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The Headless Horseman: A Strange Tale of Texas

by Mayne Reid · English · Gutenberg #35587 · 1,219,593 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Headless Horseman: A Strange Tale of Texas

Author: Mayne Reid


        
Release date: March 16, 2011 [eBook #35587]

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/35587

Credits: Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HEADLESS HORSEMAN: A STRANGE TALE OF TEXAS ***




Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England




The Headless Horseman
A Strange Tale of Texas
By Captain Mayne Reid
Published by George Routledge and Sons, London, Glasgow and New York..
This edition dated 1888.

The Headless Horseman, by Captain Mayne Reid.

________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________
THE HEADLESS HORSEMAN, BY CAPTAIN MAYNE REID.



PROLOGUE.

The stag of Texas, reclining in midnight lair, is startled from his
slumbers by the hoofstroke of a horse.

He does not forsake his covert, nor yet rise to his feet.  His domain is
shared by the wild steeds of the savannah, given to nocturnal straying.
He only uprears his head; and, with antlers o'ertopping the tall grass,
listens for a repetition of the sound.

Again is the hoofstroke heard, but with altered intonation.  There is a
ring of metal--the clinking of steel against stone.

The sound, significant to the ear of the stag, causes a quick change in
his air and attitude.  Springing clear of his couch, and bounding a
score of yards across the prairie, he pauses to look back upon the
disturber of his dreams.

In the clear moonlight of a southern sky, he recognises the most
ruthless of his enemies--man.  One is approaching upon horseback.

Yielding to instinctive dread, he is about to resume his flight: when
something in the appearance of the horseman--some unnatural seeming--
holds him transfixed to the spot.

With haunches in quivering contact with the sward, and frontlet faced to
the rear, he continues to gaze--his large brown eyes straining upon the
intruder in a mingled expression of fear and bewilderment.

What has challenged the stag to such protracted scrutiny?

The horse is perfect in all its parts--a splendid steed, saddled,
bridled, and otherwise completely caparisoned.  In it there appears
nothing amiss--nothing to produce either wonder or alarm.  But the man--
the rider?  Ah!  About him there _is_ something to cause both--something
weird--something _wanting_!

By heavens! it is the head!

Even the unreasoning animal can perceive this; and, after gazing a
moment with wildered eyes--wondering what abnormal monster thus mocks
its cervine intelligence--terror-stricken it continues its retreat; nor
again pauses, till it has plunged through the waters of the Leona, and
placed the current of the stream between itself and the ghastly
intruder.

Heedless of the affrighted deer--either of its presence, or precipitate
flight--the Headless Horseman rides on.

He, too, is going in the direction of the river.  Unlike the stag, he
does not seem pressed for time; but advances in a slow, tranquil pace:
so silent as to seem ceremonious.

Apparently absorbed in solemn thought, he gives free rein to his steed:
permitting the animal, at intervals, to snatch a mouthful of the herbage
growing by the way.  Nor does he, by voice or gesture, urge it
impatiently onward, when the howl-bark of the prairie-wolf causes it to
fling its head on high, and stand snorting in its tracks.

He appears to be under the influence of some all-absorbing emotion, from
which no common incident can awake him.  There is no speech--not a
whisper--to betray its nature.  The startled stag, his own horse, the
wolf, and the midnight moon, are the sole witnesses of his silent
abstraction.

His shoulders shrouded under a _serape_, one edge of which, flirted up
by the wind, displays a portion of his figure: his limbs encased in
"water-guards" of jaguar-skin: thus sufficiently sheltered against the
dews of the night, or the showers of a tropical sky, he rides on--silent
as the stars shining above, unconcerned as the cicada that chirrups in
the grass beneath, or the prairie breeze playing with the drapery of his
dress.

Something at length appears to rouse from his reverie, and stimulate him
to greater speed--his steed, at the same time.  The latter, tossing up
its head, gives utterance to a joyous neigh; and, with outstretched
neck, and spread nostrils, advances in a gait gradually increasing to a
canter.  The proximity of the river explains the altered pace.

