Come originally out of the Indian territory in the United
States, where the Seminoles had cross-bred with their negro slaves,
this same band a few years earlier had been most efficient scouts for
our own troops at Fort dark, and other border garrisons, and it was
this record that led the Mexican Government to seek and lodge them on
the Nacimiento, as a buffer against the Lipans.
That night arrangements for our trip were concluded: the Captain
consented to furnish me old Tomas Alvarez and a young soldier named
Manuel, but only on condition that he himself should escort us, with
fifty men of his troop, one day's march up the river, which would carry
us beyond the recent range of the Lipans. So early the next morning we
marched out westward, passing the last house a half-mile outside the
centre of the town, along a dim, little-travelled trail that followed
the river to the Seminole village on the Nacimiento. The day's journey
was without incident, other than our amusement at what seemed to us the
Captain's overzealous caution in keeping scouts out ahead and to right
and left of the column, and in posting sentries about our night camp.
The following morning, a Sunday, after much good advice, the kindly
Captain bade us a reluctant farewell, and led his troops down-river
toward home, while our little party of six headed westward up-river.
Near noon we sighted the Seminole village, and shortly entered it, a
close cluster of low jacals built of poles and mud. Odd it looked, as
we entered, a deserted village, no living thing in sight but a few
dogs. Thus our surprise was all the greater when, nearing the farther
edge of the village, our ears were greeted with the familiar strains of
"Jesus, Lover of My Soul," issuing from a large _jacal_ which we soon
learned was the Seminole church. Fancy it! the last thing one could
have dreamed of! An honest old Methodist hymn sung in English by
several score devout worshippers in the heart of Mexico, on the very
dead line between savagery and civilization, and at that, sung by a
people all savage on one side of their ancestry and semi-savage on the
other.
Before the singing of the hymn was finished, startled by the barking of
their dogs, out of the low doorway sprang half a dozen men, strapping
big fellows,--one, the chief, bent half double with age,--all heavily
armed. The moment they saw we were Americans we were most cordially
received, and even urged to stop a few days with them, and give them
news of the Texas border. But for this we had no time; and after a
short visit--for which the congregation adjourned service--we filled
our canteens, let our horses drink their fill at the great Nacimiento
spring that burst forth a veritable young river from beneath a low
bluff beside the town, and struck out westward for Alamo Cañon. Our
afternoon march gave us little concern, for our route lay across
rolling, lightly timbered uplands that offered little opportunity for
ambush. That night we made a "dry camp" on the divide, preferring to
approach the Alamo in daylight.
Having struck camp before dawn the next morning, by noon we saw ahead
of us a great gorge dividing the mountain we were approaching--great in
its height, but of a scant fifty yards in breadth, perpendicular of
sides, a narrow line of brush and timber creeping down along its
bottom, but stopping just short of the open plains. Scouting was
useless. If there were any Indians about, we certainly had been seen,
and they lay in ambush for us in a place of their own choosing. We
must have water, and to get it must enter the cañon. So straight into
the timber that filled the mouth of the gorge we rode at a run, riding
a few paces apart to avoid the possible potting of our little bunch,
and a hundred yards within the outer fringe of timber we reached the
water our animals so badly needed.
And right there, all about the "sink" of the Alamo, where the last
drops of the stream sank into the thirsty sands, the bottom was covered
thick with fresh moccasin tracks, and in a little opening in the bush
near to the sink smouldered the embers of that morning's camp-fire of a
band of Lipans. Apparently we were in for it and seriously debated a
retreat. Our position could not be worse. Tomas told us that the
trail of the Lipans led straight up the valley, and for eight miles the
cañon was never more than three hundred yards wide, and often no more
than fifty, with almost perpendicular walls rising on either side two
hundred or more feet in height, so nearly perpendicular that we would
for the entire distance be in range from the bordering cliff crests,
while any enemy there ambushed would be so safely covered they could
follow our route and pick us off at their leisure. To be sure, the
brush along the stream afforded some shelter, but no real protection.
However, out now nearly fifty miles from Musquiz and well into the
country we had come to see, we pushed ahead. Cress, Thornton, and
Manuel prowling afoot through the brush a hundred yards in advance,
Crawford, Tomas and myself bringing up the rear with the horses. And
so we advanced for nearly half a mile when the Lipan trail turned east,
toward Musquiz, up a crevice in the cliff a goat would have no easy
time ascending. Thus we were led to argue that the Lipans had left
their camp before discovering our approach, and by this time were
probably miles away to the east.
Mounting, therefore, we made the beat pace our pack animals could stand
up through the eight miles of the narrows, riding well apart from each
other, the only safeguard we could take, all craning our necks for view
of the cliff crests ahead of us. But no living thing showed save a few
deer and coyotes, and two mountain lions that, alarmed by our
clattering pace, slipped past us back down the gorge. When at last we
reached the end of the narrows and the cañon broadened to a width of
several hundred yards, all but fifty or seventy-five yards of the belt
of timber lining the stream along the south wall being comparatively
level grassy bunch land, nearly devoid of cover, we congratulated
ourselves that we had not been scared into a retreat.
Keen to put as much distance as we could between us and the Lipans, we
travelled on up the cañon at a sharp trot, keeping well to its middle,
until about 5 p.m., when we reached a point where it widened into a
broad bay, nearly seven hundred yards from crest to crest, with a dense
thicket of mesquite trees near its centre that made fine shelter and an
excellent point of defence for a night camp. The stream hugged the
east wall of the cañon, where it had carved out a tortuous bed perhaps
one hundred and fifty yards wide, and so deep below the bench we
occupied that only the tops of tall cottonwoods were visible from the
thicket.
While the rest of us were busy unsaddling and unpacking, Thornton slung
all our canteens over his shoulder, and started for the stream. But no
sooner had he disappeared below the edge of the bench, a scant two
hundred yards from our camp, before a rapid rifle fire opened which,
while we knew it must proceed from his direction, echoed back from one
cliff wall to the other until it appeared like an attack on our
position from all sides, while the echoes multiplied to the volume of
cannon fire at the sound of each shot. Indeed, never have I heard such
thunderous, crashing, ear-splitting gun-detonations except on one other
occasion, when aboard the British battle ship _Invincible_ and in her
six-inch gun battery while a salute was being fired.
Frightened by the fire, one of our pack horses stampeded down the
cañon. Sending Manuel in pursuit, and leaving Tomas at the camp,
Crawford, Cress, and I ran for the break of benchland, to reach and aid
Thornton. Nearing it, all three dropped flat, and crawled to its edge,
just in time to see George make a neat snap shot at a Lipan midway of a
flying leap over a log, and drop him dead. Old George was standing
quietly on the lower slope of the bench just above the timber, while
the shots from eight or ten Lipan rifles were raining all about him!
The Lipans lay in the timber only one hundred to one hundred and fifty
yards away, and it was a miracle they did not get him. Instantly Cress
and Crawford slipped back out of range, made a detour that brought them
to the bench edge within fifty yards of the Lipans' position, and
opened on them a cross fire, while I lay above George and shelled away
at the smoke of their discharge, for not one showed a head after George
potted the jumper. Five minutes after Cress and Crawford opened on
them, the Lipan fire ceased entirely. For an hour we scouted along the
bank trying to locate them, but apparently they had withdrawn.
Then, while the others covered us, George and I slipped through the
bush to investigate his kill, and found a great gaunt old warrior at
least sixty years old, wrinkled of face as if he might be a hundred,
but sound of teeth and coal-black of hair as a youth, his face and body
scarred in nearly a score of places from bullet and machete
wounds,--the sign manual writ indelibly on his war-worn frame by many a
doughty enemy. We carried him to the bench crest, Crawford fetched a
spade and we dug a grave and buried him with his weapons laid upon his
breast, as his own people would have buried him, and then we fired
across his grave the final salute he obviously so well had earned.
More than he would have done for us? Yes, I dare say. But then our
points of view were different. Throughout his long life a terror to
all whites he doubtless had been; upon us he was stealthily slipping,
ruthless as a tiger; but then he and his tribesmen and lands had so
long been prey to the greed of white invaders of his domain that it is
hard to blame him for fighting, according to the traditions of his
race, to the death.
Lying in camp within the thicket that night, naturally without a fire,
Thornton made it plain that his voluntary start for water was
providentially timed. He told us that, while descending the slope to
the timber, he saw the head of a little column of Indians, stealing up
the valley through the brush, saw them before they saw him; but just as
he saw them, he slipped on some pebbles and nearly fell, making a noise
that attracted their attention. Instantly they slid into cover, and
opened fire on him.
Asked by me why he himself had not sought cover, George answered, "No
show to get one except by keeping out in the open on the high ground,
and I _wanted one_!"
It was plain the Lipans had sighted us when too late to lay an ambush
for us in the narrows, had made a short cut through the hills and
dropped down into the stream bed with the plan to attack us at our
night camp. Evidently they had not expected us to camp so early, and
were jogging easily along through the brush, for once off their guard.
But for George's chance start for the stream, nothing but faithful old
Curly's perpetual watchfulness could have saved us from a bad mix-up
that night. Already it had been so well proved that we could safely
trust Curly to guard us against surprise, we slept soundly through the
night, without disturbance of any sort.
The next forenoon's march to the head waters of the Alamo was an
anxious one, and was made with the utmost caution, for we were sure the
Lipans would be lying in wait for us; but no sign of them did we again
see for three weeks.
Leaving the Alamo, we made a great circle through the desert, swinging
first north toward the Sierra Mojada, then south, and ultimately
eastward toward Monclova. The trip proved to be one of great hardship
and danger, but only from scarcity of water; for while at isolated
springs we found recent camps of one sort of desert prowler or another,
we neither met nor saw any. Finally, late one night of the fourth
week, we reached a little spring called Zacate, out in the open plain
only about thirty miles south of Musquiz. But between us and only five
miles south of the town stretched a tall range through which Tomas knew
of only two passes practicable for horsemen; one, to the west, via the
Alamo, the route we had come, would involve a journey of eighty miles,
while by the other, an old Indian and smugglers' trail crossing the
summit directly south of Musquiz, we could make the town in thirty-two
miles. The latter route Tomas strongly opposed as too dangerous.
Twelve miles from where we lay it entered the range, and for fifteen
miles followed terrible rough cañons wherein, every step of the way, we
should be right in the heart of the recent range of the Lipans, and
where every turn offered chance of a perfect ambush. But with our
horses exhausted, worn to more shadows from long marches through
country affording scant feed, with not one left that could much more
than raise a trot, we finally decided to chance the shorter route.
That night we supped on cold antelope meat and biscuits, to avoid
building a fire, and rolled up in our blankets, but not to rest long
undisturbed.
Shortly after midnight Curly roused us with low growls. Though the
moon was full, the night was so clouded one could hardly see the length
of a gun-barrel. Curly's warnings continuing, George and Tomas rolled
out of their blankets and crawled out among and about the horses, and
lay near them an hour or more, till Curly's growls finally ceased.
Then we called them in and all lay down, and finished the night in
peace. Early the next morning, however, a short circle discovered the
trail of three Indians who had crept near to the horses and
reconnoitred our position. Their back trail led due northeast, the
direction we had to follow; and when we had ridden out half a mile from
the Ojo Zacate, we found where their trail joined that of the main
band. The "sign" showed they had been south toward Monclova on a
successful horse-stealing raid, for it was plain they had passed us in
the night with a bunch of at least twenty horses, heading toward a
point of the range only five or six miles west of where we should be
compelled to enter it.
We were in about as bad a hole as could be conceived. Plainly the
Indians knew of our presence in the vicinity. It was equally certain
their scouts would be watching our every move throughout the day, and
there was not one chance in a thousand of our crossing the range
without attack from some ambush of such vantage as to leave small
ground for hope that we could survive it. All but Cress and Thornton
urged me to turn back, although we were all nearly afoot, and had no
food left except two or three pounds of flour, and a little meat.
After very short deliberation I decided to go ahead. The Lipans knew
precisely where we were, and if they wanted us they could (in the event
of a retreat) easily run us down and surround us and hold us off food
and water until we were starved out sufficiently to charge their
position and be shot down. Better far put up a bold bluff and take
chances of cutting through them.
So on we plodded slowly toward the hills, all of us walking most of the
way to save our horses all we could. At 2 p.m. we cut the old trail
Tomas was heading us toward, and shortly thereafter entered the mouth
of a frightfully rough cañon, its bottom and slopes thickly covered
with nopal, sotol, and mesquite, and, later, higher up, with pines,
junipers, oaks, and spruces, with here and there groups of great
boulders that would easily conceal a regiment. Two or three miles in,
the gorge deepened until tall mountain slopes were rising steeply on
either side of us, and narrowed until we had to pick our way over the
rough boulders of the dry stream-bed.
Our advance was slow, for it had to be made with the utmost caution.
Thornton, Cress, and Tomas scouted afoot, one in the bottom of the
gorge, and one half-way up each of its side walls, while Manuel and
Crawford followed two hundred yards behind them, also afoot, driving
the saddle and pack horses; and I trailed two hundred yards behind the
horses, watching for any sign of an attempted surprise from the rear.
Thus scattered, we gave them no chance to bowl over several of us at
the first fire from any ambush they might have arranged.
From the windings of the cañon we were out of sight of each other much
of the time; personally, I recall that afternoon as one of the most
lonely and uncomfortable I ever passed. I slipped watchfully along,
stopping often to listen, eyes sweeping the hillsides and the gulch
below me, searching every tree and boulder, with no sound but the
soughing of the wind through the tree-tops, and an occasional soft
clatter of shingle beneath the slipping hoofs of my unshod horse.
But throughout the afternoon the only sign of man or beast that I saw
was a lot of sotol plants recently uprooted, and their roots eaten by
bears.
Shortly after dark we reached the only permanent water in the cañon, a
clear, cold, sweet spring, bursting out from beneath a rock, only to
sink immediately into the arid sands of the dry stream-bed.
Immediately below the spring and midway of the gorge bottom stood an
island-like uplift, twenty yards in length by ten in width, covered
with brush, leaving on either side a narrow, rocky channel, and from
either side of these two channels the cañon walls, heavily timbered,
rose very steeply. Just above these narrows, the gorge widened into
seven or eight acres of level, park-like, well-grassed benchland, and
into this little park we turned our horses loose for the night, for
they were too worn to stray.
Having made eight or ten miles up the cañon during the afternoon march,
we were now within a mile of the summit, and no more than seven miles
from Musquiz. Indeed we should have tried to reach the town that night
had not Tomas told us the next three miles of the trail were so steep
and rough he could not undertake to fetch us over it unless we
abandoned our animals, saddles, and packs.
We turned into our blankets early, after a cold supper, for we did not
care to chance a fire. Cress and I slept together in the channel to
the west of the island; Manuel and Tomas to the east of it quite out of
our sight; Thornton and Crawford ten paces north, in sight of both
ourselves and the Mexicans. A little moonlight filtered down through
the trees, but not enough to enable us to see any distance.
Scarcely were we asleep, it seemed to me, before Curly awakened Cress
and myself, growling immediately at our heads. Rising in our blankets,
guns in hand, and listening intently, we could hear on the hillside
above us what sounded like the movements of a bear. Whatever it might
be, it was approaching. Not a word had been spoken, and Curly's growls
were so low we had no idea any of the others had been roused. So we
sat on the alert for perhaps fifteen minutes, when the sounds above us
began receding, and we lay down again. But just as we were passing
back into dreamland, Curly again startled us with a sharper, fiercer
note that meant trouble at hand.
As we rose to a sitting posture, in the dim moonlight we could plainly
see a dark crouching figure twenty yards below, which advanced a step
or two, stopped as if to listen, and again advanced and stopped. What
it was we could not make out. At first I thought it must be a bear,
but presently I felt sure I caught the glimmer of a gun barrel, and
nudged Cress with my elbow. We were in the act of raising our rifles
to down it, whatever it might be, when Thornton sang out, "Hold on,
boys; that's old Tomas!" And, indeed, so it proved. All had been
awakened at the first alarm, and Thornton had seen Tomas roll from his
blankets into the bottom of the east channel, and crawl away on the
scout for the cause of Curly's uneasiness that so nearly had cost him
his life. He had been so intent for movement on the hillsides he had
not noticed us watching him.
The next morning we were moving by dawn, Tomas, Cress, and myself in
the lead, the others trailing along one hundred or two hundred yards
behind us. For half a mile the gorge widened, as most mountain gorges
do near their heads, into beautiful grassy slopes rising steeply before
us, thickly timbered with post oak. Then, issuing from the timber, we
saw it was a blind cañon we were in, a _cul de sac_, with no pass
through the crest of the range.
Before us rose a very nearly perpendicular wall for probably six
hundred feet, up which the old trail zigzagged, climbing from ledge to
ledge, so steep that when, later, we were fetching our horses up it,
one of the pack horses lost its balance and fell fifty feet, crippling
it so badly we had to kill it. The cliff face, about three hundred
yards in width, and flanked to right and left by the walls of the
cañon, was entirely bare of trees, but thickly strewn with boulders.
From an enemy on the top of the two flanking walls, climbers up the
cliff face could get no shelter whatever. Thus it was important that
our advance should reach the summit as quickly as possible. So, up the
three of us scrambled, about thirty yards apart, disregarding the trail.
When we were nearly half-way up, and just as we had paused to catch our
breath, several rifle shots rang out in quick succession, which, from
some peculiar echo of the cañon, sounded as if they had been fired
beneath us. Upon turning, we could see nothing of our three mates or
the horses--they were hidden from our view by the timber. Fancying
they were attacked from the rear, I was about to call a return to their
relief, when I saw Thornton run to the near edge of the timber, drop on
one knee behind a tree, and open fire on the cliff-crest directly above
our heads.
Whirling and looking up, I was just in time to see eight or ten men bob
up on the crest and take quick snap shots at the three of us in the
lead, and then duck to cover. We were so nearly straight under them,
however, that they overshot us, although they were barely one hundred
yards from us. Dropping behind boulders we peppered back at the
flashes of their rifles, which was all we three in the lead thereafter
saw of them; for after the first volley most of them lay close and
directed their fire at the men in the edge of the timber, but
occasionally a rifle was tipped over the edge of a boulder and fired at
random in our direction. And all the time they were yelling at us,
"_Que vienen, puercos! Que vienen!_" (Come on, pigs! Come on!)
I was puzzled. Both Cress and I thought they were Mexicans, but Tomas
insisted they were Lipans. And sure enough it was the Lipans all spoke
Spanish and dressed like Mexican peons. Whoever they might be, we
could not stay where we were. By the firing and voices there were at
least a dozen of them, and obviously it was only a matter of moments
before they would occupy the two flanking walls and have us openly
exposed.
