“Woodley!” exclaims Clancy, without waiting for the hunter to conclude; “we must be off from here. For God’s sake let us go!”
His comrades, divining the cause of Clancy’s impatience, make no attempt to restrain him. They have rested and sufficiently refreshed themselves. There is no reason for their remaining any longer on the ground.
Rising simultaneously, each unhitches his horse, and stands by the stirrup, taking in the slack of his reins.
Before they can spring into their saddles, the deer-hound darts off from their midst – as he does so giving out a growl.
The stroke of a hoof tells them of some one approaching, and the next moment a horseman is seen through the trees.
Apparently undaunted, he comes on towards their camp ground; but when near enough to have fair view of their faces, he suddenly reins up, and shows signs of a desire to retreat.
If this be his intention, it is too late.
Before he can wrench round his horse a rifle is levelled, its barrel bearing upon his body; while a voice sounds threateningly in his ears, in clear tone, pronouncing the words, —
“Keep yur ground, Joe Harkness! Don’t attempt retreetin’. If ye do, I’ll send a bullet through ye sure as my name’s Sime Woodley.”
The threat is sufficient. Harkness – for it is he – ceases tugging upon his rein, and permits his horse to stand still.
Then, at a second command from Woodley, accompanied by; a similar menace, he urges the animal into action, and moves on towards their bivouac.
In less than sixty seconds after, he is in their midst, dismounted and down upon his knees, piteously appealing to them to spare his life.
The ex-jailor’s story is soon told, and that without any reservation. The man who has connived at Richard Darke’s escape, and made money by the connivance, is now more than repentant for his dereliction of duty. For he has not only been bullied by Borlasse’s band, but stripped of his ill-gotten gains. Still more, beaten, and otherwise so roughly handled that he has been long trying to get quit of their company. Having stolen away from their camp – while the robbers were asleep – he is now returning along the trail they had taken into Texas, on his way back to the States, with not much left him, except a very sorry horse and a sorrowing heart.
His captors soon discover that, with his sorrow, there is an admixture of spite against his late associates. Against Darke in particular, who has proved ungrateful for the great service done him.
All this does Harkness communicate to them, and something besides.
Something that sets Clancy well-nigh crazed, and makes almost as much impression upon his fellow-travellers.
After hearing it they bound instantly to their saddles, and spur away from the spot; Harkness, as commanded, following at their horses’ heels. This he does without daring to disobey; trotting after, in company with the dog, seemingly less cur than himself.
They have no fear of his falling back. Woodley’s rifle, whose barrel has been already borne upon him, can be again brought to the level in an instant of time.
The thought holds him secure, as if a trail-rope attached him to the tail of the hunter’s horse.
Chapter Forty Two.
The prairie caravan
Picture in imagination meadows, on which scythe of mower has never cut sward, nor haymaker set foot; meadows loaded with such luxuriance of vegetation – lush, tall grass – that tons of hay might be garnered off a single acre; meadows of such extent, that in speaking of them you may not use the word acres, but miles, even this but faintly conveying the idea of their immensity; in fancy summon up such a scene, and you will have before you what is a reality in Texas.
In seeming these plains have no boundary save the sky – no limit nearer than the horizon. And since to the eye of the traveller this keeps continually changing, he may well believe them without limit at all, and fancy himself moving in the midst of a green sea, boundless as ocean itself, his horse the boat on which he has embarked.
In places this extended surface presents a somewhat monotonous aspect, though it is not so everywhere. Here and there it is pleasantly interspersed with trees, some standing solitary, but mostly in groves, copses, or belts; these looking, for all the world, like islands in the ocean. So perfect is the resemblance, that this very name has been given them, by men of Norman and Saxon race; whose ancestors, after crossing the Atlantic, carried into the colonies many ideas of the mariner, with much of his nomenclature. To them the isolated groves are “islands;” larger tracts of timber, seen afar, “land;” narrow spaces between, “straits;” and indentations along their edges “bays.”
To carry the analogy further, the herds of buffalo, with bodies half buried in the tall grass, may be likened to “schools” of whales; the wild horses to porpoises at play; the deer to dolphins; and the fleet antelopes to flying-fish.
Completing the figure, we have the vultures that soar above, performing the part of predatory sea-gulls; the eagle representing the rarer frigate-bird, or albatross.
In the midst of this verdant expanse, less than a quarter of a century ago, man was rarely met; still more rarely civilised man; and rarer yet his dwelling-place. If at times a human being appeared among the prairie groves, he was not there as a sojourner – only a traveller, passing from place to place. The herds of cattle, with shaggy frontlets and humped shoulders – the droves of horses, long-tailed and with full flowing manes – the proud antlered stags, and prong-horned antelopes, were not his. He had no control over them. The turf he trod was free to them for pasture, as to him for passage; and, as he made way through their midst, his presence scarce affrighted them. He and his might boast of being “war’s arbiter’s,” and lords of the great ocean. They were not lords of that emerald sea stretching between the Sabine River and the Rio Grande. Civilised man had as yet but shown himself upon its shores.