The horse halts not again, till the crystal current is surging against
his flanks, and the legs of his rider are submerged knee-deep under the
surface.

The animal eagerly assuages its thirst; crosses to the opposite side;
and, with vigorous stride, ascends the sloping bank.

Upon the crest occurs a pause: as if the rider tarried till his steed
should shake the water from its flanks.  There is a rattling of
saddle-flaps, and stirrup-leathers, resembling thunder, amidst a cloud
of vapour, white as the spray of a cataract.

Out of this self-constituted _nimbus_, the Headless Horseman emerges;
and moves onward, as before.

Apparently pricked by the spur, and guided by the rein, of his rider,
the horse no longer strays from the track; but steps briskly forward, as
if upon a path already trodden.

A treeless savannah stretches before--selvedged by the sky.  Outlined
against the azure is seen the imperfect centaurean shape gradually
dissolving in the distance, till it becomes lost to view, under the
mystic gloaming of the moonlight!



CHAPTER ONE.

THE BURNT PRAIRIE.

On the great plain of Texas, about a hundred miles southward from the
old Spanish town of San Antonio de Bejar, the noonday sun is shedding
his beams from a sky of cerulean brightness.  Under the golden light
appears a group of objects, but little in unison with the landscape
around them: since they betoken the presence of human beings, in a spot
where there is no sign of human habitation.

The objects in question are easily identified--even at a great distance.
They are waggons; each covered with its ribbed and rounded tilt of
snow-white "Osnaburgh."

There are ten of them--scarce enough to constitute a "caravan" of
traders, nor yet a "government train."  They are more likely the
individual property of an emigrant; who has landed upon the coast, and
is wending his way to one of the late-formed settlements on the Leona.

Slowly crawling across the savannah, it could scarce be told that they
are in motion; but for their relative-position, in long serried line,
indicating the order of march.

The dark bodies between each two declare that the teams are attached;
and that they are making progress is proved, by the retreating antelope,
scared from its noonday _siesta_, and the long-shanked curlew, rising
with a screech from the sward--both bird and beast wondering at the
string of strange _behemoths_, thus invading their wilderness domain.

Elsewhere upon the prairie, no movement may be detected--either of bird
or quadruped.  It is the time of day when all tropical life becomes
torpid, or seeks repose in the shade; man alone, stimulated by the love
of gain, or the promptings of ambition, disregarding the laws of nature,
and defying the fervour of the sun.

So seems it with the owner of the tilted train; who, despite the
relaxing influence of the fierce mid-day heat, keeps moving on.

That he is an emigrant--and not one of the ordinary class--is evidenced
in a variety of ways.  The ten large waggons of Pittsburgh build, each
hauled by eight able-bodied mules; their miscellaneous contents:
plenteous provisions, articles of costly furniture, even of _luxe_, live
stock in the shape of coloured women and children; the groups of black
and yellow bondsmen, walking alongside, or straggling foot-sore in the
rear; the light travelling carriage in the lead, drawn by a span of
sleek-coated Kentucky mules, and driven by a black Jehu, sweltering in a
suit of livery; all bespeak, not a poor Northern-States settler in
search of a new home, but a rich Southerner who has already purchased
one, and is on his way to take possession of it.

And this is the exact story of the train.  It is the property of a
planter who has landed at Indianola, on the Gulf of Matagorda; and is
now travelling overland--_en route_ for his destination.

In the _cortege_ that accompanies it, riding habitually at its head, is
the planter himself--Woodley Poindexter--a tall thin man of fifty, with
a slightly sallowish complexion, and aspect proudly severe.  He is
simply though not inexpensively clad: in a loosely fitting frock of
alpaca cloth, a waistcoat of black satin, and trousers of nankin.  A
shirt of finest linen shows its plaits through the opening of his vest--
its collar embraced by a piece of black ribbon; while the shoe, resting
in his stirrup, is of finest tanned leather.  His features are shaded by
a broad-brimmed Leghorn hat.