It was a bad dilemma. Retreat was impossible, down a gorge commanded
at short range from both sides. If we took shelter in it, they could
starve us out; if we attempted to descend it, they could easily pick us
off; if any of us escaped back to the plain it would only be to incur
greater exposure if they pursued, or probably to perish of hunger
before we could reach any settlements. Thus the situation called for
no reflection--it was charge and dislodge them, or die.
Yelling to the boys below to close up on us, we three settled down to
the maintenance of the hottest fire we could deliver at the rifle
flashes above us, to cover their advance. Luckily there were many
boulders scattered along the grassy treeless slope they had to advance
across to reach the foot of the cliff. Thus by darting from one
boulder to another they had tolerable cover and were able to reach us
with no worse casualties than a comparatively slight flesh wound
through Manuel's side and the shooting away of Thornton's belt buckle.
Then we started the charge, led really by Thornton, who, active as a
goat, would have raced straight into the downpour of lead if I had not
continually restrained him. Three would scramble up fifteen or twenty
feet, and then drop behind boulders, while the other three kept up a
heavy fire on the summit; and then the rear rank would advance to a
line with their position, while they shelled the enemy. All the time a
rain of bullets was splashing on the rocks all about us, but luckily
for us they did not expose themselves enough to deliver an accurate
fire.
After we had made five or six such rushes, and were about half-way up,
we could hear the voices of what sounded like the larger part of the
band receding. Supposing they were swinging for the two side walls to
flank us we doubled our speed and presently dropped beneath the shelter
of a wall of rock about four feet high, from behind which our enemy had
been firing.
Two or three minutes earlier their fire had ceased, and what to make of
it we did not know. We found that an exposure of our hats on our
gun-muzzles drew no fire; yet, driven by sheer desperation, and
expecting that every man of us would get shot full of holes, we
simultaneously sprang over the rock, and dropped flat on the
summit--amid utter silence, about the most happily surprised lot of men
in all Mexico! The enemy had decamped. But where? And with what
purpose? And why had they not flanked us!
Careful scouting soon showed they had retired in a body down the trail
we must follow to reach Musquiz, as for nearly three miles the descent
was as rough and difficult as the ascent had been.
Leaving Cress, who was ill, and Manuel, who was weak from loss of
blood, to hold the summit, the rest of us descended to fetch up our
horses, and a hard hour's job we had of it, for we packed on our backs
the load of the dead pack horse and those of his mates the last half of
the ascent, rather than risk losing another animal.
Upon our return we found Manuel gloating over three trophies--a hat
shot through the side by a ball that had evidently "creased" the
wearer's head, an old Spanish spur and a gun scabbard--which he seemed
to find salve for the burning wound in his side.
Beneath us to the north lay Musquiz, in plain sight, a scant six miles
distance. In the clear dry air of the hills, it looked so near that a
good running jump might land one in the plaza, and yet none of us
expected we all should enter it again. The odds were against it, for
below us lay three miles of hill trail any step down which might land
us in a worse ambush than the last and we never imagined the enemy
would fail to engage us again. But the descent had to be made, and
down it we started, Cress and Manuel bringing up the rear with the
horses, the rest of us scouting ahead, dodging from rock to tree,
advancing slowly, expecting a volley, but receiving none.
For a mile the band followed the trail, and we followed their fresh
tracks; then they left the trail and turned west through the timber.
However, we never abated our watchfulness until well out of the hills
and near the outskirts of the town, which we reached shortly after
noon. There, breakfasting generously if not comfortably with Don Abran
and his gamecocks, I got news that made me less regretful of my failure
to obtain the Santa Rosa Ranch: one of its two Scotch purchasers had
been killed two days before my return, in attempting to repel a raid on
his camp by Nicanor Rascon!
With Cress too ill to travel, the next morning I left Crawford to care
for him, bade farewell to good old Don Abran, and started for Lampasos
with Thornton and Curly.
We nooned at Santa Cruz, a big sheep ranch midway between Musquiz and
Progreso, leaving there about two o'clock. An hour later, we heard
behind us a clatter of racing hoofs, and presently were overtaken by a
hatless Mexican, riding bareback at top speed, who told us that shortly
after our departure the Lipans had raided Santa Cruz, and that of its
twelve inhabitants, men, women and children, he was the only survivor.
Thus were the Lipans still levying heavy toll for their wrongs!
Toward evening we entered Progreso a village reputed among the natives
to be a nest of thieves and assassins. While Thornton was away buying
meat and I was rearranging our pack, six of the ugliest-looking
Mexicans I ever saw strolled across the plaza, evidently to size up our
outfit. Apparently it was to their liking, for when, twenty minutes
later, we were riding into the ford of the Rio Salado just south of the
town, the six, all heavily armed, loped past us, and when they emerged
from the ford openly and impudently divided, three taking to the brush
on one side of the road, and three on the other, riding forward and
flanking the trail we had to follow. From then till dark their hats
were almost constantly visible, two or three hundred yards ahead of us.
Our horses being so jaded, we were sure they were not the prize sought,
and it remained certain they were after our saddles and arms.
Riding quietly on behind them until it was too dark to see our move or
follow the trail, we slipped off to the westward of the road, and
camped in a deep depression in the plain, where we thought we could
venture a small fire to cook our supper. But the fire proved a
blunder. Before the water was fairly boiling in the coffee pot, Curly
signalled trouble, and we jumped out of the fire-light and dropped flat
in the bush just as the six fired a volley into the camp, one of the
shots hitting the fire and filling our frying-pan with cinders and
ashes. For an hour or more they sneaked about the camp, constantly
firing into it, while we lay close without returning a single shot,
content they would not dare try to rush us while uncertain of our
position. And so it proved, for at length Curly's warnings ceased, and
we knew they had withdrawn.
Waiting till midnight, we saddled and packed and made a wide detour to
the west, striking the road again perhaps four miles nearer Lampasos,
which we reached safely late in the next afternoon; our grand old
camp-guard, Curly, in better condition than either of us.
Curiously, seven months later, in August, 1883, while on another
ranch-hunting trip in Mexico, this time along the eastern slope of the
Sierra Madre in northern Chihuahua at least five hundred miles distant
from Musquiz, I learned the solution of our puzzle as to whether our
last fight in Coahuila was with Lipans or Mexicans. The manager of the
Corralitos Ranch, which I was then engaged in examining, was Adolph
Munzenberger. The previous Winter he had lived in Musquiz, as
Superintendent of the Cedral Coal Mines. While there, however, I had
not met him or his family.
One evening at dinner, Mrs. Munzenberger asked me, "Have you ever,
perchance, been in Coahuila?"
"Yes," I answered, "I spent several weeks in the State last Winter."
"And how did you like it?" she asked.
"Well, I must say I found rather too many thrills there for comfort," I
replied. And when I mentioned affair on the sierra south of Musquiz,
she broke in with:
"Indeed! And you are the crazy gringo Don Abran tried to stop from
going into the desert! We heard of it; in fact, it was the talk of the
town, and no one expected you would ever get back. And by the way, it
was a contraband _conducta_ owned by friends of ours who attacked you
back of the town! Droll, is it not?"
"Perhaps--now," I doubtfully answered.
"Yes," Mrs. Munzenberger continued, "they were on their way to
Monclova. The night before the attack, the wife of the owner (one of
the leading merchants of the town) took me to their camp in the brush
near town to see their goods; and a lovely lot of American things they
had."
"But why did they attack us?" I queried.
"Well, you see, it was this way," she explained. "The smugglers broke
camp long before dawn, and started south over the same trail by which
you were approaching; they wanted to get over the summit before the
Lipans or guards were likely to be stirring, for it was a point at
which _conductas_ were often attacked. But shortly after sunrise, and
just as they advance guard reached the summit, they discovered your
party ascending, and, mistaking your uniformed soldiers for guardias,
the leader lined a dozen of his men along the ridge, and opened on you,
while his _mayordomo_ rushed the pack mules of the _conducta_ back down
the trail they had come. Early in the fight they discovered you wore a
party of _gringos_, and not guards, and decamped as soon as their
_conducta_ had time to reach a point where they could leave the rail.
"Had their goods not been at stake, they would have wiped you out, if
they could, for the leader's brother got shot in the head of which he
died the same day. Indeed, when the two men you left behind started to
leave the country, he had planned to follow and kill them, but luckily
Don Abran heard of it, and restrained him."
And this explained the mystery why they had not flanked us!
Brave to downright rashness, George Thornton lasted only about two
years longer.
The Winter of 1883-84 he spent with me on my Pecos Ranch. Early in the
Spring he came to me and said:
"Old man, if you want to do me a favor, get me an appointment as Deputy
United States Marshal in the Indian Territory. I'm going to quit you,
anyway. My guns are getting rusty. It's too slow for me here."
"Why, George," I replied, "if you are bound to die why don't you blow
your brains out yourself?"--for at the time few new marshals in the
Indian Territory survived the first year of their appointment.
"Never mind about me," he answered; "I'll take care of George. Anyway,
I'd rather get leaded there than rust here."
So I got him the appointment.
A few months later, when the Territory was thrown open to settlement,
Thornton homesteaded one hundred and sixty acres of land which early
became a town site, and now is the business centre of the city of
Guthrie. Had he lived and retained possession of his homestead, it
would have made him a millionaire. But greedy speculators soon started
a contest of his title.
While this contest was at its height, one day Thornton learned some
Indians living a few miles from the town were selling whiskey, contrary
to Federal law. As he was mounting for the raid, having intended to go
alone, a man he scarcely knew offered to accompany him, and Thornton
finally deputized him.
The story of his end was told by the Indians themselves, who later were
captured by a large force of marshals, and tried for his murder. They
said that just at dusk they saw two horsemen approaching. Presently
they recognized Marshal Thornton and at once opened fire on him, eight
of them, from behind the little grove of cottonwoods in which they were
camped. Immediately Thornton shifted his bridle to his teeth, and
charged them straight, firing with his two ".41" Colts. The moment he
charged, his companion dodged into a clump of timber, where they saw
him dismount. On came Thornton straight into their fire shooting with
deadly accuracy, killing two of their number, and wounding another
before he fell.
Presently, at the flash of a rifle from the brush where his companion
had dismounted, Thornton pitched from his horse dead. They had done
their best to kill him, they frankly swore, but it was his own deputy's
shot that laid him low.
All the collateral circumstantial evidence so fully corroborated this
that the Indians were acquitted. The shot that killed him hit him in
the back of the head and was of a calibre different from that of the
Indians' guns; and his deputy never returned to Guthrie.
That it was a murder prearranged by some of the greedy contestants for
his land, was further proved by the fact that every scrap of his
private papers was found to have disappeared, and, through their loss,
his family lost the homestead.
Curly's end is another story. Happily he was spared to me some years.
CHAPTER X
THE THREE-LEGGED DOE AND THE BLIND BUCK
We had just pulled the canoe out of the water and turned it over after a
wet day in the bush across Giant's Lake, and were drying ourselves before
the camp-fire, when Con taught a lesson and perpetrated a confidence.
His keen, shrewd eyes twinkling, and a broad smile shortening his long,
lean face till its great Roman nose and pointed chin were hobnobbing
sociably together, the best hunter and guide on the Gatineau sat pouring
boiling water through the barrel and into the innermost holy of holies of
the intricate lock mechanism of his .303 Winchester--_to dry it out and
prevent rusting_ from the wetting it had received in the bush.
"Sure! youse never heerd of it before?" he asked in surprise. "Dryin' a
gun with hot water 's safest way to keep her from rustin'; carries out
all th' old water hangin' round her insides 'n' makes her so damned hot
Mr. Rust don't even have time to throw up a lean-to 'n' get to eatin' of
her 'fore the new water's all gone; 'n' Mr. Rust can't get to eat none
'thout water, no more'n a deer can stay out of a salt lick, or Erne Moore
can keep away from the _habitaw_ gals, or Tit Moody can get his own
consent to stop his tongue waggin' off tales 'bout how women winks down
t' Tupper Lake--when _he's_ rowin' 'em."
"Shouldn't think such a little water as you have used would make the gun
hot enough to dry it out," I suggested.
"Hot! Won't make her hot! Why, she's hotter now 'n' billy Buell got
last October when that loony _habitaw_ cook o' ourn made up all our
marmalade and currant jelly into pies that looked 'n' bit 'n' tasted like
wagon dope wropt in tough brown paper; hot! 's hot this minute 's Elise
Lièvre's woman got last Spring when she heerd o' him a-sittin' up t' a
Otter Lake squaw. Why, say! youse couldn't no more keep a gun from
rustin' in this wet bush 'thout hot water than Warry Hilliams can kill
anything goin' faster than three-legged deer.
"Rust! Youse might 'a well try to catch a _habitaw_ goin' to a weddin'
'thout more ribbons on his bridle 'n' harness than his gal has on her
gown 's hunt for rust in a hot-watered gun!"
Catching a hint of a yarn, I asked if there were many three-legged deer
in the bush.
"W'an't but one ever, far 's I know," he replied. "'N' almighty lucky it
was for Warry that one come a-limpin' along his way, for it give him th'
only chance he'll probably ever have to say he got to shoot a deer.
"Warry? Why he's jest the best ever happened--'t least the best ever
happened 'round this end o' the bush. Lives down to----; better not tell
you right where he lives, for I stirred up th' letters in his name, so 'f
any of his friends heerd you tell th' story they won't know it's on
_him_; fer he's jest that good I'd rather hurt anybody, 'cept my woman or
bird, than hurt him.
"Warry! Why, with a rod 'n' line 'n' reel, whether it's with flies,
spoons, or minnows, castin' or trollin', or spearin' or nettin', Warry's
th' _ex_pertest fish-catcher that ever waded the rapids or paddled th'
lakes o' this old Province o' Quebec. But it's gettin' a _leetle_ hard
for Warry late years--fish 's come to know him so well that after he's
made a few casts 'n' hooked one or two that's got away, they know his
tricks so well they just passes the word 'round, 'n' it's 'pike' for th'
pike, 'beat it' for th' bass, 'trot' for th' trout, 'n' 'skip' for the
salmon, until now, after th' first day or two, 'bout all Warry can get in
reach of 's mud turtles.
"'N'd that's what comes o' knowin' too much and gettin' too _damned_
smart--nobody or nothin' left to play with! Warry? Why, say, if he'd
only knowed it thirty or forty years ago, Warry had th' chance to live 'n
die with th' _re_pute o' bein' th' greatest sport specialist that ever
busted through the Quebec bush--if he'd only jest kept to fishin'. But
the hell o' it is, Warry's always had a fool idee in his head he can
hunt, 'n' he can't, can't sort o' begin to hunt! 'N' darned if I could
ever quite figure out why, 'n' him so smart, 'nless because he goes
poundin' through the bush like a bunch o' shantymen to their choppin',
with his head stuck in his stummick, studyin' some new trick to play on a
trout, makin' so much noise th' deer must nigh laugh theirselves to death
at _him_ a-packin' o' a gun.
"Hunt? Warry? Does he hunt? Sure, every year for th' last thirty years
to my knowledge--only that's all; he jest hunts, never kills nothin'.
Leastways he never did till three year ago, 'n' I ought t' know, for I
always guides for him. Why, I mind one time he was stayin' over on the
Kagama, he got so hungry for meat he up 'n' chunks 'n' kills 'n' cooks
'n' eats a porcupine, th' p'rmiscous shootin' o' which is forbid by
Quebec law, 'cause they're so slow a feller can run 'em down 'n' get 'em
with a stick or stone, 'n' don't need t' starve just 'cause he's got no
gun.
"Three years ago he'd been up for the fly fishin' in late June 'n'
trollin' for gray trout in September, 'n then here he comes again th'
last week in October t' hunt. 'N' she was the same old story: nothing
doing!
"I could set him on th' best runways, 'n' Erne 'n' me could dog th' bush
till our tongues hung out 'n' we could hardly open our mouths 'thout
barkin'; could run deer past him till it must 'a looked--if he'd had a
loose look about him--like a Gracefield _habitaw_ weddin' pr'cession, 'n'
thar he'd set with his eyes fast on th' end o' his gun, I guess,
a-waitin' for a sign of a _bite_ 'fore he'd jerk her up to try 'n' get
somethin'. 'N' the queerest part was, he seemed to enjoy it just 's much
's if he'd brought down a three-hundred-pound buck to drag the wind out
o' Erne 'n' me at th' end o' a tump-line. Most fellers 'd got mad 'n'
cussed their luck. But not him--kindest, sweetest-tempered man I ever
knew. Guess he knowed we'd done our best 'n' had some kind o' secret
inside information that he hadn't.
"O' course, sometimes Warry'd get his gun on, but by that time th' deer
had quit th' runway 'n' was in th' lake up to their bellies pullin' lily
pads, or curled up in th' long grass o' a swale fast asleep.
"But all fellers has a day sometime, if they lives long enough--though
some o' them seems t' have t' get t' live a almighty long time t' get t'
see it. At last Warry's came.
"Erne 'n' me been doggin' a swamp where th' deadfall tangle was so thick
we was so nigh stripped o' clothes we couldn't 'a gone t' camp if there'd
been any women about. Drivin' toward where a runway crossed a neck
'tween two lakes, a neck so narrow two pike could scarce pass each other
on it, there we'd sot Warry 't th' end o' th' neck. Jest 'fore we got t'
him we heard a shot, 'n' I remarked t' Erne, 'Guess th' old man thinks
he's got a _bite_.' 'N' then we broke through a thick bunch o' spruce;
'n' we both nigh fell dead to see old Warry sawin' at th' throat o' a
doe, tryin' to 'pear 's natural 's if he'd never done nothin' else but
kill 'n' dress deer. Mebbe Erne 'n' me wan't pleased none th' old man
had made a kill!
"Erne was ahead; 'n' just as Warry rose up from th' throat-cuttin', Erne
dropped into th' weeds 'n' rolled 'n' 'round holdin' o' his stummick,
laughin' fit t' kill his fool self, till I thought he'd gone crazy. Then
my eye lit on th' fore quarters o' th' doe, 'n' I guess I throwed more
twists laughin' than Erne did--_for that there doe was shy a leg_, hadn't
but three legs; nigh fore leg gone midway 'tween knee and dewclaw, shot
off 'n' healed up Godo'mi'ty knows when.
"Warry? He didn't seem t' care none, too darned glad t' get anythin'
shape o' a deer."
That same evening one of us asked Con if he had ever run across any other
mutilated game, recovered of old wounds.
"Sure!" he answered, "'specially once when I was almighty glad to git it,
'n' a whole lot gladder still that nobody was 'round t' see 'n' know 'n'
tell just what I got 'n' how I got it. She 's been a secret these five
year; stuck t' her tighter 'n' Erne Moore holds th' gals down t'
Pickanock dances, 'n' that 's closer 'n' a burl on a birch. Fact is, I
never told nobody 'fore now; 'n' I wouldn't be tellin' it t' youse now,
only just 'fore we come up here I got a letter from one o' th' two
brothers we blindfolded, sayin' his brother was dead an' he goin' t'
Californy t' live, 'n' wa'n't comin' into th' bush no more.