Since then he has entered upon, and scratched a portion of its surface; though not much, compared with its immensity. There are still grand expanses of the Texan prairie unfurrowed by the ploughshare of the colonist – almost untrodden by the foot of the explorer. Even at this hour, the traveller may journey for days on grass-grown plains, amidst groves of timber, without seeing tower, steeple, or so much as a chimney rising above the tree-tops. If he perceive a solitary smoke, curling skyward, he knows that it is over the camp-fire of some one like himself – a wayfarer.
And it may be above the bivouac of those he would do well to shun. For upon the green surface of the prairie, as upon the blue expanse of the ocean, all men met with are not honest. There be land-sharks as well as water-sharks – prairie pirates as corsairs of the sea.
No spectacle more picturesque, nor yet more pleasing, than that of an emigrant caravan en route over the plains. The huge waggons – “prairie ships,” as oft, and not inaptly, named – with their white canvass tilts, typifying spread sails, aligned and moving along one after the other, like a corps d’armée on march by columns; a group of horsemen ahead, representing its vanguard; others on the flanks, and still another party riding behind, to look after strays and stragglers, the rear-guard. Usually a herd of cattle along – steers for the plough, young bullocks to supply beef for consumption on the journey, milch kine to give comfort to the children and colour to the tea and coffee – among them an old bull or two, to propagate the species on reaching the projected settlement. Not unfrequently a drove of pigs, or flock of sheep, with coops containing ducks, geese, turkeys, Guinea-fowl – perhaps a screaming peacock, but certainly Chanticleer and his harem.
A train of Texan settlers has its peculiarities, though now not so marked as in the times of which we write. Then a noted feature was the negro – his status a slave. He would be seen afoot, toiling on at the tails of the waggons, not in silence or despondingly, as if the march were a forced one. Footsore he might be, in his cheap “brogans” of Penitentiary fabric, and sore aweary of the way, but never sad. On the contrary, ever hilarious, exchanging jests with his fellow-pedestrians, or a word with Dinah in the wagon, jibing the teamsters, mocking the mule-drivers, sending his cachinations in sonorous ring along the moving line; himself far more mirthful than his master – more enjoying the march.
Strange it is, but true, that a lifetime of bondage does not stifle merriment in the heart of the Ethiopian. Grace of God to the sons of Ham – merciful compensation for mercies endured by them from the day Canaan was cursed, as it were a doom from the dawning of creation!
Just such a train as described is that commanded by Colonel Armstrong, en route towards Western Texas. Starting from Natchitoches some twenty days ago, it has reached the Colorado river, crossed it, and is now wending its way towards the San Saba, a tributary of the former stream.
It is one of the largest caravans that has yet passed over the prairies of Texas, counting between twenty and thirty “Conestoga” wagons, with several “carrioles” and vehicles of varied kind. Full fifty horsemen ride in its front, on its flank, and rear; while five times the number of pedestrians, men with black or yellow skins, keep pace with it. A proportionate number of women and children are carried in the wagons, their dusky faces peeping out from under the tilts, in contrast with the colour of the rain-bleached canvass; while other women and children of white complexion ride in the vehicles with springs.
In one of the latter – a barouche of the American build – travel two young ladies, distinguished by particular attentions. Half a dozen horsemen hover around their carriage, acting as its escort, each apparently anxious to exchange words with them. With one they can talk, jest, laugh, chatter as much as they like; but the other repels them. For the soul of the former is full of joy; that of the latter steeped in sadness.
Superfluous to say, they are Jessie and Helen Armstrong. And needless to tell why the one is gay, the other grave. Since we last saw them in the hotel of Natchitoches, no change has taken place in their hearts or their hopes. The younger of the two, Jessie, is still an expectant bride, certain soon to be a wife; and with this certainty rejoices in the future. Helen, with no such expectation, no wish for it, feeling as one widowed, grieves over the past. The former sees her lover by her side living and loving, constantly, caressingly; the latter can but think of hers as something afar off – a dream – a dread vision – a cold corpse – herself the cause of it!
Colonel Armstrong’s eldest daughter is indeed sad – a prey to repining. Her heart, after receiving so many shocks, has almost succumbed to that the supremest, most painful suffering that can afflict humanity – the malady of melancholia. The word conveys but a faint idea of the suffering itself. Only they who have known it – fortunately but few – can comprehend the terror, the wan, wasting misery, endured by those whose nerves have given way under some terrible stroke of misfortune. ’Tis the story of a broken heart.
Byron has told us “the heart may break and brokenly live on.” In this her hour of unhappiness, Helen Armstrong would not and could not believe him. It may seem strange that Jessie is still only a bride to be. But no. She remembers the promise made to her father – to share with him a home in Texas, however humble it might be. All the same, now that she knows it will be splendid; knowing, too, it is to be shared by another – her Louis. He is still but her fiancée; but his troth is plighted, his truthfulness beyond suspicion. They are all but man and wife; which they will be soon as the new home is reached.
The goal of their journey is to be the culminating point of Jessie’s joy – the climax of her life’s happiness.
Chapter Forty Three.