Two horsemen are riding alongside--one on his right, the other on the
left--a stripling scarce twenty, and a young man six or seven years
older.  The former is his son--a youth, whose open cheerful countenance
contrasts, not only with the severe aspect of his father, but with the
somewhat sinister features on the other side, and which belong to his
cousin.

The youth is dressed in a French blouse of sky-coloured "cottonade,"
with trousers of the same material; a most appropriate costume for a
southern climate, and which, with the Panama hat upon his head, is
equally becoming.

The cousin, an ex-officer of volunteers, affects a military undress of
dark blue cloth, with a forage cap to correspond.

There is another horseman riding near, who, only on account of having a
white skin--not white for all that--is entitled to description.  His
coarser features, and cheaper habiliments; the keel-coloured "cowhide"
clutched in his right hand, and flirted with such evident skill,
proclaim him the overseer--and whipper up--of the swarthy pedestrians
composing the _entourage_ of the train.

The travelling carriage, which is a "carriole"--a sort of cross between
a Jersey waggon and a barouche--has two occupants.  One is a young lady
of the whitest skin; the other a girl of the blackest.  The former is
the daughter of Woodley Poindexter--his only daughter.  She of the sable
complexion is the young lady's handmaid.

The emigrating party is from the "coast" of the Mississippi--from
Louisiana.  The planter is not himself a native of this State--in other
words a _Creole_; but the type is exhibited in the countenance of his
son--still more in that fair face, seen occasionally through the
curtains of the carriole, and whose delicate features declare descent
from one of those endorsed damsels--_filles a la casette_--who, more
than a hundred years ago, came across the Atlantic provided with proofs
of their virtue--in the _casket_!

A grand sugar planter of the South is Woodley Poindexter; one of the
highest and haughtiest of his class; one of the most profuse in
aristocratic hospitalities: hence the necessity of forsaking his
Mississippian home, and transferring himself and his "penates,"--with
only a remnant of his "niggers,"--to the wilds of south-western Texas.

The sun is upon the meridian line, and almost in the zenith.  The
travellers tread upon their own shadows.  Enervated by the excessive
heat, the white horsemen sit silently in their saddles.  Even the dusky
pedestrians, less sensible to its influence, have ceased their garrulous
"gumbo;" and, in straggling groups, shamble listlessly along in the rear
of the waggons.

The silence--solemn as that of a funereal procession--is interrupted
only at intervals by the pistol-like crack of a whip, or the loud
"wo-ha," delivered in deep baritone from the thick lips of some sable
teamster.

Slowly the train moves on, as if groping its way.  There is no regular
road.  The route is indicated by the wheel-marks of some vehicles that
have passed before--barely conspicuous, by having crushed the culms of
the shot grass.

Notwithstanding the slow progress, the teams are doing their best.  The
planter believes himself within less than twenty miles of the end of his
journey.  He hopes to reach it before night: hence the march continued
through the mid-day heat.

Unexpectedly the drivers are directed to pull up, by a sign from the
overseer; who has been riding a hundred yards in the advance, and who is
seen to make a sudden stop--as if some obstruction had presented itself.

He comes trotting back towards the train.  His gestures tell of
something amiss.  What is it?

There has been much talk about Indians--of a probability of their being
encountered in this quarter.

Can it be the red-skinned marauders?  Scarcely: the gestures of the
overseer do not betray actual alarm.

"What is it, Mr Sansom?" asked the planter, as the man rode up.

"The grass air burnt.  The prairy's been afire."

"_Been_ on fire!  Is it on fire _now_?" hurriedly inquired the owner of
the waggons, with an apprehensive glance towards the travelling
carriage.  "Where?  I see no smoke!"

"No, sir--no," stammered the overseer, becoming conscious that he had
caused unnecessary alarm; "I didn't say it air afire now: only thet it
hez been, an the hul ground air as black as the ten o' spades."