"If that feller got hold o' her, my brother 'n' me 'd have t' go t'
Australia or th' Cape, for him that's still livin' 's just about 's mean
a feller 's Warry's a good one; an' any little _re_pute we've built up 's
guides 'n' hunters, he'd put in th' rest o' his life tryin' t' smash 's
flat 's that fool _habitaw_ cook got when Larry Adams sot on him for
cookin' pa'tridges as soup. He'd just par'lyze her till we couldn't even
get a job goin' t' hunt 'n' fetch th' cows out o' a ten acre pasture.
'N' th' worst o' 't is I don't know that I'd blame him so almighty much
for doin' it, for there was sure somethin' comin' t' us for foolin' them
I don't believe we got yet.
"Th' two o' them came up from across th' line--ain't goin' t' tell you
what place they come from or even th' State--in late October, for th' two
weeks dog-runnin' season; youse know there is only two weeks th' Quebec
law lets us run hounds, 'thout a heavy fine. Never 'd seen either o'
them before, but friends o' theirs we'd been guidin' for gave brother 'n'
me a big recommend, 'n' they wrote up ahead 'n' hired us t' put up th'
teams t' haul them 'n' their traps in, 'n' then guide 'em.
"Soon 's they showed up on th' depot platform at Gracefield, I knowed
brother 'n' me was up agin it hard. Train must 'a been a half-hour late
gettin' to Maniwaki for th' time she lost unloadin' them two fellers'
_necessities_ for a two-weeks' deer hunt: 'bout a dozen gun cases, 'n'
fishin' tackle 'nough for ten men, 'n' trunks 'n' boxes that took three
teams t' haul 'em out t' th' Bertrand farm. Fact is, them boxes held
enough ca'tridges t' lick out another Kiel rebellion 'n' leave over
'nough t' run all th' deer 'tween Thirty-one Mile Lake 'n' the Lievre
plumb north into James's Bay, for if there's anythin' your average
sportin' deer-hunters can be counted on for sure's death 'n' taxes, it's
t' begin throwin' lead, at th' rate o' about ten pound apiece a day, the
minute they gets into th' bush, at rocks 'n' trees 'n' loons 'n'
chipmucks--never killin' nothin' but their chance o' seein' a deer.
"'N' these bloomin' beauties o' our'n was no exception. Th' lead they
wasted on th' two-mile portage from th' Government road t' th' lake would
equip all the Injuns on the Desert Reservation for a winter's hunt.
"Why, when Tom 'n' me got hold o' th' box they'd been takin' ca'tridges
from t' heave her into the boat, she was so light, compared t' th' others
we'd been handlin', we landed her plumb over th' boat in th' water; 'n'
damned if she didn't nigh float. She was the only thing they had light
'nough t' even try t' float ('cept their own shootin,') which sure wasn't
heavy 'nough t' sink none, 'n' could 'a fell out o' a canoe 'n' been
picked up a week later bumpin' 'round with th' other worthless drift.
"Took us a whole day to run their stuff over t' th' camp, 'n' it only a
mile across th' lake from th' landin'; 'n' when night come we was 's near
dead beat 's if we'd been portagin' a man's load apiece on a
tump-line--'n' that's a tub o' pork 'n' a sack 'o flour weighin' two
hundred and seventy five pounds--over every portage 'tween Pointe a
Gatineau 'n' th' Baskatong.
"O' course th' gettin' them fellers over theirselves was a easy
diversion, they was that t' home 'bout a canoe! Youse may not believe
it, but after tryin' a half-hour 'n' findin' we couldn't even get them
into a canoe at th' landin' 'thout upsettin' or knockin' th' bottom outen
her, we had t' help them into a thirty-foot 'pointer' made t' carry a
crew o' eight shantymen 'n' their supplies on the spring drives, 'n' then
had t' pull our damnedest t' get them across th' lake 'fore they upset
her, jumpin' 'round 't shoot at somethin' they couldn't hit!
"'N' eat! Well, they ate a few! We was only out for two weeks, 'n' when
we loaded th' teams 'peared t' me like we had 'nough feed for six months,
but after th' first meal 't looked t' me we'd be down t' eatin' what we
could kill inside o' a week. Looked like no human's stummick could hold
all they put in their faces, 'n' brother, he said he thought their legs
'n' arms must be holler.
"'N' sleep! When 't come t' wakin' of 'em up th' next mornin' they was
like a pair o' bears that 'd holed up for th' winter, 'n' it nigh took
violence t' get 'em out at all. We started in runnin' th' hounds, 'n'
brother 'n' me had the best on th' Gatineau--Frank 'n' Loud, 'n' old
Blue, 'n' Spot--dogs that can scent a deer trail 's far 's Erne Moore can
smell supper cookin', 'n' that 's far from home 's Le Blanc farm his
father used to own, over Kagama way, 'bout eight miles from Pickanock,
where he lives. We run th' dogs for four days, 'n' it was discouragin',
most discouragin'. Country was full o' deer when we was last out, three
weeks before, 'n' th' dogs voiced 'n' seemed t' run plenty right down to
'n' past where we'd sot th' two on th' runways; but they swore they never
see nothin', said th' hounds been runnin' on old scent, sign made the
night before.
"Then brother 'n' me took t' doggin' too, makin' six dogs, 'n' givin' us
a chance t' see anythin' that jumped up in th' bush. Still nothin' came
past 'em, they said, though we saw many a deer jump up out o' th' swamps
'n' go white flaggin' theirselves down th' runways toward the two
'hunters.'
"We just couldn't understand it 'n' made up our minds t' try 'n' find out
why they never got t' see none.
"So the sixth day I placed one o' them myself on a runway half as wide
'n' beat most 's hard 's th' Government road, full o' fresh sign, picked
a place where a big pine stump stood plumb in th' middle o' th' runway,
'n' sot him behind it where he had a open view thirty yards up th' runway
th' direction we'd be doggin' from.
"Then I let on t' break through th' bush t' th' swamp we was goin' t'
dog, but 'stead o' that I only went a little piece 'n' left brother to
start th' hounds at a time we'd arranged ahead, while I lay quiet behind
a bunch o' balsam 'thin fifty yards o' my hunter. After 'bout twenty
minutes, the time I was supposed t' need t' get t' th' place t' start th'
hounds, I heard old Frank give tongue--must 'a struck a fresh trail th'
minute he was turned loose. Then it wa'n't long 'till th' other three
began t' sing, runnin' 'n' singin' a chorus that's jest th' sweetest
music on earth t' my ears.
"Talk about your war 'n' patriotic songs, your 'Rule Britannias' 'n'
'Maple Leaves,' your church hymns 'n' love songs, 'n' fancy French op'ras
like they have down t' Ottawa that Warry Hilliams took me to wonst! Why,
say, do youse think any o' them is in it with a hound chorus, th' deep
bass o' th' old hounds 'n' th' shrill tenor o' th' young ones--risin' 'n'
swellin' 'n' ringin' through th' bush till every idle echo loafin' in th'
coves o' th' ridges wakes up 'n' joins in her best, 'n' you'd think all
th' hounds in this old Province was runnin' 'n' chorusin' 'tween the Bubs
'n' Mud Bay; 'n' then th' chorus dyin' down softer 'n' softer till she's
low 'n' sweet 'n' sorta holy-soundin', like your own woman's voice
chantin' t' your youngest--say, do youse think there's any music in th'
world 's good 's th' hounds make runnin'?
"Well, I sot there behind th' balsams till th' dogs was drawin' near, 'n'
then I slips softly through th' bush t' where I'd left Mr. Hunter; 'n'
how do youse s'pose I found him, 'n' it no more'n half past seven in th'
mornin'? Youse never 'd guess in a thousand year. I'll jest tumpline
th' whole bunch o' youse 't one load from th' landin 't' th' Bertrand
farm if that feller wa'n't settin' with his back t' th' stump, facin' up
th' runway, his rifle 'tween his knees 'n' his fool head lopped over on
one shoulder, _dead asleep_! No wonder they never see nothin', was it?
"First I thought I'd wake him. Then I heard a deer comin' jumpin' down
th' runway, 'n' knowin' 'for I could get him wide awake 'nough t' cock
'n' sight his gun th' deer 'd be on us, I slipped up behind th' stump 'n'
laid my rifle 'cross its top, th' muzzle not over a foot above his
noddin' head. I was no more'n ready 'fore here come--a buck? No, I
guess not, 'cause they was jest crazy for some good buck heads; no, jest
a doe, but a good big one. Here she come boundin' along, her head half
turned listening t' th' dogs, 'n' never seein' _him_, he sot so still.
When she got 'thin 'bout fifty feet I fired 'n' dropped her--'n' then
hell popped th' other side o' th' stump! Guess he thought he was jumped
by Injuns. Slung his gun one way 'n' split th' bush runnin' th' other,
leapin' deadfalls 'n' crashin' through tangles so fast I had t' run him
'bout fifty acres t' get t' cotch 'n' stop him.
"That feller was with us jest about ten days longer, but he never got
time t' tell us jest what he thought was follerin' him or what was goin'
t' happen if he got cotched. Likely 's not he'd been runnin' yet if I
hadn't collared him.
"O' course they was glad at last t' get some venison--leastways youse'd
think so t' see them stuffin' theirselves with it--but they never let up
a minute round camp roastin' brother 'n' me for not runnin' them a buck;
swore that we hadn't run 'em any was proved by my gettin' nothin' but th'
doe.
"Finally, they up 'n' wants a still-hunt! Them still-hunt, that we could
scarce get along the broadest runway 'thout makin' noises a deer'd hear
half a mile! Still-hunt! Still-hunt, after we'd been runnin' the hounds
for a week and they'd shot off 'bout a thousand rounds o' ca'tridges
round camp 'n' comin' back from doggin', till there wa'n't a deer within
eight miles o' th' lake that wa'n't upon his hind legs listenin' where
th' next bunch o' trouble was comin' from. But still-hunt it was for
our'n, 'n' at it we went for th' next two days. Don't believe we'd even
'a started, though, if we hadn't known two days at th' most 'd cure them
o' still-huntin'. Gettin' out 'fore sun-up, with every log in th'
_brules_ frosted slippery 's ice 'n' every bunch o' brush a pitfall,
climbin' 'n' slidin' jumpin' 'n' balancin,' any 'n' every kind o' leg
motion 'cept plain honest walkin,' was several sizes too big a order for
them. So th' second mornin' out settled their still-huntin'.
"Then they wanted brother 'n' me t' still-hunt--while they laid round
camp, I guess, 'n' boozed, th' way they smelled 'n' talked nights when we
got in.
"'N' still-hunt we did, plumb faithful, 'n' hard 's ever in our lives
when we was in bad need o' th' meat, for several days; 'n' would youse
believe it? We never got a single shot. Sometimes we saw a white flag
for a second hangin' on top o' a bunch o' berry bushes--that was all;
most o' th' deer scared out o' th' country, 'n' th' rest wilder 'n' Erne
gets when another feller dances with his best gal.
"Well, we just had t' give up 'n' own up beat. 'N' Goda'mi'ty! but
didn't them two cheap imitation hunters tell us what they thought o' us
pr'fessionals--said 'bout everything anybody could think of, 'cept cuss
us. 'N' there was no doubt in our minds they wanted to do that. If
they'd been plumb strangers, 'stead o' friends o' one o' our parties,
it's more'n likely brother 'n' me'd wore out a pair o' saplings over
their fool heads, 'n' paddled off 'n left them t' tump-line theirselves
out o' th' bush. But I told brother 't was only a day or two more, 'n'
we'd chew our own cheeks 'stead o' their ears.
"The last day we had in camp they asked us t' make one more try with th'
hounds. We took th' two ridges north o' th' shanty deer-lick 'n' drove
west, with them on a runway sure to get a deer if there was any left t'
start runnin'. Scarcely ten minutes after we loosed th' hounds I heard
them stopped 'n' bayin', over on th' slope o' th' ridge brother was on,
bayin' in a way made me just dead sure they had a bear.
"Now a bear-kill, right then t' go home 'n' lie about, tellin' how they
fit with it, would 'a suited our sham hunters better 'n' a whole passle
o' antlers; so I busted through th' bush fast as I could, fallin' 'n'
rippin' my clothes nigh off--only t' find our hounds snappin' 'n' bayin'
round a mighty big buck, that when I first sighted him, seemed to be jest
standin' still watchin' th' hounds. Never saw a deer act that way
before, 'n' him not wounded, 'n' nobody'd shot. Jest couldn't figure 't
out at all. But I was so keen t' get them fellers a bunch o' horns I
didn't stop t' study long what p'rsonal private reasons that buck had for
stoppin' 'n' facin' th' hounds.
"I was in the act o' throwin' my .303 t' my face, when brother hollered
not t' shoot, 'n' t' come over t' him. 'N' by cripes! while I was
crossin' over t' brother, what in th' name o' all th' old hunters that
ever drawed a sight do youse think I noted about that buck? Darned if
that buck wa'n't _blind_--stone blind--blind 's a bat!
"Poor old warrior! He'd stand with his head on one side listenin' t' th'
hounds till he had one located close up, 'n' then he'd rear 'n' plunge at
th' hound; 'n' if there happened t' be a tree or dead timber in his way,
he'd smash into it, sometimes knockin' himself a'most stiff. But when
all was clear th' hounds stood no show agin him, blind as he was. Old
Loud 'n' Frank, that naturally put up a better fight than th' young dogs,
he tore up with his front hoofs so bad they like t' died.
"Run th' buck knowed he couldn't, 'n' there he stood at bay t' fight to a
finish 'n' sell out dear 's he could. If it hadn't been a real kindness
t' kill him, I'd never 'a shot that brave old buck, 'n' left our hunters
t' buy any horns they _had_ t' have down t' Ottawa. But he was already
pore 'n' thin 's deer come out in March, 'n' if we let him go 'd be sure
t' starve or be ate by th' wolves. So I put a .303 behind his shoulder,
'n' brother 'n' me ran up 'n' chunked th' dogs off.
"'N' what do youse think we found had blinded that buck? Been lately in
a terrible fight with another buck. His head 'n' neck 'n' shoulders was
covered with half-healed wounds where he'd been gashed 'n' tore by th'
other's horns 'n' hoofs; 'n' somehow in the fight both his eyes 'd got
put out! Guess when he lost his eyes th' other buck must a' been 'bout
dead himself, or it 'd 'a killed him 'fore quittin'.
"Then it hit brother 'n' me all of a heap that we'd be up agin it jest a
leetle bit too hard t' stand if we hauled a blind buck into camp; fellers
'd swear that t' get t' kill a buck at all brother 'n' me had t' range
th' bush till we struck a blind one; 'n' then they'd probably want us t'
go out 'n' see if we couldn't find some sick or crippled 'nough so we
could get to shoot 'em.
"Brother was for leavin' him 'n' sayin' nothin'; but th' old feller had a
grand pair o' horns it seemed a pity t' lose, 'n' so I just drove a .303
sideways through his eyes; 'n' when we got t' camp we 'counted for th'
two shots in him by tellin' them he was circlin' back past us 'n' we both
fired t' wonst.
"'N' by cripes! t' this day nobody but youse knows that Con Teeples
dogged 'n' still-hunted th' bush for two weeks for horns 'thout killin'
nothin' but a blind buck."
CHAPTER XI
THE LEMON COUNTY HUNT
One crisp winter morning a party of us left New York to spend the week
end at the Lemon County Hunt Club. It was there I first met Sol, the
dean of Lemon County hunters and for eight seasons the winner, against
all comers, of the famous annual Lemon County Steeple Chase. At the
hurdles, whether in the great public set events or in private contests,
Sol was never beaten, while in the drag hunts it was seldom indeed he
was not close up on the hounds from "throw-in" to "worry."
To the Club Mews he had come under the tragic name of Avenger, but such
was the marvellous equine wisdom he displayed that at the finish of his
third hunt in Lemon County, he was rechristened Solomon by his new
owner--soon shortened to Sol for tighter fit among sulphurous hunt
expletives. At that night's dinner Sol and his deeds were the chief
topic of conversation and also its principal toast. And why not, when
no hunting stable in the world holds a horse in all respects his equal?
Why not toast a horse now twenty-six years old who has missed no run of
the Lemon County hounds for the last eight years, never for a single
hunting-day off his feed or legs? Why not toast a horse that takes
ordinary timber in his stride and eats up the stiffest stone walls for
eight full hunting seasons without a single fall? Why not toast a
horse with the prescience and generalship of a Napoleon, a horse who
drives straight at all obstacles in a fair field, but who never
imperils his rider's head beneath over-hanging boughs; who foresees and
evades the "blind ditches" and other perils lurking behind hedges and
walls and who lands as steady and safe on ice as he takes off out of
muck? Why not toast this venerable but still indomitable King of
Hunters?
The next morning it was my privilege to meet him. In midwinter, he of
course was not in condition. Descriptions of his weird physique, and
jests over his grotesquely large and ill-shaped head, made by half a
dozen voluble huntsmen over post-prandial bottles, I thought had
prepared me against surprise. Certainly they had described such a
horse as I had never seen.
But having come to the door of his box, I was astounded to see
slouching lazily in a corner with eyes closed, the nigh hip dropped
low, a horse that at first glance appeared to be Don Quixote's
Rosinante reincarnate, a gigantic "crow-bait" with a head as long and
coarse as an eighteen-hand mule's, an under lip pendulous as a camel's
dropping ears nearly long enough to brush flies off his nostrils, with
such an ingrowing concavity of under jaw and convexity of face as would
have enabled his head to supply the third of a nine-foot circle, a face
curved as a scimitar and nearly as sharp. Both in shape and dimensions
it was the grossest possible caricature of a Roman-nosed equine head
the maddest fancy could conceive.
Slapped lightly on the quarter, Sol was instantly transformed.
Eyes out of which shone wisdom preternatural in a horse, opened and
looked down upon us with the calm questioning reproach one might expect
from a rude awakening of the Sphinx; then the tall ears straightened
and the great bulk rose to the full majesty of its seventeen hands; and
while slats, hip bones, and shoulder blades were distressingly
prominent, a glance got the full story of Sol's wonderful deeds and
matchless record for safe, sure work.
With massive, low-sloping shoulders, tremendous quarters,
exceptionally short of cannon bone and long from hock to stifle as a
greyhound; with a breadth of chest and a depth of barrel beneath the
withers that indicated most unusual lung capacity, behind the
throat-latch Sol showed, in extraordinary perfection, all the best
points of a thoroughbred hunter that make for speed, jumping ability,
and endurance.