The hand of God
Scarce any stream of South-Western Texas but runs between bluffs. There is a valley or “bottom-land,” only a little elevated above the water’s surface, and often submerged during inundations, – beyond this the bluffs. The valley may be a mile or more in width, in some places ten, at others contracted, till the opposing cliffs are scarce a pistol-shot apart. And of these there are frequently two or three tiers, or terraces, receding backward from the river, the crest of the last and outmost being but the edge of an upland plain, which is often sterile and treeless. Any timber upon it is stunted, and of those species to which a dry soil is congenial. Mezquite, juniper, and “black-jack” oaks grow in groves or spinneys; while standing apart may be observed the arborescent jucca – the “dragon-tree” of the Western world, towering above an underwood unlike any other, composed of cactaceae in all the varieties of cereus, cactus, and echinocactus. Altogether unlike is the bottom-land bordering upon the river. There the vegetation is lush and luxuriant, showing a growth of large forest timber – the trees set thickly, and matted with many parasites, that look like cables coiling around and keeping them together. These timbered tracts are not continuous, but show stretches of open between, – here little glades filled with flowers, there grand meadows overgrown with grass – so tall that the horseman riding through it has his shoulders swept by the spikes, which shed their pollen upon his coat.
Just such a bottom-land is that of the San Saba, near the river’s mouth; where, after meandering many a score of miles from its source in the Llano Estacado, it espouses the Colorado – gliding softly, like a shy bride, into the embrace of the larger and stronger-flowing stream.
For a moment departing from the field of romance, and treading upon the domain of history – or it may be but legend – a word about this Colorado river may interest the reader.
Possibly, probably, almost lor certain, there is no province in all Spanish America without its “Rio Colorado.” The geographer could count some scores of rivers so named – point them out on any map. They are seen in every latitude, trending in all directions, from the great Colorado of cañon celebrity in the north to another far south, which cuts a deep groove through the plains of Patagonia. All these streams have been so designated from the hue of their waters – muddy, with a pronounced tinge of red: this from the ochreous earth through which they have coursed, holding it in suspension.
In the Texan Colorado there is nothing of this; on the contrary, it is a clear water stream. A circumstance that may seem strange, till the explanation be given – which is, that the name is a misnomer. In other words, the Texan river now bearing the designation Colorado is not that so-called by the Spaniards, but their Rio Brazos; while the present Brazos is their Rio Colorado – a true red-tinted stream. The exchange of names is due to an error of the American map-makers, unacquainted with the Spanish tongue. Giving the Colorado its true name of Brazos, or more correctly “Brazos de Dios” (“The Arms of God”), the origin of this singular title for a stream presents us with a history, or legend, alike singular. As all know, Texas was first colonised by Spaniards, or Spanish Mexicans, on what might be termed the “militant missionary system.” Monks were sent into the province, cross in hand, with soldiers at their back, bearing the sword. Establishments were formed in different parts of the country; San Antonio de Bejar being the ecclesiastical centre, as also the political capital. Around these the aborigines were collected, and after a fashion converted to Christianity. With the christianising process, however, there were other motives mixed up, having very little to do either with morality or religion. Comfortable subsistence, with the accumulation of wealth by the missionaries themselves, was in most instances the lure which attracted them to Texas, tempting them to risk their lives in the so-called conversion of the heathen.
The mission-houses were in the monasterial style, many of them on a grand scale – mansions in fact, with roomy refectories, and kitchens to correspond; snug sitting and sleeping-chambers; well-paved courts and spacious gardens attached. Outside the main building, sometimes forming part of it, was a church, or capilla; near by the presidio, or barrack for their military protectors; and beyond, the rancheria, or village of huts, the homes of the new-made neophytes.
No great difficulty had the fathers in thus handsomely housing themselves. The converts did all the work, willingly, for the sake and in the name of the “Holy Faith,” into which they had been recently inducted. Nor did their toil end with the erection of the mission-buildings. It was only transferred to a more layical kind; to the herding of cattle, and tillage of the surrounding land; this continued throughout their whole lives – not for their own benefit, but to enrich those idle and lazy friars, in many cases men of the most profligate character. It was, in fact, a system of slavery, based upon and sustained by religious fanaticism. The result as might be expected – failure and far worse. Instead of civilising the aborigines of America, it has but brutalised them the more – by eradicating from their hearts whatever of savage virtue they had, and implanting in its place a debasing bigotry and superstition.
Most American writers, who speak of these missionary establishments, have formed an erroneous estimate of them. And, what is worse, have given it to the world. Many of these writers are, or were, officers in the United States army, deputed to explore the wild territories in which the missions existed. Having received their education in Roman Catholic seminaries, they have been inducted into taking a too lenient view of the doings of the “old Spanish padres;” hence their testimony so favourable to the system.
The facts are all against them; these showing it a scheme of villeinage, more oppressive than the European serfdom of the Middle Ages. The issue is sufficient proof of this. For it was falling to pieces, long before the Anglo-Saxon race entered into possession of the territory where it once flourished. The missions are now in a state of decadence, their buildings fast falling into decay; while the red man, disgusted at the attempt to enslave, under the clock of christianising him, has returned to his idolatry, as to his savage life.