"Ta--tat! what of that?  I suppose we can travel over a black prairie,
as safely as a green one?

"What nonsense of you, Josh Sansom, to raise such a row about nothing--
frightening people out of their senses!  Ho! there, you niggers!  Lay
the leather to your teams, and let the train proceed.  Whip up!--whip
up!"

"But, Captain Calhoun," protested the overseer, in response to the
gentleman who had reproached him in such chaste terms; "how air we to
find the way?"

"Find the way!  What are you raving about?  We haven't lost it--have
we?"

"I'm afeerd we hev, though.  The wheel-tracks ain't no longer to be
seen.  They're burnt out, along wi' the grass."

"What matters that?  I reckon we can cross a piece of scorched prairie,
without wheel-marks to guide us?  We'll find them again on the other
side."

"Ye-es," naively responded the overseer, who, although a "down-easter,"
had been far enough west to have learnt something of frontier life; "if
theer air any other side.  I kedn't see it out o' the seddle--ne'er a
sign o' it."

"Whip up, niggers! whip up!" shouted Calhoun, without heeding the
remark; and spurring onwards, as a sign that the order was to be obeyed.

The teams are again set in motion; and, after advancing to the edge of
the burnt tract, without instructions from any one, are once more
brought to a stand.

The white men on horseback draw together for a consultation.  There is
need: as all are satisfied by a single glance directed to the ground
before them.

Far as the eye can reach the country is of one uniform colour--black as
Erebus.  There is nothing green--not a blade of grass--not a reed nor
weed!

It is after the summer solstice.  The ripened culms of the _gramineae_,
and the stalks of the prairie flowers, have alike crumbled into dust
under the devastating breath of fire.

In front--on the right and left--to the utmost verge of vision extends
the scene of desolation.  Over it the cerulean sky is changed to a
darker blue; the sun, though clear of clouds, seems to scowl rather than
shine--as if reciprocating the frown of the earth.

The overseer has made a correct report--there is no trail visible.  The
action of the fire, as it raged among the ripe grass, has eliminated the
impression of the wheels hitherto indicating the route.  "What are we to
do?"

The planter himself put this inquiry, in a tone that told of a
vacillating spirit.

"Do, uncle Woodley!  What else but keep straight on?  The river must be
on the other side?  If we don't hit the crossing, to a half mile or so,
we can go up, or down the bank--as the case may require."

"But, Cassius: if we should lose our way?"

"We can't.  There's but a patch of this, I suppose?  If we do go a
little astray, we must come out somewhere--on one side, or the other."

"Well, nephew, you know best: I shall be guided by you."

"No fear, uncle.  I've made my way out of a worse fix than this.  Drive
on, niggers!  Keep straight after _me_."

The ex-officer of volunteers, casting a conceited glance towards the
travelling carriage--through the curtains of which appears a fair face,
slightly shadowed with anxiety--gives the spur to his horse; and with
confident air trots onward.

A chorus of whipcracks is succeeded by the trampling of fourscore mules,
mingled with the clanking of wheels against their hubs.  The
waggon-train is once more in motion.

The mules step out with greater rapidity.  The sable surface, strange to
their eyes, excites them to brisker action--causing them to raise the
hoof, as soon as it touches the turf.  The younger animals show fear--
snorting, as they advance.

In time their apprehensions become allayed; and, taking the cue from
their older associates, they move on steadily as before.

A mile or more is made, apparently in a direct line from the point of
starting.  Then there is a halt.  The self-appointed guide has ordered
it.  He has reined up his horse; and is sitting in the saddle with less
show of confidence.  He appears to be puzzled about the direction.

The landscape--if such it may be called--has assumed a change; though
not for the better.  It is still sable as ever, to the verge of the
horizon.  But the surface is no longer a plain: it _rolls_.  There are
ridges--gentle undulations--with valleys between.  They are not entirely
treeless--though nothing that may be termed a tree is in sight.  There
have been such, before the fire--_algarobias, mezquites_, and others of
the acacia family--standing solitary, or in copses.  Their light pinnate
foliage has disappeared like flax before the flame.  Their existence is
only evidenced by charred trunks, and blackened boughs.