And as he so stood, a flea-bitten, speckled white in color, he looked
like a section out of the main snowy range of the Rocky Mountains: the
two wide-set ears representing the Spanish Peaks; his sloping neck
their northern declivity; his high withers, sharply outlined vertebrae,
and towering quarters the serrated range crest; his banged tail a
glacier reaching down toward its moraine!
Sol needed exercise, and that afternoon I was permitted the privilege
of riding him. Mounted from a chair and settled in the saddle, I felt
as if I must surely be bestriding St. Patrick's Cathedral. But at a
shake of the reins the parallel ceased. His pasterns were supple as an
Arab four-year-old's, his muscles steel springs.
Myself quite as gray as Sol and, relatively, of about the same age, as
lives of men and horses go, we early fell into a mutual sympathy that
soon ripened into a fast friendship. At Christmas I returned to the
Club to spend holiday week, in fact sought the invitation to be with
Sol. Every day we went out together, Sol and I, morning and afternoon.
Bright, warm, open winter days, so soon as the spin he loved was
finished, I slid off him, slipped the bit from his mouth (leaving
head-stall hanging about his neck), and left him free to nibble the
juicy green grasses of some woodland glade and, between nibble times,
to spin me yarns of his experiences. For the subtle sympathy that
existed between us--sprung of our trust in one another and sublimated
in the heat of our mutual affection had sharpened our perceptions until
intellectual inter-communication became possible to us. I know Sol
understood all I told him, and I don't think I misunderstood much he
told me. So here is his tale, as nearly as I can recall it.
"Ye know I'm Irish, and proud of it. It's there they knew best how to
make and condition an able hunter. No pamperin', softenin' idleness in
box stalls or fat pastures, or light road-joggin', goes in Ireland
between huntin' seasons. It's muscle and wind we need at our trade in
Ireland, and neither can be more than half diviloped in the few weeks'
light conditionin' work that all English and most American
cross-country riders give their hunters. Steady gruellin' work is what
it takes to toughen sinews and expand lungs, and it's the Irish
huntsman that knows it. So between seasons we drag the ploughs and
pull the wains, toil at the rudest farm tasks, and thus are kept in
condition on a day's notice to make the run or take the jump of our
lives.
"Humiliatin'? Hardly, when we find it gives us strength and staying
power to lead the best the shires can send against us: they've neither
power nor stomach to take Irish stone and timber.
"'It's a royal line of blood, his,' I've often heard Sir Patrick say;
'a clean strain of the best for a hundred years, by records of me own
family. His head? There was never a freak in the line till he came;
and where the divil and by what misbegotten luck he came by it is the
mystery of Roscommon. And it's by that same token we call him Avenger,
for no sneerin' stranger ever hunted with him that didn't get the
divil's own peltin' with clods off his handy Irish heels.'
"And the head groom had it from the butler and passed it on to me that
the old Master of the Roscommon Hounds was ever swearin' over his third
bottle, of hunt nights, when I was no more than a five-year-old and the
youngsters would be fleerin' at Sir Pat over the shape of me head:
"'Faith, an' it's Avenger's head ye don't like, lads, is it? By the
powers o' the holy Virgin but it's me pity ye have that none of ye can
show the likes in your stables. By the gray mare that broke King
Charlie's neck, it's the head of him holds brains enough to distinguish
ten average hunters, brains no ordinary brain pan could hold; an' it's
a brain-box shape of a shot sock makin' the disfigurin' hump below his
eyes. It's a four-legged gineral is Avenger, with the cunnin'
foresight of a Bonaparte and the cool judgment of a Wellington.'
"Ah! but they were happy days on the old sod, buckin' timber, flyin'
over brooks, stretchin' over stone or lightin' light as bird atop of
walls too broad to carry and springin' on, with a good light-handed man
up that knew his work and left ye free to do yours! And a sad night it
was for me when Sir Pat, stripped by years of gambling of all he owned
but the clothes he stood in and me, staked and lost me to a hunt
visitor from Quebec!
"I was a youngster then, only a nine-year-old, but I'll niver forget
the two weeks' run from Queenstown to Quebec whereon hunting tables
were reversed and I became the rider and the ship me mount, across
country the roughest hunter ever lived through: niver a moment of easy
flat goin', but an endless series of gigantic leaps that nigh jouted me
teeth loose, churned me insides till they wouldn't even hold dry feed,
and gave me more of a taste than I liked of what I had been givin'
Roscommon huntsmen over lane side wall jumps--a rise and a jolt, a rise
and a jolt, till it was wonderin' I was the ears were not shaken from
me head.
"Humiliation? It was there at Quebec I got it! In old Roscommon
usually it was lords and ladies rode me of hunt days, men and women
bred to the game as I meself was.
"But at Quebec, the best--and I had the best--were beefy members of
their dinkey colonial Government or fussy, timid barristers I had to
carry on me mouth. Seldom it was I carried a good pair of hands and a
cool head in me nine years' runnin' with the Quebec and Montreal
hounds. And lucky the same was for me, for it forced me to take the
bit in me teeth, rely on meself, and regard me rider no more than if he
were a sack of flour: I jist had it to do to save me own legs and me
rider's neck, for to run by their reinin' and pullin' would have
brought us a cropper at about two out of every three obstacles. Faith,
and I believe it's an honest leaper's luck I've always had with me,
anyway, for me Quebec work was jist what I needed to train me for an
honorable finish with the Lemon County Yankees.
"One Autumn night years ago, when I was eighteen, a clever young Yankee
visitor from New York appeared at our club. For two days I watched his
work on other mounts, and liked it. He was good as any two-legged
product of the old sod itself, a handsome youngster a bit heavier than
Sir Pat, a reckless, deep drinkin', hard swearin', straight ridin'
sort, but with a head and hands ye knew in a minute ye could trust, by
name Jack Lounsend. The third hunt after his arrival, it was me
delight to carry him, and for the first time in years to allow me rider
his will of me. And you can bet your stud and gear, I gave him the
best I had, for the sheer love of him, and him so near the likes of me
dear Sir Pat.
"Nor was me work to go unvalued, for, to me great delight, he bought me
and brought me to the States--straight away to Lemon County--along with
two of me huntmates he fancied. And a sweet country I found this same
Lemon County, with timber and stone nigh as stiff, and sod as sound as
old Roscommon's own.
"But troubles lay ahead of me I'd not foreseen. Instead of goin' into
Jack's private string, as I'd hoped, the early record I made for close
finishes and safe, sure work made me wanted by the chief patron of the
hunt, a New York multi-railroad-aire with a well diviloped habit of
gettin' everything he goes after. So, while I venture to believe Jack
hated to part with me, the patron got me.
"And a good man up the patron himself proved, one I'd always be proud
enough to carry; but, as Jack used to say, the hell of it was the Lemon
County Hunt numbered more bunglin' duffers than straight riders, the
sort a youngster or a hot-head would be sure to kill.
"So when, as often happened, the patron was busy with faster runs and a
hotter 'worry' than our hunt afforded, it frequently fell to me lot to
carry the half-broke of all ages, seldom a one bridle wise to our game,
as sure to pull me at the take-off of a leap as to give me me head on a
run through heavy mud, the sort no horse could carry and finish
dacently with except by takin' the bit in his teeth and himself makin'
the runnin'. And even so, it was a tough task fightin' their rotten
heavy hands and loose seat! But, by the glory of old Roscommon, never
once have I been down in me eight years with the Lemons!
"Once, to be sure, on me first run, by the way, I slashed into one of
your brutal wire fences, the first I'd ever seen--looked a filmy thing
you could smash right through--caught a shoe in it, and nigh wrenched a
shoulder blade in two. Sure, I never lost me feet, but it laid me up a
few days; and you can gamble any odds you like no wire has ever caught
me since; and, more, that I now hold record as the only horse in the
County that takes wire as readily as timber, where it's
necessary--though sure it is I'll dodge for timber every time where I
won't lose too much in place.
"Down they come to Lemon County, a lot of those New York beauties, men
and women, togged out so properly you'd think they'd spent their whole
lives in the huntin' field; but at the first obstacle you'd see their
faces go white as their stocks, and then all over you they'd ride from
tail to ears, their arms sawin' at your mouth fit to rip your under jaw
off, like they thought it was a backin' contest they were entered for.
And sure back to the rear it soon was for them, back till the hounds
were mere glintin' specks flyin' across a distant hill-crest, the
riders' red coats noddin' poppies; back till only faint echoes reached
them of the swellin', quaverin' chorus of the madly racin' pack; back
for all but him or her whom old Sol had his will of,--for rider never
lived could hold me to the wrong jump or throw me from my stride, nor
was fence ever built I'd not find a place to leap without layin' a toe
on it.
"Once the hounds give voice, it's the divil himself couldn't hold me,
whether it's the short, sharp war-cry of the Irish or the sweet, deep
bell-notes of these Yankee hounds that to me ever seem chantin' a
mournful dirge for the quarry. Sure, it's the faster Irish hounds that
make the grandest runnin', but it's the deep-throated mellow chorus of
a Yankee pack I love best to hear.
"_Nouveaux riches_, whatever kind of bounders that spells, is what Bob
Berry calls the lot of mouth-sawers New York sends us; and whenever the
patron is out or Jack has his way, it's niver one of them I'm disgraced
with.
"Sometimes it's me good old Jack up; sometimes hard swearin', straight
goin' Bob; sometimes little Raven, as true a pair of hands and light
and tight a seat as hunter ever had; sometimes Lory Ling, as reckless
as the old Roscommon sire of him I used to carry when I was a
five-year-old, with a ring in his swears, a stab in his heels, and a
cut in his crop that can lift a dead-beat one over as tall gates as the
best and freshest can take; sometimes it's Priest, that with the
language of him and the hell-at-a-split pace he'll hold a tired one to
but ill desarves the holy name he wears; and sometimes--my happiest
times--it's a daughter of the patron up, with hands like velvet and the
nerve and seat of a veteran.
"Horse or human, it's blood that tells, every time, me word for that.
Be they old or young, you can niver mistake it. Can't stop anything
with good blood in it--gallops straight, takes timber in its stride,
and finishes smartly every time. Know it may not, but it balks at
nothing, sets its teeth and drives ahead till it learns.
"And perhaps that wasn't driven well home on me last Fall!"
"Out to us came a little woman, a scant ninety-pounder I should say, so
frail she wouldn't look safe in a drag, and a good bit away on the off
side of middle age; but the mouth of her had a set that showed she'd
never run off the bit in her life, and her eye--my eye! but she had an
eye, did that woman. And it was hell-bent to hunt she was, bound to
follow the bounds, though all she knew of a saddle came of
five-mile-an-hour jogs along town park bridle paths, and all her hands
looked fit for was holdin' a spaniel.
"Well, it was Lory and Priest took her on, turn about, usually me that
carried her, and it was break her slender little neck I thought the
divils would in spite of me. Took her at everything and spared her
nowhere, bowled her along across meadow and furrow, over water, timber,
and walls, like she was a lusty five-year-old, and all the time a
guyin' her in a way to take the heart out of anything but a
thoroughbred. 'Don't mind the fence!' Lory would sing out, 'if you get
a fall, just throw your legs in the air and keep kickin' to show you're
not dead; we never want to stop for any but the dead on this hunt.'
And smash on my quarters would come her crop, and on we'd go!
"Again, when we'd be nearin' a fence across which two were scramblin'
up from croppers, Lory would brace her with: 'Don't git scared at that
smoke across the fence; it's nothin' but the boys that couldn't get
over burnin' up their chance of salvation!' And into me slats her
little heel would sock the steel, and high over the timber I'd lift her
for sheer joy of the nerve of her!
"But it was not always me that had her. One day I saw a cold-blood
give her a fall you'd think would smash the tiny little thing into
bran; landed so low on a ditch bank he couldn't gather, and up over his
head she flew and on till I thought she was for takin' the next wall by
her lonesome. And when finally she hit the ground it was to so near
bury herself among soft furrows that it looked for a second as if she'd
taken earth like any other wily old fox tired of the runnin'.
"But tired? She? Not on your bran mash! Up she springs like a
yearlin' and asks Lory is her hat on straight--which it was, straight
up and down over her nigh ear. 'Oh, damn your hat,' answers Lory;
'give us your foot for a mount if you're not rattled. Why, next year
you'll be showin' your friends holes in the ground on this hunt course
you've dug with your own head!' And up it was for her and away again
on old cold-blood. Faith, but those cold-bloods make it a shame
they're ever called hunters. Fall the best must, one day or another;
but while the thoroughbred goes down fightin', strugglin' for his feet
and ginerally either winnin' out or givin' his rider time to fall free
if down he must go, the cold-blood falls loose and flabby as an empty
sack, and he and his rider hit the ground like the divil had kicked
them off Durham Terrace. Ah, but it was the heart of a true
thoroughbred had Mrs. Bruner, and whether up on cold or hot blood,
along she'd drive at anything those two hare-brained dare-devils would
point her at, spur diggin', crop splashin'!
"Nor is all our fun of hunt days. Between times the lads are always
larkin' and puttin' up games on each other out of the stock of
divilment that won't keep till the next run, each never quite so happy
as when he can git the best of a mate on a trade or a wager.
"One day little Raven and I galloped over to Lory's place.
"'Whatever mischief are you and His Wisdom up to?' sings out Lory to
Raven, the minute we stopped at his porch.
"'Nary a mischief,' answers Raven; 'want some help of you.'
"'Give it a name,' says Lory.
"'Easy,' says Raven; 'the master's got a new fad--crazy to mount the
hunt on white horses. I've old Sol here, and Jack has a pair of handy
white ones for the two whips, but where to get a white mount for Jack
stumps us. Jogged over to see if you could help us out.'
"Lory was lollin' in an easy-chair, lookin' out west across his spring
lot. Directly I saw a twinkle in his eye, and followin' the line of
his glance, there slouchin' in a fence corner I saw Lory's old white
work-mare, Molly. Sometimes Molly pulled the buggy and the little
Lings, but usually it was a plough or a mower for hers. I'd heard Lory
say she was eighteen years old and that once she was gray, but now
she's white as a first snow-fall.
"'How would old gray Molly do, Raven?' presently asks Lory.
"'Do? Has she ever hunted?' asks Raven.
"'Divil a hunt of anything but a chance for a rest,' says Lory; 'never
had a saddle on, as far as I know, but she has the quarters and low
sloping shoulders of a born jumper, and it's you must admit it. Let's
have a look at her.'
"So out across the spring lot the three of us went, to the corner where
Molly was dozin'. And true for Lory it was, the old lady had fine
points; when lightly slapped with Raven's crop she showed spirit and a
good bit of action.
"'She's sure got a good strain in her,' says Raven; 'where did you get
her, Lory?'
"'Had her twelve years,' says Lory; 'brought her on from my Wyoming
ranch; she and a skullful of experience and a heartful of
disappointment made up about all two bad winters left of my ranch
investments. The freight on her made her look more like a back-set
than an asset, but she was a link of the old life I couldn't leave.'
"'Well, give her a try out,' laughs Raven, 'and if she'll run a bit and
jump, we may have some fun passin' her up to Jack.'
"So Lory takes her to the stable, has her saddled and mounts, and I
hope never to have another rub-down if she didn't gallop on like she'd
never done anything else--stiff in the pasterns and hittin' the ground
fit to bust herself wide open, but poundin' along a fair pace. Then we
went into a narrow lane and I gave her a lead over some low bars, and
here came game old Molly stretchin' over after me like fences and her
were old stable-mates.
"'Well, I _will_ be damned,' says Raven; 'she's a hoary wonder. Give
her a week of handlin' and trim her up, and it'll be Jack for mother at
a stiff price; he's so bent on his fad, he'll take a chance on her age.'
"And then it was clinkin' glasses and roarin' laughter in the house
with them, while I began tippin' Molly a few useful points at the game
as soon as the groom left us in adjoinin' stalls.
"Four days later Lory brought Molly over to the hunt-club mews, and if
I'd not been on to their mischievous plot, I'll be fired if I'd known
her. It was a cunnin' one, was Lory, and he'd banged her tail, hogged
her mane, clipped her pasterns, polished her hoofs, groomed, fed up,
and conditioned her, and (I do believe) polished her yellow old fangs,
till she looked as fit a filly as you'd want to see.
"And soon after, when Molly was unsaddled and stalled, into an empty
box alongside of me slips Lory with Tom, the best whip and seat of our
hunt, and says Lory: 'You never seem to mind riskin' your neck, Tom.'
"'Thank ye kindly, sir,' says Tom; 'hall in the day's work.'
"'Well, if you'll give the old gray mare a week's practice at wall and
timber, gettin' out early when none but the sun and the pair of you are
yet up, I'll give you the little rifle you lovin'ly handled at my place
the other day. But mind, it's your neck she may break at the first
wall, for I've niver taken her over anything much higher than a pig
sty.'
"'Right-o, sir,' says Tom; 'an' there's any jump in the old girl, I'll
git it out of 'er.'
"The next Saturday afternoon, the biggest meet of the season, up rides
that divil of a Lory on Molly, him in a brand-new suit of ridin' togs
and her heavy-curbed and martingaled like she was a wild four-year-old,
the pair lookin' so fine I scarce knew the man or Raven the mare.
"'Hi, there, Lory!' says Raven; 'wherever did you get the corkin' white
un?'
"'Sh-h-h! you damn fool,' says Lory.
"'The hell you say!' whispers Raven, reins aside, chucklin' low to the
two of us, and with a knee-press which I knew meant, 'Sol, jist you
watch 'em!'
"And we were no more than turned about when up rides the master, Jack,
both ears pointin' Molly, and says:
"'Good-looker you have there, Lory. New purchase?
"'No, indeed,' says Lory; 'old hunter I've had some years; brought her
on from the West; just up off grass and not quite prime yet; guess
she'll finish, though.
"Think of it--the nerve of the divil--and him knowin' she was more
likely to finish at the first fence than ever to reach the check. For
the day's course was a full ten-mile run, and a check was laid half-way
for a blow or a change of mounts.
"Presently the hounds opened at the 'throw-in,' an Irish pack it takes
near a steeplechase pace to stay with, and we were off on as stiff a
course as even Lemon County can show. And a holy miracle was Lory's
ridin' that day. For nigh four miles he held tight behind two duffers
who, while up on top-notchers, pulled their mounts so heavily that they
took a top rail off nearly every fence they rose to and swerved for low
wall-gaps, till he'd got Molly's nerves up a bit. Then, takin' a
chance on the last mile, Lory threw crop and spur into her and raced
straight ahead, liftin' her over wall and timber to try the best, until
close up on Jack. Just then Jack turned and watched them, just as they
were approachin' a heavy four-foot jump, a broad stone wall and ditch.
Sure, I thought it was all up with Lory, but at it he hurled her, and
I'll be curbed if she didn't take it as cleverly as I could.
"Old Molly finished third at the check, but at the expense of a pair of
badly torn and bleedin' knees, got scrapin' over stone and wood, which
that rascal of a Lory hid by swervin' to a white clay bank and
plasterin' her wounds with the clay, and then she was led away by his
groom.
"Joggin' back from the 'worry' that evenin', Jack lay tight in Lory's
flank till Lory had consented, apparently with great reluctance, to
sell him Molly for five hundred dollars.
"The very next week, Jack, Raven, and the two whips turned out on white
hunters, Jack of course upon Molly and happy over the successful
workin' out of his fad. But good old Jack's happiness was short-lived,
for after the 'throw-in' he was not seen again of the hunt that day,
The first fence Molly negotiated in fine style, but at the second she
came a terrible cropper that badly jolted Jack and knocked every last
ounce of heart out of her, cowed her so completely that she'd be in
that same meadow yet if there'd not been a pair of bars to lead her
through, and divil a man was ever found could make her try another jump.
"Great was the quiet fun of Lory and Raven, though Lory's lasted little
longer than Jack's joy of his white mount. Of course Jack was too game
to let on he knew he'd been done, but not too busy to sharpen a rowel
for Lory.
"And the rankest wonder it was Lory niver saw it till Jack had him
raked from flank to shoulder--just stood and took it without a blink,
like a donkey takes a lash.
"Within a week of Molly's downfall Lory was out on me one day, when up
rides Jack and says:
"'There's a splendid hunter in me stable I want ye to have, Lory. Got
more than I can keep, and your stable must be a bit shy since you
parted with the white mare. He's the bay seventeen-hander in the Irish
lot. Stands me over a thousand, but you can have him at your own
price; don't want the hardest, straightest rider of the hunt shy of fit
meat and bone to carry him.'
"Belikes it was the blarney caught him, but anyway Lory buried his
muzzle in Jack's pail till he could see nothin' but what Jack said it
held, and took the bay at six hundred dollars just on a casual lookover.
"It was a good action, a grand jumpin' form, and rare pace the bay
showed on a short try-out that afternoon, so much so I overheard Lory
tellin' himself, when he was after dismounting just outside me box:
'Gad! but ain't old Jack easy money!'
"But when Lory and the bay showed up at the next day's meet, I noticed
the bay's ears layin' back or workin' in a way to tell any but a blind
one it was dirty mischief he was plannin'. Nor was he long playin' it.
For about a third of the run the bay raced like a steeplechaser tight
on the heels of the hounds, leadin' even the master, for Lory could no
more hold him than his own glee at the grand way they were takin' gates
and walls. But suddenly that bay divil's-spawn swerves from the
course, dashes up and stops bang broadside against a barn; and there,
with ears laid back tight to his head and muzzle half upturned, for
four mortal hours the bay held Lory's off leg jammed so tight against
the barn that, rowel and crop-cut hard as he might, the only thing Lory
was able to free was such a flow of language, it was a holy wonder
Providence didn't fire the barn and burn up the pair of them.
"And as Jack passed them I heard the divil sing not [Transcriber's
note: out?]: 'Ha! Ha! Lory! it was the gray mare wanted to jump but
couldn't, and it's the bay can jump but won't! It's an "oh hell!" for
you and a "ha! ha!" for me this time!'
"Which, while they're still fast friends, was the last word ever passed
between them on the subject of the funker and the balker."
CHAPTER XII
EL TIGRE
"A cat may look at a king, but the son of a village lawyer may not
venture to bare his heart to the daughter of the Duque de la Torrevieja.
And yet a man of our blood was ennobled early in the wars with the Moors,
while the Duke's forebears were still simple men-at-arms, knighted under
a name that in itself carries the ring of the heroic deeds that earned
it."
The speaker, Mauro de la Lucha-sangre (literally "Mauro of the Bloody
Battle"), stood one June morning of 1874 beneath the shade of a gnarled
olive-tree on the banks of the Guadaira River, rebelliously stamping a
heel into the soft turf. Son of the foremost lawyer of his native town
of Utrera, educated in Sevilla at the best university of his province,
already at twenty-four himself a fully accredited _licenciado_, Mauro's
future held actually brilliant prospects for a man of the station into
which he was born. And yet, most envied of his classmates though he was,
to Mauro himself the future loomed black, forbidding, cheerless.
Mauro's father, by legacy from his father, was the attorney and
counsellor of the Duque de la Torrevieja; and so might Mauro have been
for the next Duke had there not cropped out in him the daring, the love
of adventure, the pride, and the confidence that had lifted the first
Lucha-sangre above his fellows. It was a case of breeding back--away
back over and past generations of fawning commoners to the times when
Lucha-sangre swords were splitting Moorish casques and winning guerdons.
Nor in spirit alone was Mauro bred back. He was deep of chest, broad of
shoulder, lithe and graceful. His massive neck upbore a head of Augustan
beauty, lighted by eyes that alternately blazed with the pride and
resolution of a Cid and softened with the musings of a Manrique. Mauro
was a Lucha-sangre of the twelfth century, reincarnate.
Little is it to be wondered at that, as the lad was often his father's
message-bearer to the Duke, he found favor in the eyes of the Duke's only
daughter, Sofia; and still less is it to be wondered at that he early
became her thrall. Of nights at the university he was ever dreaming of
her; up out of his text-books her lovely face was ever rising before him
in class.
Of a rare type was Sofia in Andalusia, where nearly all are dark, for she
was a true _rubia_, blue of eye, fair of skin, and with hair of the
wondrously changing tints of a cooling iron ingot.
And now here was Mauro, just back from Sevilla, almost within arms'-reach
of his divinity, and yet not free to seek her. And as the rippling
current of the Quadaira crimsoned and then reddened and darkened till it
seemed to him like a great ruddy tress of Sofia's waving hair, Mauro
sprang to his feet and fiercely whispered: "_Mil demonios!_ but she shall
at least know, and then I'll kiss the old _padre_, and his musty office
good-bye and go try my hand at some man's task!"
Opportunity came earlier than he had dared hope. The very next morning
the elder Lucha-sangre sent Mauro to the castle with some papers for the
Duke's approval and signature. Still at breakfast, the Duke received him
in the great banquet-hall of the castle, the walls covered with portraits
of Torreviejas gone before, several of the earlier generations so dim and
gray with age they looked mere spectres of the limner's art.
While the Duke was reading the papers, Mauro stood with eyes riveted to
the newest portrait of them all, that of Sofia's mother--Sofia's very
self matured--herself a native of a northern province wherein to this day
red hair and blue eyes are a frequent, almost a prevailing type, that
tell the story of early Gothic invasions. So absorbed in the picture, so
completely possessed by it was Mauro, that when the Duke turned and spoke
to him, he did not hear.
And so he stood for some moments while the Duke sat contemplating the
fine lines of his face and the splendid pose of his figure; his eyes
lightened with admiration, his head nodding approval.
Then gently touching Mauro's arm, the Duke queried: "And so you admire
the Duchess, young man?"
With a start Mauro answered, after a dazed stare at the Duke: "A thousand
pardons, Excellency! But yes, sir; who in all the world could fail to
admire her?"
"Yes, yes," replied the Duke; "God never made but one other quite her
equal, and her He made in her own very image--Sofia; _que Dios la
aguarda_!"
Mauro gravely bowed, received the papers from the Duke, and withdrew.
Turning to his secretary, the Duke sighed deeply and murmured: "_Dios
mio!_ if only I had a son of my own blood like that boy! What a pity he
should be tied down to paltry pettifoggery!"
Meantime Mauro, striding disconsolate past an angle of the narrow garden
of the inner courtyard, was detained by a soft voice issuing from the
seclusion of a bench beneath the drooping boughs of an ancient fig tree:
"_Buenos dias, Don Mauro. Bueno es verte revuelto._"
"Buenos dias, Condesa; and it is indeed good to me to be back, good to
hear thy voice--the first real happiness I have known since my ears last
welcomed its sweet tones. Good to be back! ah! Condesa Sofia, for me it
is to live again."
"But, Don Mauro--"
"A thousand pardons, Condesa, but thy duenna may join thee at any moment,
and my heart has long guarded a message for thee it can no longer hold
and stay whole,--a message thou mayest well resent for its gross
presumption, and yet a message I would here and now deliver if I knew I
must die for it the next minute.
"From childhood hast thus possessed me. Never a night for the last ten
years have I lain down without a prayer to the Virgin for thy safety and
happiness; never a day but I have so lived that my conduct shall be
worthy of thee. Though I am the son of thy father's _licenciado_, thou
well knowest the blood of a long line of proud warriors burns in my
veins. Hope that thou mightst ever even deign to listen to me I have
never ventured to cherish--"
"But Don Mauro--"
"Again a thousand pardons, Condesa, but I must tell thee thou art the
light of my soul. Without thee all the world is a valley of bitterness;
with thee its most arid desert would be an Eden. The birds are ever
chanting to me thy name. Every pool reflects thy sweet face. Every
breeze wafts me the fragrance of thy dear presence. Every thunderous
roll of the Almighty's war-drums calls me to attempt some great heroic
deed in thine honor, some deed that shall prove to thee the lawyer's son,
in heart and soul if not in present station, is not unworthy to tell to
thee his love. And--"
"But, Mauro, Mauro _m--mio_!" And with a sob she arose and actually fled
through the shrubbery.
Two days later the betrothal of the Countess Sofia to the Count Leon, the
eldest son and heir to the Duke de Oviedo, was announced by her father.
And that, indeed, was what she had tried but lacked the heart to tell
him--that, wherever her heart might lie, her father had already promised
her hand!
It was a bitter night for Mauro, that of the announcement, and a sad one
for his father. Their conference lasted till near morning. The son
pleaded he must have a life of action and hazard; his country at peace,
he would train for the bull ring.
"Why not the opera, my son?" the thrifty father replied. "Thou hast a
grand tenor voice; indeed the Bishop has asked that thou wilt lead the
choir of the Cathedral. With such a voice thou wouldst have action, see
the world, gain riches, while all the time playing the parts, fighting
the battles of some great historic character."
"But no, father," answered Mauro; "such be no more than sham fights. Not
only must I wear a sword as did the early Lucha-sangres, but I must hear
it ring and ring against that of a worthy foe, feel it steal within the
cover of his guard, see the good blade drip red in fair battle. True,
there be no Moors or French to fight, but what soldier on reddened field
ever took greater odds than a lone _espada_ takes every time he
challenges a fierce Utrera bull? And I swear to thee, _padre mio_,
whatever my calling, I shall ever be heedful of and cherish the motto
that Lucha-sangre swords have always borne: '_No me sacas sin razon; no
me metes sin honor._'" (Do not draw me without good cause; do not sheath
me without honor!)
The less strong-minded of the two, the father yielded, and even furnished
funds sufficient for a year's private tutoring by Frascuelo, then the
greatest _matador_ in all Spain.
Thus the first time Mauro ever appeared before a public assembly was a
chief espada of a cuadrilla of his own, at Valladolid. An apt pupil from
the start, bent upon reaching the highest rank, of extraordinary strength
and activity, utterly fearless but cool headed, a natural general, at the
close of his first _corrida_ he was acclaimed the certain successor of
the great Frascuelo himself, and at the same time christened _El Tigre_
(the Tiger) for the feline swiftness of his movements and the ferocity of
his attacks.
The next eight years were for _El Tigre_ fruitful of fame and riches but
utterly arid and barren of even the most casual feminine attachment.
Well educated, clever, with the manners of a courtier, and with physical
beauty and personal charm few men equalled, he was invited by the
nobility often, received as an equal by the men and literally courted by
the women. But the attentions of women were all to no purpose. For _El
Tigre_ only one woman existed--Sofia, now the Duchess de Oviedo--though
he had never again set eyes on her from the hour of their parting beneath
the fig tree.
Owners of large Mexican sugar estates in the valley of Cuautla, the Duke
and Sofia divided their time between Paris and Mexico. Their marriage
was far from happy. Before their union, busy tongues had brought Count
Leon rumors of her admiration for Mauro, rousing suspicions that were not
long crystallizing into certainty that, while she was a faithful, honest
wife, he could never win of her the affection he gave and craved.
Obviously proud of her, always devoted and kind, he received from her
respect and consideration in return, which indeed was all she had to
give, for the loss of Mauro remained to her an ever-gnawing grief.
Oddly enough, fate decreed that the destiny of Mauro and Sofia should be
worked out far afield from their burning Utreran plains, high up on the
cool plateau of Central Mexico.
For several years most generous offers had been made _El Tigre_ to bring
his _cuadrilla_ to Mexico, but, surfeited with fame and rolling in
riches, he had declined them. At last, however, in 188-, an offer was
made him which he felt forced to accept--six thousand dollars a
performance for ten _corridas_, to be given on successive Sundays in the
Plaza Bucareli in the City of Mexico, all expenses of himself and his
_cuadrilla_ to be paid by the management. And so, late in April of that
year _El Tigre_ arrived in Mexico with his _cuadrilla_ and (as stipulated
in his contract) sixty great Utreran bulls, for the bulls of Utrera are
famed in _toreador_ history and song as the fiercest, most desperate
fighters _espada_ ever confronted.
At the first performance _El Tigre_ took the Mexican public by storm. No
such execution, daring, and grace had ever been seen in either Bucareli
or Colon. _El Tigre_ was the toast in every club and _cafe_ of the city.
Every shop window displayed his portrait. All the journals sung his
praises. Maids and matrons sighed for him. Youth and age envied him.
_El Tigre's_ coffers were well-nigh bursting and his cups of joy
overflowing, all but the one none but Sofia could fill.
Where she was at the time _El Tigre_ had no idea. And yet, wholly
unsuspected by him, not only were she and the Duke in Mexico, but both
had attended all his performances at Bucareli, up to the last,
inconspicuous behind parties of friends they entertained in their box.
Whether it was the Duke caught the pallor of Sofia's face in moments of
peril for Mauro, or the light of pride and admiration in her eyes during
his moments of triumph, sure it is the smouldering fires of the Duke's
jealousy were rekindled, and he was prompted to plan a test of her
bearing, when free of the restraint of his presence. On the morning of
the last performance he announced that he must spend the afternoon with
his attorneys, and must leave Sofia free to make her own arrangements for
attendance at the last _corrida_.
And glad enough was she of the chance. The boxes were far too high
above, and distant from, the arena. For days she had coveted any of the
seats along the lower rows of open benches, close down to the six-foot
barrier between the ring and the auditorium, close down where she could
catch every shifting expression of Mauro's mobile face, and--where he
could scarcely fail to see and recognize her. The thought of seeking in
any way to meet or speak to him never entered her clean mind, but she had
been more nearly a saint than a woman if she had been able to deny
herself such an opportunity to convey to him, in one long burning glance,
a knowledge of the endurance of the love her frightened "Mauro _mio_" had
plainly confessed the night of their parting beneath the fig tree. So it
naturally followed that the Duke was barely out of the house before Sofia
rushed away a messenger to reserve a section of the lower benches
immediately beneath the box of the _Presidente_, directly in front of
which Mauro must come, at the head of his _cuadrilla_, to salute the
_Presidente_.
The city was thronged with visitors come to see _El Tigre_. Hotels and
clubs were overflowing with them. And thousands of poor peons had for
months stinted themselves, often even gone hungry, to save enough
_tlacos_ to buy admission to the spectacle, to them the greatest and most
magnificent it could ever be their good fortune to witness. The day was
perfect, as indeed are most June days in Mexico. For two hours before
the performance the principal thoroughfares leading to the Plaza Bucareli
were packed solid with a moving throne all dressed _en fete_.
In no country in the world may one see such great picturesqueness,
variety, and brilliancy of color in the costumes of the masses as then
still prevailed in Mexico. Largely of more or less pure Indian blood,
come of a race Cortez found habited in feather tunics and head-dresses
brilliant as the plumage of parrots, great lovers of flowers, three and a
half centuries of contact with civilization had not served to deprive
them of any of their fondness for bright colors. Thus with the horsemen
in the graceful _traje de chorro_--sombreros and tight fitting soft
leather jackets and trousers loaded with gold or silver ornaments, the
footmen swaggering in _serapes_ of every color of the rainbow, the women
wrapped in more delicately tinted rebosas and crowned with flowers, the
winding streets looked like strips of flower garden ambulant.
Bucareli seated twenty thousand, and when all standing-room had been
filled and the gates closed, thousands of late comers were shut out.
The level, sanded ring, the theatre of action, was surrounded by a
six-foot solid-planked barrier. Behind and above the barrier rose the
benches of the auditorium, the "bleachers" of the populace; they rose to
a height of perhaps forty or fifty feet, while above the uppermost line
of benches were the private boxes of the _elite_. Within the ring were
five heavily planked nooks of refuge, set close to the barrier, behind
which a hard pressed _toreador_ might find safety from a charging bull.
These refuges were little used, however, except by the underlings, the
_capadores_, or by capsized _picadores_; _espadas_ and _banderilleros_
disdained them. On the west of the ring was the box of the _Presidente_
of the _corrida _(in this instance, the Governor of the Federal
District); on the east the main gate of the ring through which the
_cuadrilla_ entered; on the north the gate of the bull pen.
At a bugle call from the _Presidente's_ box, the main gate swung wide and
the _cuadrilla_ entered, a band of lithe, slender, clean-shaven men, in
slippers, white stockings, knee breeches, and jackets of silk ornamented
with silver, each wearing the little queue and black rosette attached
thereto that from time immemorial Andalusian _toreadores_ have sported.
_El Tigre_ headed the squad, followed by two junior _matadores_, three
_banderilleros_, three _capadores_, and two mounted _picadores_, while at
the rear of the column came two teams of little, half-wild, prancing,
dancing Spanish mules, one team black, the other white, each composed of
three mules harnessed abreast as for a chariot race, but dragging behind
them nothing but a heavy double tree, to which the dead of the day's
fight might be attached and dragged out of the arena.
Each of the footmen was wrapped in a large black cloak passed over the
left shoulder and beneath the right, the loose end of the cloak draped
gracefully over the left shoulder, the right arm swinging free. The
_picadores_ were mounted (as usual) on old crowbaits of horses, mere bags
of skin and bones, so poor and thin that neither could even raise a trot;
a broad leather blindfold fastened to their head-stalls. Each rider was
seated in a saddle high of cantle and ancient of form as those Knights
Templar jousted in. The breast of each horse was guarded by a great side
of sole leather falling nearly to the knees, while the right leg of each
rider was incased in such a stiff and heavy leather leg-guard as to
render him afoot almost helpless; and he was further guarded by still
another side of sole leather swung from the saddle horn and covering his
left leg and much of his horse's barrel. On the right stirrup of each
_picador_ rested the butt of his lance, a stout eight-foot shaft tipped
with a sharp steel prod, barely long enough to catch and hold in the
bull's hide.