"You've lost the way, nephew?" said the planter, riding rapidly up.

"No uncle--not yet.  I've only stopped to have a look.  It must lie in
this direction--down that valley.  Let them drive on.  We're going all
right--I'll answer for it."

Once more in motion--adown the slope--then along the valley--then up the
acclivity of another ridge--and then there is a second stoppage upon its
crest.

"You've lost the way, Cash?" said the planter, coming up and repeating
his former observation.

"Damned if I don't believe I have, uncle!" responded the nephew, in a
tone of not very respectful mistrust.  "Anyhow; who the devil could find
his way out of an ashpit like this?  No, no!" he continued, reluctant to
betray his embarrassment as the carriole came up.  "I see now.  We're
all right yet.  The river must be in this direction.  Come on!"

On goes the guide, evidently irresolute.  On follow the sable teamsters,
who, despite their stolidity, do not fail to note some signs of
vacillation.  They can tell that they are no longer advancing in a
direct line; but circuitously among the copses, and across the glades
that stretch between.

All are gratified by a shout from the conductor, announcing recovered
confidence.  In response there is a universal explosion of whipcord,
with joyous exclamations.

Once more they are stretching their teams along a travelled road--where
a half-score of wheeled vehicles must have passed before them.  And not
long before: the wheel-tracks are of recent impress--the hoof-prints of
the animals fresh as if made within the hour.  A train of waggons, not
unlike their own, must have passed over the burnt prairie!

Like themselves, it could only be going towards the Leona: perhaps some
government convoy on its way to Fort Inge?  In that case they have only
to keep in the same track.  The Fort is on the line of their march--but
a short distance beyond the point where their journey is to terminate.

Nothing could be more opportune.  The guide, hitherto perplexed--though
without acknowledging it--is at once relieved of all anxiety; and with a
fresh exhibition of conceit, orders the route to be resumed.

For a mile or more the waggon-tracks are followed--not in a direct line,
but bending about among the skeleton copses.  The countenance of Cassius
Calhoun, for a while wearing a confident look, gradually becomes
clouded.  It assumes the profoundest expression of despondency, on
discovering that the four-and-forty wheel-tracks he is following, have
been made by ten Pittsburgh waggons, and a carriole--the same that are
now following him, and in whose company he has been travelling _all the
way from the Gulf of Matagorda_!



CHAPTER TWO.

THE TRAIL OF THE LAZO.

Beyond doubt, the waggons of Woodley Poindexter were going over ground
already traced by the tiring of their wheels.

"Our own tracks!" muttered Calhoun on making the discovery, adding a
fierce oath as he reined up.

"Our own tracks!  What mean you, Cassius?  You don't say we've been
travelling--"

"On our own tracks.  I do, uncle; that very thing.  We must have made a
complete circumbendibus of it.  See! here's the hind hoof of my own
horse, with half a shoe off; and there's the foot of the niggers.
Besides, I can tell the ground.  That's the very hill we went down as we
left our last stopping place.  Hang the crooked luck!  We've made a
couple of miles for nothing."

Embarrassment is no longer the only expression upon the face of the
speaker.  It has deepened to chagrin, with an admixture of shame.  It is
through him that the train is without a regular guide.  One, engaged at
Indianola, had piloted them to their last camping place.  There, in
consequence of some dispute, due to the surly temper of the ex-captain
of volunteers, the man had demanded his dismissal, and gone back.

For this--as also for an ill-timed display of confidence in his power to
conduct the march--is the planter's nephew now suffering under a sense
of shame.  He feels it keenly as the carriole comes up, and bright eyes
become witnesses of his discomfiture.