As the _cuadrilla_ entered, a regimental band played _El Hymno Nacional_,
the National Anthem, while the vast audience roared and shrieked a
welcome to the gladiators.
Marching to the time of the music in long tragic strides, heads proudly
erect, right arms swinging and shoulders slightly swaying in the
challenging swagger which _toreadores affect_, the _cuadrilla_ crossed
the arena and halted, close to the barrier, in front of the
_Presidente's_ box, bared their heads, gracefully saluted the
_Presidente_, and received the key to the bull pen and his permission to
begin the fight. And as _El Tigre's_ eyes fell from the salute to the
_Presidente_ they rested upon Sofia, doubtless from some subtle
telepathic message, for it was a veritable hill of faces he confronted.
There she sat on the second bench-row above the top of the barrier,
matured and fuller of figure but radiant as at their Utreran parting;
there she sat, her gloved hands tightly clenched, her lips trembling, her
great blue eyes pouring into his messages of a love so deep and pure that
it needed all his self-command to keep from leaping the barrier and
falling at his feet.
For a moment he stood transfixed, staggered, almost overcome with
surprise and delight again to see her, thrilled with the joy of her
message, blazing with revolt at the painful consciousness that she was
and must remain another's. His emotions well-nigh stopped the beating of
his heart. And so he stood gazing into Sofia's eyes until,
self-possession recovered, he gravely bowed, turned, and waved his men to
their posts.
Instantly all was action, swift action. Cloaks were tossed to
attendants, each footman received a red cape, the two _picadores_ took
position one on either side of the bull pen gate, the band struck up a
tune, the gate was opened and a great Utreran bull bounded into the
arena, maddened with the pain of a short _banderilla_, with long
streaming ribbons, stuck in his neck as he entered, by an attendant
perched above the gate.
His equal had never been seen in a Mexican bull ring. While typical of
his Utreran brothers, all princes of bovine fighting stock, this
coal-black monster was by the spectators voted their King. Relatively
light of quarters and shallow of flank and barrel, he was unusually high
and humped of withers, broad and deep of chest and heavy of
shoulders--indeed a well-nigh perfect four-legged type of a finely
trained two-legged athlete, with a pair of peculiarly straight-upstanding
horns that were long and almost as sharp as rapiers. Evidently by his
build, he was of a strong strain of East Indian Brahminic blood. For his
great weight, his activity was phenomenal--his leaps like a panther's,
his turns as quick.
Dazed for an instant by the crash of the music and the brilliant banks of
color about him, he stood angrily lashing his tail and pawing up the sand
in clouds--"digging a grave," as Texas cowboys used to call it--his eyes
blazing and head tossing, but only for a moment. Then he charged the
nearest _picador_, literally leaped so high at him that head and cruel
horns crossed above the horse's neck, his own great chest striking the
horse just behind the shoulder with such force that man and mount hit the
ground stunned and helpless.
Barely were they down when he was upon them and with a single twitch of
his mighty neck, had ripped open the horse's barrel and half amputated
one of the rider's legs. Then, diverted by the _capadores_, he whirled
upon the second _picador_ and in another ten seconds had left his horse
dead and the rider badly trampled. Next the _banderilleros_ tackled him,
but such was his speed and ferocity that all three funked the work, and
not one of them fastened his flag in the black shoulders.
When the bull had entered the ring, _El Tigre_ left the arena--a most
unusual proceeding. Now he returned, clad in snow-white from head to
foot, a white cap covering head and hair, his face heavily powdered. He
slipped in behind and unseen by the bull to the centre of the arena, and
there stood erect, with arms folded, motionless as a graven image.
Presently the bull turned, saw _El Tigre_, and charged him straight. _El
Tigre_ was not even facing him, for the bull was approaching from his
left. But there he stood without the twitch of a muscle or the flicker
of an eye lid, still as a figure of stone.
A great sob arose from the audience, and all gave him up for lost, when,
at the last instant before the bull must have struck, it turned and
passed him. Once more the bull so charged and passed. Whether because
it mistook him for the ghost of a man or recognized in him a spirit
mightier than its own, only the bull knew.
Before the audience had well caught its breath, _El Tigre_, wearing again
his usual costume, was striding again to the middle of the arena,
carrying a light chair, in which presently he seated himself, facing the
bull, a show _banderilla_, no more than six inches long, held in his
teeth. And so he awaited the charge until the bull was within actual
arm's-reach, when with a swift rise from the chair and a turn of his body
quick as that of a fencer's supple wrist, he bent and stuck the
teeth-held banderilla in the bull's shoulder as he swept past.
Now was the time for the kill.
El Tigre received his sword, _muleta_, and cape. The _muleta_ is a
straight two-foot stick over which the cape is draped, and, held in the
_matador's_ left hand, usually is extended well to the right of his body.
Thus in an ordinary fight the bull is actually charging the blood-red
cape, and not the _matador_. But, with Sofia an onlooker, determined to
make this the fight of his life, _El Tigre_ tossed aside the _muleta_,
wrapped the crimson cape about his body, and stood alone awaiting the
bull's charge, his malleable sword-blade bent slightly downward,
sufficiently to give a true thrust behind the shoulder, a down-curve into
heart or lungs.
With a bull of such extraordinary activity the act was almost suicidal,
but _El Tigre_ smilingly took the chance. By toreador etiquette, the
_matador_ must receive and dodge the first two charges; not until the
third may he strike. On the first charge _El Tigre_ stood like a rock
until the bull had almost reached him, and then lightly leaped diagonally
across his lowered neck. The second charge, come an instant after the
first, before most men could even turn, he dodged. The third he swiftly
side-stepped, thrust true, and dropped the great Utreran midway of a leap
aimed at his elusive enemy.
It was a deed magnificent, epic, and the plaza rung with plaudits while
hats, fans, and even purses and jewels showered into the arena--all of
which, by _toreador_ etiquette, were tossed back across the barrier to
their owners.
Then the teams entered and quickly dragged the dead from the arena; the
ugly, dangerously slippery red patches were fresh sanded, and the second
bull was admitted. Thus, with more or less like incident, three more
bulls were fought and killed.
The fifth and last, however, proved a disgrace to his race. Bluff he
did, but fight he would not; the noise and crowd unnerved him. At last,
frenzied with fear and seeking escape, he made a mighty leap to mount the
barrier directly in front of the box of the _Presidente_. And mount it
he did, and down it crashed beneath his weight, leaving the bull for a
moment half down and tangled in the wreckage, struggling to regain his
feet.
Directly in front of the bull, not six feet beyond the sharp points of
his deadly horns, sat Sofia. Indeed none about her had risen; all sat as
if frozen in their places. And just as well they might have been, for
escape into or through the dense mass of spectators about them was
utterly impossible. Whatever horror came they must await, helpless.
But at the bull's very start for the barrier, _El Tigre_, realized
Sofia's peril and instantly sprang empty-handed in pursuit; for it was
early in this the last _corrida_ and he did not have his sword,
Leaping the wreckage, _El Tigre_ landed directly in front of the bull,
happily at the instant it regained its feet, where, with his right hand
seizing the bull by the nose--his thumb and two fore-fingers thrust well
within its nostrils--and with his left hand grabbing the right horn, with
a mighty heave he uplifted the bull's muzzle and bore down upon its horn
until he threw it with a crash upon its side that left it momentarily
helpless.
But, himself slipping in the loose wreckage, down also _El Tigre_ fell,
the bull's sharp right horn impaling his left thigh and pinning him to
the ground.
Before the bull could rise, the men of the _cuadrilla_ had it safely
bound and _El Tigre_ released. _El Tigre_, however, did not know it.
With the shock and pain of his wound he had fainted.
When at length he regained consciousness, it was to find his head
pillowed in Sofia's lap, her soft fingers caressing his brow, her tearful
eyes looking into his, and to hear her whisper: "Mauro _mio_!"
Just at this moment the Duke de Oviedo approached, no one knew whence.
White with jealousy but steady and cool, he quietly remarked:
"Madame, I ought to kill you both, but that my rank precludes.
Lucha-sangre, in yourself, as son of a notary and hired _toreador_ and
purveyor of spectacles, you are unworthy of my sword; nevertheless blood
once noble is in your veins. And so as noble it suits me now to count
you. As soon as you are recovered of your wound I will send you my
second."
"Most happy, Duke," answered Mauro; "mine shall be ready to meet him."
One evening a week later, while the Duke de Oviedo and two Mexican army
officers were having drinks at the bar of the Cafe Concordia, General
Delmonte, a Cuban long resident in New York and a distinguished veteran
of three wars, entered with two American friends. Delmonte was
describing to his friends _El Tigre's_ last fight, lauding his prowess,
extolling his noble presence and high character. Infuriated by the
ardent praise of his enemy, the Duke grossly insulted General
Delmonte--and was very promptly slapped in the face.
They fought at daylight the next morning, beneath an arch of the ancient
aqueduct, just outside the city. Encountering in Delmonte one of the
best swordsmen of his time, early in the combat the Duke received a
mortal wound. And as he there lay gasping out his life, he murmured a
phrase that, at the moment, greatly puzzled his seconds:
_"Gana El Tigre._" (The Tiger Wins!)
CHAPTER XIII
BUNKERED
It seems it must have been somewhere about the year 4000 B. C. that we
lost sight of the tall peaks of the architectural topography of
Manhattan Island, and yet the log of the _Black Prince_ makes it no
more than twenty days. Not that our day-to-day time has been dragging,
for it has done nothing of the sort.
All my life long I have dreamed of indulging in the joy of a really
long voyage, and now at last I've got it. New York to Cape Town, South
Africa, 6,900 miles, thirty days' straight-away run, and thence another
twenty-four days' sail to Mombasa, on a 7,000-ton cargo boat,
deliberate and stately rather than fast of pace, but otherwise as trim,
well groomed, and well found as a liner, with an official mess that
numbers as fine a set of fellows as ever trod a bridge. The Captain,
when not busy hunting up a stray planet to check his latitude, puts in
his spare time hunting kindly things to do for his two passengers--for
there are only two of us, the Doctor and myself. The Doctor signed on
the ship's articles as surgeon, I as purser.
Fancy it! Thirty days' clear respite from the daily papers, the
telephone, the subway crowds, and the constant wear and tear on one's
muscular system reaching for change, large and small! Thirty days free
of the daily struggle either for place on the ladder of ambition or for
the privilege to stay on earth and stand about and watch the others
mount, that saps metropolitan nerves and squeezes the humanities out of
metropolitan life until its hearts are arid and barren and cruel as
those of the cavemen! Thirty days' repose, practically alone amid one
of nature's greatest solitudes, awed by her silences, uplifted by the
majesty of her mighty forces, with naught to do but humble oneself
before the consciousness of his own littleness and unfitness, and study
how to right the wrongs he has done.
Indeed a voyage like this makes it certain one will come actually to
know one's own self so intimately that, unless well convinced that he
will esteem and enjoy the acquaintance, he had best stay at home. Of
my personal experience in this particular I beg to be excused from
writing.
Lonesome out here? Far from it. Behind, to be sure, are those so near
and dear, one would gladly give all the remaining years allotted him
for one blessed half-hour with them. Otherwise, time literally flies
aboard the _Black Prince_; the days slip by at puzzling speed. Roughly
speaking, I should say the meals consume about half one's waking hours,
for we are fed five times a day, and fed so well one cannot get his own
consent to dodge any of them.
Indeed I've only one complaint to make of this ship; she is a
"water-wagon" in a double sense, which makes it awkward for a man who
never could drink comfortably alone. With every man of the mess a
teetotaler, one is now and then possessed with a consuming desire for
communion with some dear soul of thirsty memory who can be trusted to
take his "straight." Of course I don't mean to imply that this mess
cannot be trusted, for you can rely on it implicitly every time--to
take tea; you can trust it with any mortal or material thing, except
your pet brew of tea, if you have one, which, luckily, I haven't.
Indeed, for the thirsty man Nature herself in these latitudes is
discouraging, for the Big Dipper stays persistently upside down,
dry!--perhaps out of sympathy with the teetotal principles of this
ship. And most of the way down here there has been such a high sea
running that the only dry places I have noticed have been the upper
bridge and my throat. The fact is, about everything aboard this ship
is distressingly suggestive to a faithful knight of the tankard: he is
surrounded with "ports" that won't flow and giant "funnels" that might
easily carry spirits enough to wet the whistles of an army division
(but don't), until he is tempted in sheer desperation to take a pull at
the "main brace."
All of which, assisted by the advent of a covey of flying fishes and a
(Sunday) "school" of porpoises, is responsible for the following, which
is adventured with profuse apologies to Mr. Kipling:
ON THE ROAD TO MOMBASA
Take me north of the Equator
Where'er gleams the polar star,
Where "The Dipper" ne'er is empty
And Orion is not far,
Where the eagle at them gazes
And up toward them thrusts the pine--
_Anywhere_ strong men drink spirits
On the right side of "the line."
On the road to Mombas-a,
Drawing nearer toward Cathay,
Where the north star now is under,
'Neath the Southern Cross's ray.
Take me off this water wagon
Where the Captain's ribbon's blue,
Where the Doctor, yclept Barthwaite,
And each man-jack of the crew
Never get a drop of poteen,
Never know the cheer of beer--
_Anywhere_ a thirsty man may
Wet his whistle without fear.
On the road to Mombas-a,
With the _Black Prince_, day by day
Rolling her tall taffrail under,
'Neath a sky o'ercast and gray.
Take me back to good old Proctor's
Where a man may quench his thirst,
Where a purser with a shilling
Needn't feel he is accursed
By an ironclad owners' ship rule
That her officers shouldn't drink--
_Anywhere_ the ringing glasses
Merrily clink! clink!
On the road to Mombas-a,
Where the only drink is "tay,"
Where a thirst that is a wonder
Burns the throat from day to day.
Take me somewhere close to Rector's
Where a man can get a crab,
Where the blondined waves are tossing
And every eye-glance is a stab,
Where there's _froufrou_ of the _jupon_
And there's popping of the cork
_Anywhere_ the men and women
Snap their fingers at the stork.
On the road to Mombas-a,
Where e'en mermaids never play,
Where to come would be a blunder
Hunting hot birds and Roger.
But lonesome out here? Never--with the sympathetic North Atlantic
winds ever ready to roar you a grim dirge in your moments of melancholy
contemplation of the inverted Dipper, with the gentle tropical breezes
softly singing through the rigging notes of soothing cadence, with the
lethal ocean billows ever leaping up the sides of the ship, foaming
with the joy of what they would do to you if they once got you in their
embrace!
Lonesome? With the coming and the going of each day's sun gilding
cloud-crests, silvering waves, setting you matchless scenes in color
effect, some ravishing in their gorgeous splendor, some soft and tender
of tone as the light in the eyes of the woman you worship, scenes
beside which the most brilliant stage settings which metropolitans
flock like sheep to see are pathetically paltry counterfeits.
Lonesome? With a mighty, joyously bounding charger like the _Black
Prince_ beneath your feet if not between your knees, gayly taking the
tallest billows in his stride, whose ever steady pulse-beat bespeaks a
soundness of wind and limb you can trust to land you well at the finish!
Lonesome? Where privileged to descend into the very vitals of your
charger and sit throughout the midnight watch, an awed listener to the
throbs of the mighty heart that vitalizes his every function, while
each vigorously thrusting piston, each smug, palm-rubbing eccentric,
each somnolently nodding lever, drives deeper into your lay brain an
overwhelming sense of pride in such of your kind as have had the genius
to conceive, and such others as have had the skill and patience to
perfect, the conversion of inert masses of crude metal into the
magnificently powerful and obviously sentient entity that is bearing
you!
Lonesome? Skirting the coastline of Africa, a country whose
potentates, from the Ptolemies to Tom Ryan, have never failed to make
world history worth thinking about!
Lonesome? Bearing up toward that sea-made manacle of fallen majesty,
St. Helena, absorbed in memories of Bonaparte's magnificent dreams of
world-wide dominion, and of his pathetic end on one of its smallest and
most isolated patches!
Lonesome? With a chum at your elbow so close a student of the manly
game of war that he can glibly reel off for you every important
manoeuvre of all the great battles of history, from those of Alexander
the Great down to Tommy Burns's latest!
And now and then the elements themselves sit in and take a hand in our
game, sometimes a hand we could very well do without--as twice lately.
The first instance happened early last week. Tuesday tropical weather
hit us and drove us into pajamas--a cloudless sky, blazing sun, high
humidity, while we ploughed our way across long, slow-rolling,
unrippled swells that looked so much like a vast, gently heaving sea of
petroleum that, had John D. Standardoil been with us he would have
suffered a probably fatal attack of heart disease if prevented from
stopping right there and planning a pipe line.
Throughout the day close about the ship clouds of flying fish skimmed
the sea, and great schools of porpoises leaped from it and raced us, as
if, even to them, their native element had become hateful, or as if
they sensed something ominous and fearsome abroad from which they
sought shelter in our company. One slender little opal-hued
diaphanous-winged bird-fish came aboard, and before he was picked up
had the happy life grilled out of him on our scorching iron deck, hot
almost as boiler plates. Poor little chap! he found with us anything
but sanctuary; but perhaps he lived long enough to signal the fact to
his mates, for no others boarded us. And yet for one other opal-hued
winged wanderer we have been sanctuary; for when we were about one
hundred and fifty miles out of New York a highly bred carrier pigeon,
bearing on his leg a metal tag marked "32," hovered about us for a
time, finally alighted on our rail, and then fluttered to the deck when
offered a pan of water--and drank and drank until it seemed best to
stop him. By kindness and ingenuity of Chief Engineer Tucker he now
occupies a tin house with a wonderful mansard roof, from which he
issues every afternoon for an aerial constitutional, giving us a fright
occasionally with a flight over far a-sea, but always returning safely
enough to his new diggings.
That Tuesday morning the sun rose fiery red out of the steaming Guinea
jungles to the east of us, across its lower half two narrow black bars
sinister. It looked as if it had blood in its eye, while the still,
heavy, brooding air felt to be ominous of evil, harboring devilment of
some sort. All the mess were cross-grained, silent, or irritable,
raw-edged for the first time, for a better lot of fellows one could not
ask to ship with. Nor throughout the day did weather conditions or
tempers improve. All day long the sky was heavily overcast with dense,
low-hanging, dark gray clouds, which, while wholly obscuring the sun,
seemed to focus its rays upon us like a vast burning-glass; wherefore
it was expedient for the two pajama-clad passengers to keep well within
the shelter of the bridge-deck awning. Toward sunset, a dense black
wall of cloud settled upon the western horizon, aft of us. But
suddenly, just at the moment the sun must have been descending below
the horizon to the south of it, the black wall of cloud slowly parted,
and the opening so made widened until it became an enormous oval,
reaching from horizon half-way to zenith, framing a scene of astounding
beauty and grandeur. Range after range of cloud crests that looked
like mountain folds rose one above another, with the appearance of vast
intervening space between, some of the ranges a most delicate blue or
pink, some opalescent, some gloriously gilded, while behind the
farthest and tallest range, at what seemed an inconceivably remote
distance, but in a perspective entirely harmonious with the foreground,
appeared the sky itself, a soft luminous straw-yellow in color, flecked
thickly over with tiny snow-white cloudlets. It was like a glimpse
into another and more beautiful world than ours--the actual celestial
world.
But, whether or not ominous of our future, we were permitted no more
than a brief glimpse of it, for presently the pall of black cloud fell
like a vast drop curtain and shut it from our sight. Then night came
down upon us, black, starless, forbidding, although in the absence of
any fall of the barometer nothing more than a downpour of rain was
expected.
But shortly after I had gone to sleep, at two o'clock suddenly
something in the nature of a tropical tornado flew up and struck us
hard. I was awakened by a tremendous crash on the bridge-deck above my
cabin, a heeling over of the ship that nearly dumped me out of my
berth, and what seemed like a solid spout of water pouring in through
my open weather porthole, with the wind howling a devil's death-song
through the rigging and an uninterrupted smash--bang! above my head.
Throwing on a rain coat over my pajamas, I went outside and up the
ladder leading to the bridge-deck; and as head and shoulders rose above
the deck level, a wall of hot, wind-borne rain struck me--rain so hot
it felt almost scalding--that almost swept me off the ladder. If it
had I should probably have become food for the fishes. I got to the
upper deck just in time to see Captain Thomas get a crack on the head
from a fragment of flying spar of the wreckage from the upper
bridge--luckily a glancing blow that did no more damage than leave him
groggy for a moment.
For the next fifteen minutes I was busy hugging a bridge stanchion,
dodging flying wreckage and trying to breathe; for, driven by the
violence of the wind, the rain came horizontally in such suffocatingly
hot dense masses as nearly to stifle one.
It was the watch of Second Mate Isitt. Afterwards he told me that a
few minutes before the storm broke he saw a particularly dense black
cloud coming up upon us out of the southeast, where it had apparently
been lying in ambush for us behind the northernmost headland of the
Gulf of Guinea, an ambush so successful that even the barometer failed
to detect it, for when Mate Isitt ran to the chart-room he found that
the instrument showed no fall. But scarcely was he back on the bridge
before the approaching cloud flashed into a solid mass of sheet
lightning that covered the ship like a fiery canopy; and instantly
thereafter, a wall of wind and rain hit the ship, heeled her over to
the rail, swung her head at right angles to her course, ripped the
heavy canvas awning of the upper bridge to tatters, bent and tore loose
from their sockets the thick iron stanchions supporting it, made
kindling wood of its heavy spars, and strewed the bridge and forward
deck with a pounding tangle of wreckage. How the mate and helmsman,
who were directly beneath it, escaped injury, is a mystery. In twenty
minutes the riot of wind and water had swept past us out to sea in
search of easier game, leaving behind it a dead calm above but
mountainous seas beneath, that played ball with us the rest of the
night. Heaven help any wind-jammer it may have struck, for if caught
as completely unwarned as were we, with all sails set, she and all her
crew are likely to be still slowly settling through the dense darksome
depths of the twenty-five hundred fathoms the chart showed thereabouts,
and weeping wives and anxious underwriters will long be scanning the
news columns that report all sea goings and comings--except arrivals in
the port of sunken ships.
The second fall the elements have essayed to take out of us remains yet
undecided. The fact is, I am now writing over a young volcano we are
all hoping will not grow much older.
Two nights ago I was awakened half suffocated, to find my cabin full of
strong sulphurous fumes; but fancying them brought in through my open
portholes from the smoke-stack by a shift aft of the wind, I paid no
further attention to them. But when the next morning I as usual turned
out on deck to see the sun rise, a commotion aft of me attracted my
attention, Looking, I saw the first mate, chief engineer, and a party
of sailors, all so begrimed with sweat and coal dust one could scarcely
pick officers from seamen, rapidly ripping off the cover of one of the
midship hatches, while others were flying about connecting up the deck
fire hose. This didn't look a bit good to me, and when, an instant
later, off came the hatch and out poured thick volumes of smoke, I
failed to observe that it looked any better.
When the hatch was removed, the men thrust the hose through it, and
began deluging the burning bunker with water; for, luckily, it is only
a bunker fire,--in a lower and comparatively small bunker.
The fire had been discovered early the day previous, and for nearly
twenty-four hours officers and seamen had been fighting it from below,
without any mention to their two passengers of its existence, fighting
by tireless shovelling to reach his seat. And now they were on deck,
attacking it from above, only because the heat and fumes below had
become so overpowering they could no longer work there. But after an
hour's ventilation through the hatch and a continuous downpour of
water, the first mate again led his men below.
And so, the usual watches being divided into two-hour relays, the fight
has gone on wearily but persistently, until now, the evening of the
fourth day, the men are wan and haggard from the killing heat and foul
air. In the engine-room in these latitudes the thermometer ranges from
rarely under 108 degrees up to 130, and one has to stay down there only
an hour, as I often have, until he is streaming with sweat as if he
were in the unholiest heat of a Turkish bath. And as the burning
bunker immediately adjoins the other end of the boiler room, to the
heat of its own smouldering mass is added that of the fire boxes, until
the temperature is probably close to 140 degrees.
While the fire is confined to the bunker where it started, we are in no
particular danger; but if it reaches the bunker immediately above, it
will have a free run to the after hold, where several thousand packages
of case oil are stored. In the open waist above the oil are a score or
more big tanks of gasoline, and, on the poop immediately aft of that, a
quantity of dynamite and several thousand detonating caps. Thus if the
fire ever gets aft, things are apt to happen a trifle quicker than they
can be dodged.
To denizens of _terra firma_, the mere thought of being aboard a ship
on fire in mid-sea--we are now five hundred miles from the little
British island of Ascension and one thousand and eighty off the Congo
(mainland) Coast--is nothing short of appalling. But here with us, in
actual experience, it is taken by the officers of the ship as such a
simple matter of course, in so far as they show or will admit, that we
are even denied the privilege of a mild thrill of excitement.
In the meantime there is nothing for the Doctor and myself to do but
sit about and guess whether it is to be a boost from the explosives, a
simple grill, a descent to Davy Jones, an adventure while athirst and
hungering in an open boat on the tossing South Atlantic, a successful
run of the ship to the nearest land--or victory over the fire. I
wonder which it will be!
If the worst comes to the worst, I intend to do for these pages what no
one these last three weeks has done for me--commit them to a bottle, if
I can find one aboard this ship, which is by no means certain. Indeed
it is so uncertain I think I had best start hunting one right now.
After nearly a twenty-four hours' search I've got it--a craft to bear
these sheets, wide of hatch, generously broad and deep of hull, but
destitute of aught of the stimulating aroma I had hoped might cheer
them on their voyage--more than I have been cheered on mine. For the
best I am able to procure for them is--a jam bottle!
While the Doctor and I are not novices at golf, this is one "bunker" we
are making so little headway getting out of, that both now seem likely
to quit "down" to it.
I wonder when the little derelict, tiny and inconspicuous as a
Portuguese man-of-war, may be picked up; I wonder when the sheets it
bears may reach my publisher to whom it is consigned. Perhaps not for
years--a score, two score; perhaps not until he himself, whom a few
weeks ago I left in the lusty vigor of early manhood, is gathered to
his fathers; perhaps not, therefore, until the writer has no publisher
left and is himself no longer remembered.
The burning bunker is now a glowing furnace, the men worked down to
mere shadows. Plainly the fire is getting the best of them and, what
is even more discouraging, there is little more fight left in them.
First Mate Watson, who, almost without rest, has led the fight below
since it started, says that another half-hour will--
CHAPTER XIV
THEY WHO MUST BE OBEYED
Few mightier monarchs than Menelek II of Abyssinia ever swayed the
destinies of a people. Throughout the vast territory of the Abyssinian
highlands his individual will is law to some millions of subjects; law
also to hordes of savage Mohammedan and pagan tribesmen without the
confines of his kingdom. His court includes no councillors. Alone
throughout the long years of his reign Menelek has dealt with all
domestic and foreign affairs of state.
But now this last splendid survival of the feudal absolutism exercised
and enjoyed by mediaeval rulers is about to disappear beneath
encroaching waves of civilization, that do not long spare the
picturesque. Cables from far-off Adis Ababa, Menelek's capital, bring
news that he has formed a cabinet and published the appointment of
Ministers of War, Finance, Justice, Foreign Affairs, and Commerce. And
this change has come, not from the pressure of any party or faction
within his kingdom, for such do not exist, but out of the fount of his
own wisdom. So sound is this wisdom as to prove him a most worthy
descendant of the sage Hebrew King whom Menelek claims as ancestor--if,
indeed, more proofs were necessary than the statesmanlike way in which
he has dealt with jealous diplomats, and the martial skill with which,
at Adowa in 1896, he defeated the flower of the Italian army and won
from Italy an honorable truce.
No existing royal house owns lineage so ancient as that claimed by
Menelek II, Negus Negusti, "King of the Kings of Ethiopia, and
Conquering Lion of Judah."
Old Abyssinian tradition has it that in the tenth century, B.C., early
in her reign, Makeda, Queen of Sheba, paid a ceremonial visit to the
Court of King Solomon, coming with her entire court and a magnificent
retinue bearing royal gifts of frankincense and balm, gold and ivory
and precious stones. Her gorgeous caravan was bright with the
many-colored plumes and silks of litters, blazing with the golden
ornaments of elephant and camel caparisons, glittering with the glint
of spears and bucklers.
That the two greatest souls of their time, so met, should fuse and
blend is little to be wondered at. She of Sheba bore Solomon a son and
called him Menelek, so the legend runs. Later the boy was twitted by
playmates for that he had no father. In this annoyance the Queen sent
an embassy to Solomon asking some act that should establish their son's
royal paternity. Promptly Solomon returned the embassy bearing to
Sheba's court in far southwest Arabia a royal decree declaring Menelek
his son, and accompanied it by a son of each of the leaders of the
twelve tribes of Israel, enjoined to serve as a sort of juvenile royal
court to Menelek.
Whether or not the claim of Menelek II be true, that he himself is
lineally descended from the son of Solomon and Sheba's Queen, certain
it is that in race type Abyssinians are plainly come of sons of Israel,
crossed and modified with Coptic, Hamite, and Ethiopian blood. To this
day they cling closely as the most orthodox Hebrew, to some of the
dearest Israelitish tenets, notably abstention from pork and from meat
not killed by bleeding, observance of the Sabbath, and the rite of
circumcision. Notwithstanding this the Abyssinians have been
Christians since the fourth century of this era, when, only eight years
after the great Constantine decreed the recognition of Christianity by
the State, a proselytising monk came among them with a faith so strong,
a heart so pure, and an eloquence so irresistible, that, singlehanded,
he accomplished the conversion of the Abyssinian race.
Throughout the centuries the Abyssinians have held fast to their faith
as first it was taught them. The great wave of Mohammedanism that
swept up the Nile and across the Indian Ocean broke and parted the
moment it struck the Abyssinian plateau. It completely surrounded, but
never could mount the tableland.
Thus cut off for centuries from all other Christian Churches, the
Abyssinian religion remains to-day but little changed. Could Paul or
John return to earth, of all the Christian sects throughout the world,
the forms and tenets of the Abyssinian Church would be the only ones
they would find nearly all their own; for the ritual is older than that
of either Rome or Moscow.
And remembering the Abyssinian folklore tale of the twelve sons of the
chiefs of the twelve tribes of Israel sent by Solomon to Makeda as
attendants on Menelek I, it is most curious and interesting to know
that the heads of certain twelve Abyssinian families (none of whom are
longer notables, some even the rudest ignorant herdsmen), and their
forebears from time immemorial, have had and still possess inalienable
right of audience with their monarch at any time they may ask it, even
taking precedence over royalty itself. Indeed Mr. George Clerk, for
the last five years assistant to Sir John Harrington, British Minister
to the Court of Menelek, recently told me that he and other diplomats
accredited to Adis Ababa, were not infrequently subjected to the
annoyance of having an audience interrupted or delayed by the
unannounced coming for a hearing of one of these favored twelve.
Many of Menelek's judgments are masterpieces. Recently two brothers
came before him, the younger with the plaint that the elder sought the
larger and better part of certain property they had to divide.
Promptly Menelek ordered the elder to describe fully the entire
property and state what part he wanted for himself. It was done.
"And this," questioned Menelek, "you consider a just division of the
property into two parts of equal value?"
"Yes, Negus," answered the elder.
"Then," decreed Menelek, "give your brother first choice!"
Over wide territory beyond the Abyssinian border, Menelek's power is as
much feared and his will as much respected as among his own subjects.
Of this there occurred recently a most dramatic proof.
Bordering Abyssinia on the east is the Danakil country. It adjoins the
Province of Shoa, of which Menelek was Ras, or feudal King, before his
accession to the Abyssinian throne. The Danakils are a savage pagan
people of mixed Hamite (early Egyptian) and Ethiopian ancestry. They
are perhaps the most tirelessly warlike race in all Africa. Often
severely beaten by their Italian and Somali neighbors, they have never
been subdued. Indeed slaughter may, in a way, be said to be a part of
their religion, for it is the fetich every young warrior must provide
for the worship of the woman of his choice before he may hope to win
and have her. It is necessary that he should have killed royal
game--lion, rhinoceros, or elephant--but not enough. Singlehanded he
must kill a man and bring the maid a trophy of the slaughter before she
will even consider him, and Danakil maids of spirit often demand some
plurality of trophies. Thus the license for each Danakil mating is
written in the life blood of some neighboring tribesman; thus are the
few poltroons in Danakil-land condemned to stay celibate.
Only Menelek's word do they heed; his might they dread.
Through the Danakil country, between Errer Gotto and Oder, not long ago
travelled the caravan of William Northrup McMillan, conveying the
sections of several steel boats with which he purposed navigating and
exploring the Blue Nile from its source to Khartoom, a region that had
never been traversed by white men. In the party was M.
Dubois-Desaulle, a gay and reckless ex-officer of the French Foreign
Legion who had long served in Algiers against raiding Arab sheiks. He
harbored no fear of the unorganized wild tribesmen through whose
country they were travelling. McMillan knew them better, however; he
held his command under strict military discipline, marched in close
order with scouts out, forbade straying from the column, and
_zareba_-ed his night camps. For the march was a severe one and he had
neither the time nor sufficient force to search for or to succor
missing stragglers.
Urged with the rest never to go unarmed and to stay close with the
caravan, Dubois-Desaulle's only reply was a laughing, "_Jamais!
Jamais. Je ne porte pas des armes pour ces babouins! Je les ferai
s'enfuir avec des batons! N'inquiètez pas de moi._"
Interested in botany and entomology, holding the natives in utter
contempt, repeatedly he strayed from the column for hours without even
so much as a pistol by way of arms, until finally McMillan told him
that if he again so strayed he would be placed under guard for the
balance of march. But the very next day, riding a mule with the
advance guard led by H. Morgan Brown, Dubois-Desaulle slipped
unobserved into the bush, probably in pursuit of some winged wonder
that had crossed his path.
Camp was made early in the afternoon on the banks of the Doha River,
and a strong party, with shikari trackers, led by Brown, was sent out
in search of the straggler. Night came on before they could pick up
his trail, and nothing further could be done except to build signal
fires on adjacent hills; but all without result. Anxiety for his
safety crystallized into chill fear for his life, when the dull glow of
the signal fires was suddenly extinguished by the next morning's sun;
for the desert knows neither twilight nor dawn--the sun bursts up
blood-red out of shrouding darkness like a rocket from its case, and at
once it is day.
An hour later Brown's shikaris found the place where Dubois-Desaulle
had strayed from the column, followed his trail through the bush hither
and thither for two miles, to a point where he had found a native
warrior seated beneath a tree. They read, with their unerring skill at
"sign" lore, that there he had stood and talked for some time with the
native, and then pressed on, rider and footman travelling side by side,
till, within the shelter of especially dense surrounding bush, the
footman had dropped behind the rider--for what dastardly assassin's
purpose the next twenty steps revealed. There stark lay the body of
gay Dubois-Desaulle, dropped from his mule without a struggle by a
mortal spear-thrust in his back, the manner of his mutilation a
Danakil's sign manual!
Immediately messengers were sent to the caravan bearing the news and
asking reinforcements. At this time the indomitable chief, McMillan,
was laid up with veldt sores on the legs, unable to walk or even to
ride except in a litter. Promptly, however, he despatched Lieutenant
Fairfax and William Marlow, with about thirty more men, to Brown's
support, with orders never to quit till he got the murderer. By a
forced march, Fairfax reached Brown at four in the afternoon.
When journeying in desert places and amid deadly perils, it is always
an unusually terrible shock to lose one from among so few, and to be
forced to lay him in unconsecrated ground remote from home and friends.
So it was a sobbing, saddened trio that stood by while a grave was dug
to receive all that was mortal of their gallant comrade. And within it
they laid him, wrapped in the ample folds of an Abyssinian _tope_;
stones were heaped above the grave--at least the four-footed beasts
should not have a chance to rend him!--and three volleys were fired as
a last honor to Dubois-Desaulle, ex-legionary of the Army of Algiers.
Tears dried, eyes hardened, jaws tightened, and away on the plain trail
of the murderer marched the little column. Turning at the edge of the
thick jungle for a last look back, the three noted an extraordinary
circumstance that touched them deeply and made them feel that even the
savage desert sympathized. A miniature whirlwind of the sort frequent
in the desert was slowly circling the grave; and even as they looked it
swung immediately over it and there stood for some moments, its tall
dust column rising up into the zenith like the smoke of a funeral pyre!
Then on they marched and there they left him, sure that by night lions
would be roaring him a requiem not unfitting his wild spirit.
Just at dusk the party reached a large Danakil town into which the
murderer's trail led, and camped before it.
Told that one of his men had killed their comrade and that they wanted
him, Ali Gorah, the chief, was surly and insolent. He refused to give
him up, said that he wished no war with them, but that if they wanted
any of his people they must fight for them. Then guards were set about
the camp and the little command lay down to sleep within a spear's
throw of thousands of Ali Gorah's wild Danakils. The night passed
without alarms, and then conference was resumed. Fairfax cajoled and
threatened, threatened summoning an army that would wipe Danakil's land
off the map; but all to no purpose. The chief remained obdurate.
Early in the day a courier was sent to McMillan with the story of their
plight and a request for supplies and more men. These were instantly
sent, leaving McMillan himself well nigh helpless, fuming at his own
enforced inaction, alone with the Marlow, his personal attendant, a
handful of men, and a total of only two rifles, as the sole guard of
the caravan for ten more anxious days.
Daily councils were held, always ending in mutual threats. Fairfax
could make no progress, but he would not leave.
One day Ali Gorah lined up two thousand warriors in battle array before
Fairfax's small command and ordered him to move off, under pain of
instant attack. But there Fairfax stubbornly stayed, in the very face
of the certainty that his command could not last ten minutes if the
chief should actually order a charge. His dauntless courage won, and
the war party was withdrawn.
In the meantime some of his Somalis had learned from the Danakils that
the murderer's name was Mirach, and that he was the greatest warrior of
the tribe, a man with trophies of all sorts of royal game and of no
less than forty men to his matrimonial credit. By the eleventh day
mutual irritation had nigh reached the fusing point. Fairfax had
carefully trained a gun crew to handle a Colt machine-gun that McMillan
was bringing as a present to Ras Makonnen, the victor of the field of
Adowa, and debated with his mates the question of risking an attack.
Luckily, however, the previous day McMillan had bethought him of a
letter of Menelek's he carried, a letter ordering all his subjects to
lend the bearer any aid or succor he might need. This letter he sent
by his Abyssinian headman to Mantoock, the nearest Abyssinian Ras and a
sort of overlord of the Danakils, with request for his advice and aid.
Promptly came Mantoock, with only one attendant, heard the story,
begged McMillan to have no further care, and raced away for Ali Gorah's
village, where happily he arrived in mid afternoon of the eleventh day,
just as Fairfax was making dispositions for opening a finish fight.
Mantoock's first act was to advise Fairfax to withdraw his command and
rejoin the caravan; and, assured that Mirach would be brought away a
prisoner, Fairfax assented and withdrew. Then Mantoock entered alone
the village of Ali Gorah and there spent the night. What passed that
night between the Christian and the pagan chiefs we do not know.
Probably little was said; nothing more was needed, indeed, than the
interpretation of the letter of the Negus and the exhibition of the
royal seal it bore. Full well Ali Gorah knew the heavy penalty of
disobedience.
So it happened that near noon of the twelfth day Mantoock brought
Mirach into McMillan's camp, accompanied by thirty of his family and
the headmen of the tribe, Mirach marching in fully armed with spears
and shield, insolent and fearless.
Asked why he had done the deed, Mirach replied:
"I was resting in the shade. The Feringee approached and asked me to
guide him to the river. I told him to pass on and not to disturb me.
Then he stayed and talked and talked till I got tired and told him not
to tempt me further; for I had never yet had such a chance to kill a
white man. Still he annoyed me with his foolish talk until, weary of
it, I led him away into the thickets to his death and won trophies dear
to Danakil's maidens."
Three camels, worth twenty dollars each, or a total of sixty dollars,
is usual blood-money in Abyssinia. When that is paid and received,
feuds among the tribesmen end, and murders are soon forgotten. But
Mirach was so highly valued as a warrior by his people that they
offered McMillan no less than three hundred camels for his life. They
were dumbfounded when their offer was refused.
Disarmed and shackled, Mirach remained a sullen but defiant prisoner
with the caravan for the next two weeks' march, when the crossing of
the Hawash River brought them well into Abyssinian territory and made
it safe to rush him forward, in the charge of a small escort, to Adis
Ababa.
There he was tried beneath the sombre shade of the famous Judgment
Tree, condemned, and two months later hanged in the market place: and
there for days his grinning face and shrivelling carcass swung, a
menacing proof to the wildest visiting tribesmen of them all of the
vast power of the Negus Negusti.
CHAPTER XV
DJAMA AOUT'S HEROISM
"Throughout Somaliland, among a race famous for their fearlessness, the
name of Djama Aout is held a synonym for reckless courage. He did the
bravest deed I ever saw, a deed heroic in its purpose, ferociously sage
in its execution; the deed of a man bred of a race that knew no
longer-range weapon than an assegai, trained from youth to fight and
kill at arm's length or in hand grapple; a deed that, incidentally,
saved my life."
The speaker was C. W. L. Bulpett, himself well qualified by personal
experience to sit in judgment, as Court of Last Resort, on any act of
courage; a man who, at forty, without training and on a heavy wager
that he could not walk a mile, run a mile, and ride a mile, all in
sixteen and a half minutes, finished the three miles in sixteen minutes
and seven seconds; a man who, midway of a dinner at Greenwich, bet that
he could swim the half-mile across the Thames and back in his evening
clothes before the coffee was served, and did it; and who has crossed
Africa from Khartoom to the Red Sea.
If more were needed to prove Mr. Bulpett's past-mastership in
hardihood, it is perhaps sufficient to mention that he voluntarily got
himself in the fix that needed Djama Aout's aid, although in telling
the story he did not convey the impression that his own part in it was
more than secondary and inconsequential.
"We were big-game hunting, lion and rhino preferred, along the border
of Somaliland," he continued. "Besides the pony and camel men, we had
four Somali _shikaris_, trained trackers, who knew the habits of beasts
and read their tracks and signs like a book; men of a breed whose women
will not give themselves as wives except to men who have scored kills
of both royal game and men.
"_Sahib_ McMillan's personal _shikari_ was DJama Aout; mine, Abdi
Dereh. At the time of this incident the _Sahib_ had several lions to
his credit, while I yet had none. So the _Sahib_ kindly declared that,
however and by whomsoever jumped, the try at the next lion should be
mine. The section we were in was the usual 'lion country' of East
Africa, wide stretches of dry, level plain with occasional low rolling
hills, thinly timbered everywhere with the thorny mimosa, most of it
low bush, some grown to small trees twenty or thirty feet in height.
"To cover a wider range of shooting, we one day decided to divide the
camp, and I moved off about four miles and pitched my tent on a low
hill, which left the old camp in clear view across the plain. Early
the next morning I went out after eland and had an excellent morning's
sport. Returned to camp shortly after noon, tired and dusty, I took a
bath, got into pajamas and slippers, had my luncheon, and was sitting
comfortably smoking within my tent, when one of my men hurried in to
say a messenger was coming on a pony at top speed. Presently he
arrived, with word from the _Sahib_ that he had a big male lion at bay
in a thicket bordering the river and urging me to hurry to him.
"This my first chance at lion, I seized my rifle, mounted a pony,
without stopping to dress, and, followed by Abdi Dereh and another
_shikari_, dashed away behind the messenger at my pony's best pace.
Arrived, I found the _Sahib_ and about a dozen men, _shikaris_ and pony
men, surrounding a dense mimosa thicket no more than thirty or forty
yards in diameter. Nigh two-thirds of its circumference was bounded by
a bend of a deep stream the lion was not likely to try to cross, which
left a comparatively narrow front to guard against a charge.
"'Here you are, Don Carlos!' called the _Sahib_, as I jumped off my
pony. 'Here's your lion in the bush. Up to you to get him out. Djama
Aout and the rest will stay to help you while I go back and move the
caravan to a new camp-site. No suggestion to make, except I scarcely
think I'd go in the bush after him; too thick to see ten feet ahead of
you,' and away he rode toward his camp.
"The situation was simple, even to a novice at the game of
lion-shooting. With my line of shouting men forced to range themselves
across the narrow land front of the thicket and no chance of his exit
on the river front, only two lines of strategy remained: it was either
fire the bush and drive him out upon us or enter the bush on hands and
knees and creep about till I sighted him. The latter was well-nigh
suicidal, for it was absolutely sure he would scent, hear, and locate
me before I could see him, and thus would be almost complete master of
the situation. Naturally, therefore, I first had the bush fired, as
near to windward as the bend of the river permitted, and took a stand
covering his probable line of exit from the thicket. But it was a
failure--not enough dead wood to carry the fire through the bush and it
soon flickered and died out. Thus nothing remained but the last
alternative, and I took it.
"Dropping on hands and knees, I began to creep into the thicket. Soon
my hands were bleeding from the dry mimosa thorns littering the ground,
my back from the thorny boughs arching low above me. For some distance
I could see no more than the length of my rifle before me or to right
or left. Presently, when near the centre of the brush patch, Abdi
Dereh next behind me, a second _shikari_ behind him, and Djama Aout
bringing up the rear, I caught a glimpse of the lion's hind quarters
and tail, scarcely six feet ahead of me.
"I fired at once, most imprudently, for the exposure could not possibly
afford a fatal shot. Instantly after the shot, the lion circled the
dense clump immediately in front of me and charged me through a narrow
opening. As he came, I gave him my second barrel from the hip--no time
to aim--and in trying to spring aside out of his path, slipped in my
loose slippers and fell flat on my back.
"Later we learned that my first shot had torn through his loins and my
second had struck between neck and shoulder and ranged the entire
length of his body. But even the terrible shock of two great .450
cordite-driven balls did not serve to stop him, and the very moment I
hit the ground he lit diagonally across my body, his belly pressing
mine, his hot breath burning my cheek, his fierce eyes glaring into
mine.
"Though it seemed an age, the rest was a matter of seconds. Abdi
Dereh, my rifle-bearer, was in the act of shoving the gun muzzle
against the lion's ribs for a shot through the heart, when a shot from
without the bush--we never learned by whom fired, probably by one of
the pony men--broke his arm and knocked him flat. Then the second
_shikari_ sprang forward and bent to pick up the gun, when one stroke
of the lion's great fore paw tore away most of the flesh from one side
of his head and face, and laid him senseless.
"Freed for an instant from the attacks of my men, the lion turned to
the prey held helpless beneath him, and with a fierce roar, was in the
very act of advancing his cavernous mouth and gleaming fangs to seize
me by the head, when in jumped Djama Aout to my succor. His only
weapon was the _Sahib's_ .38 Smith & Wesson self-cocking six-shooter.
His was the quickest piece of sound thinking, shrewd acting, and
desperate valor conceivable. I was staring death in the face--he knew
it at a glance. Just within those enormous jaws, and all would be over
with me. The light charge of the pistol, however placed, would be
little more than a flea-bite on a monster already ripped laterally and
longitudinally through and through by two great .450 cordite shells.
Indeed the lion was not even gasping from his wounds; his great heart
was beating strong and steady against mine. Of what avail a little
pistol-ball, or six of them?
"All this must have raced through Djama Aout's brain in a second, in
the very second _Shikari_ Number Two was falling under the lion's blow.
In another second he conceived a plan, absolutely the only one that
possibly could have saved me.
"Just at the instant the lion turned and opened his jaws to seize and
crush my head, forward sprang Djama Aout; within the lion's jaws and
into his great yawning mouth Djama Aout thrust pistol, hand, and
forearm, and, though the hard-driven teeth crunched cruelly through
sinews and into bone, steadily pulled the trigger till the pistol's six
loads were discharged down the lion's very throat!
"Shrinking from the shock of the shots, the lion released Djama Aout's
mangled arm and freed me of his weight. Unhurt, even unscratched by
the lion, I quickly swung myself up into the biggest mimosa near, a
poor four feet from the ground, within easy reach of our enemy if he
had not been too sick of his wounds to leap at me.
"Having fallen from the pain and shock of his wounded arm, Djama Aout
rose, backed off a little distance, and stood at bay, the pistol
clubbed in his left hand.
"While apparently sick unto death, the lion might muster strength for a
last attack, so I called to Marlow, who, under orders, had waited
without the thicket, bearing an elephant gun. Ignorant of whether or
not the lion was even wounded, in the brave boy came, crept in range
and fired a great eight-bore ball fair through the lion's heart.
"It was only a few hours until, working with knife and tweezers, the
_Sahib_ had all the mimosa thorns dug out of my back and legs, but it
was many months before Djama Aout recovered partial use of his good
right arm, and it may very well be generations before the story of his
heroic deed ceases to be sung in Somali villages."
CHAPTER XVI
A MODERN COEUR-DE-LION
To seek to come to death grips with the King of Beasts, a man must
himself be nothing short of lion-hearted. Such men there are, a few,
men with an inborn lust of battle, a love of staking their own lives
against the heaviest odds; men who, lacking a Crusader's cult or a
country's need to cut and thrust for, go out among the savage denizens
of the desert seeking opportunity to fight for their faith in their own
strong arms and steady nerves; men who shrink from a laurel but
treasure a trophy. William Northrup McMillan, a native of St. Louis,
who has spent the last eight years in exploration of the Blue Nile and
in travel through Abyssinia and British East Africa, is such a man.
A friend of Mr. McMillan has told me the following story of one of his
hunting experiences. While I can only tell it in simple prose, the
deed described deserves perpetuity in the stately metre of a saga.
The Jig-Jigga country, a province of Abyssinia lying near the border of
British Somaliland and governed by Abdullah Dowa, an Arab sheik owing
allegiance to King Menelek, is the best lion country in all Africa.
Jig-Jigga is an arid plateau averaging 5,000 feet above sea level,
poorly watered but generously grassed, sparsely timbered with the
thorny mimosa (full brother to the Texas _mesquite_), and swarming
everywhere with innumerable varieties of the wild game on which the
lion preys and fattens--eland, oryx, hartebeest, gazelle, and zebra.
There are two ways of hunting lion. First, from the perfectly safe
shelter of a zareba, a tightly enclosed hut built of thorny mimosa
bows, with no opening but a narrow porthole for rifle fire. Within the
_zareba_ the hunter is shut in at nightfall by his _shikaris_, usually
having one _shikari_ with him, sometimes with a goat as a third
companion and a lure for lion. An occasional bite of the goat's ear by
sharp _shikari_ teeth inspires shrill bleats sure to bring any lion
lurking near in range of the hunter's rifle. At other times goat ears
are spared, and the loudest-braying donkey of the caravan is picketed
immediately in front of the _zareba's_ porthole, his normal vocal
activities stimulated by the occasional prod of a stick. Sometimes
several weary sleepless nights are spent without result, but sooner or
later, without the slightest sound hinting his approach, suddenly a
great yellow body flashes out of the darkness and upon the cringing
lure. For an instant there are the sinister sounds of savage snarls,
rending flesh, cracking bones and screams of pain and fear, and then a
dull red flash heralds the rifle's roar, and the tawny terror falls
gasping his life out across his prey.
The second, and the only sportsmanlike way of lion-hunting, is by
tracking him in the open. The pony men circle till they find a trail,
follow it till close enough to the game to race ahead and bring it to
bay, circle about it while a messenger brings up the _Sahib_, who
dismounts and advances afoot to a combat wherein the echo of a
misplaced shot may sound his own death-knell.
One morning while camped in the Jig-Jigga country, William Marlow, our
_Sahib's_ valet, was out with the pony men trailing a wounded oryx,
while the _Sahib_ himself was three miles away shooting eland. In mid
forenoon Marlow's men struck the fresh track of two great male lions,
plainly out on a hunting party of their own.
Instantly Marlow rushed a messenger away to fetch the _Sahib_, and he
and the pony men then took the trail at a run. Within two hours the
pony men succeeded in circling the quarry and stopping it in a mimosa
thicket. Shortly thereafter, while they were circling and shouting
about the thicket to prevent a charge before the _Sahib's_ arrival, an
incident occurred which proves alike the utter fearlessness and the
marvellous knowledge of the game of the Somali. Suddenly out of the
shadows of the thicket sprang one of the lions and launched himself
like a thunderbolt upon one of the pony men, bearing horse and rider to
the ground. Losing his spear in the fall and held fast by one leg
beneath his horse, the rider was defenceless. However, he seized a
thorny stick and began beating the lion across the face, while the lion
tore at the pony's flank and quarters. Then down from his horse sprang
another pony man, and knowing he could not kill the lion with his spear
quickly enough to save his companion, approached and crouched directly
in front of the lion till his own face was scarcely two feet from the
lion's, and there made such frightful grimaces and let off such shrill
shrieks, that, frightened from his prey, the lion slunk snarling to the
edge of the thicket.
Just at this moment the _Sahib_ raced upon the scene, accompanied by
his Secretary, H. Morgan Brown. In the run he had far outdistanced his
gun-bearers. Marlow was unarmed and Brown carried nothing but a
camera. Thus the _Sahib's_ single-shot .577 rifle was the only
effective weapon in the party, and for it he did not even have a single
spare cartridge. The one little cylinder of brass within the chamber
of his rifle, with the few grains of powder and nickeled lead it held,
was the only certain safeguard of the group against death or mangling.
All this must have flashed across the _Sahib's_ mind as he leaped from
his pony and took stand in the open, sixty steps from where the lion
stood roaring and savagely lashing his tail. A little back of the
_Sahib_ and to his left stood Brown with his camera, beside him Marlow.
Instantly, firm planted on his feet, the _Sahib_ threw the rifle to his
face for a steady standing shot. But quicker even than this act,
instinctively, the furious King of Beasts had marked the giant bulk of
the _Sahib_ as the one foeman of the half-score round him worthy of his
gleaming ivory weapons, and at him straight he charged the very instant
the gun was levelled, coming in great bounds that tossed clouds of dust
behind him, coming with hoarse roars at every bound, roars to shake
nerves not made of steel and still the beating of the stoutest heart.
On came the lion, and there stood the _Sahib_--on and yet on--till it
must have seemed to his companions that the _Sahib_ was frozen in his
tracks.
But all the time a firm hand and a true eye held the bead of the rifle
sight to close pursuit of the lion's every move, so held it till only a
narrow sixteen yards separated man and beast. Then the _Sahib's_ rifle
cracked; and, with marvellous nerve, Brown snapped his camera a second
later and caught the picture of the kill. Hitting the beast squarely
in the forehead just at the take-on of a bound, the heavy .577 bullet
cleaned out the lion's brain pan and killed him instantly, his body
turning in mid-air and hitting the ground inert. A better rifle-shot
would be impossible, and as good a camera snapshot has certainly never
been made in the very face of instant, impending, deadly peril.
A half-hour later Lion Number Two, slower of resolution than his mate,
fell to the _Sahib's_ first shot, with a broken neck, while lashing
himself into fit fury for a charge. This was more even than a royal
kill; each of the lions was, in size, a record among Jig-Jigga hunters,
the first measuring eleven feet one inch from tip of nose to tip of
tail, the second eleven feet.
And then the party marched back to camp with the trophies, Djama Aout,
the head _shikari_, chanting paeans to his Sahib's prowess, while his
mates roared a hoarse Somali chorus, and all night long, by ancient law
of _shikari_, the camp feasted, chanted, and danced, one sable
saga-maker after another chanting his pride to serve so valiant a
_Sahib_.
THE END
End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Red-Blooded Heroes of the Frontier, by
Edgar Beecher Bronson
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