Poindexter does not repeat his inquiry.  That the road is lost is a fact
evident to all.  Even the barefooted or "broganned" pedestrians have
recognised their long-heeled footprints, and become aware that they are
for the second time treading upon the same ground.

There is a general halt, succeeded by an animated conversation among the
white men.  The situation is serious: the planter himself believes it to
be so.  He cannot that day reach the end of his journey--a thing upon
which he had set his mind.

That is the very least misfortune that can befall them.  There are
others possible, and probable.  There are perils upon the burnt plain.
They may be compelled to spend the night upon it, with no water for
their animals.  Perhaps a second day and night--or longer--who can tell
how long?

How are they to find their way?  The sun is beginning to descend; though
still too high in heaven to indicate his line of declination.  By
waiting a while they may discover the quarters of the compass.

But to what purpose?  The knowledge of east, west, north, and south can
avail nothing now: they have lost their _line of march_.

Calhoun has become cautious.  He no longer volunteers to point out the
path.  He hesitates to repeat his pioneering experiments--after such
manifest and shameful failure.

A ten minutes' discussion terminates in nothing.  No one can suggest a
feasible plan of proceeding.  No one knows how to escape from the
embrace of that dark desert, which appears to cloud not only the sun and
sky, but the countenances of all who enter within its limits.

A flock of black vultures is seen flying afar off.  They come nearer,
and nearer.  Some alight upon the ground--others hover above the heads
of the strayed travellers.  Is there a boding in the behaviour of the
birds?

Another ten minutes is spent in the midst of moral and physical gloom.
Then, as if by a benignant mandate from heaven, does cheerfulness
re-assume its sway.  The cause?  A horseman riding in the direction of
the train!

An unexpected sight: who could have looked for human being in such a
place?  All eyes simultaneously sparkle with joy; as if, in the approach
of the horseman, they beheld the advent of a saviour!

"He's coming this way, is he not?" inquired the planter, scarce
confident in his failing sight.

"Yes, father; straight as he can ride," replied Henry, lifting the hat
from his head, and waving it on high: the action accompanied by a shout
intended to attract the horseman.

The signal was superfluous.  The stranger had already sighted the halted
waggons; and, riding towards them at a gallop, was soon within speaking
distance.

He did not draw bridle, until he had passed the train; and arrived upon
the spot occupied by the planter and his party.

"A Mexican!" whispered Henry, drawing his deduction from the habiliments
of the horseman.

"So much the better," replied Poindexter, in the same tone of voice;
"he'll be all the more likely to know the road."

"Not a bit of Mexican about him," muttered Calhoun, "excepting the rig.
I'll soon see.  _Buenos dias, cavallero!  Esta V. Mexicano_?"  (Good
day, sir! are you a Mexican?)

"No, indeed," replied the stranger, with a protesting smile.  "Anything
but that.  I can speak to you in Spanish, if you prefer it; but I dare
say you will understand me better in English: which, I presume, is your
native tongue?"

Calhoun, suspecting that he had spoken indifferent Spanish, or
indifferently pronounced it, refrains from making rejoinder.

"_American_, sir," replied Poindexter, his national pride feeling
slightly piqued.  Then, as if fearing to offend the man from whom he
intended asking a favour, he added: "Yes, sir; we are all Americans--
from the _Southern States_."

"That I can perceive by your following."  An expression of contempt--
scarce perceptible--showed itself upon the countenance of the speaker,
as his eye rested upon the groups of black bondsmen.  "I can perceive,
too," he added, "that you are strangers to prairie travelling.  You have
lost your way?"

"We have, sir; and have very little prospect of recovering it, unless we
may count upon your kindness to direct us."

"Not much kindness in that.  By the merest chance I came upon your
trail, as I was crossing the prairie.  I saw you were going astray; and
have ridden this way to set you right."

"It is very good of you.  We shall be most thankful, sir.  My name is
Poindexter--Woodley Poindexter, of Louisiana.  I have purchased a
property on the Leona river, near Fort Inge.  We were in hopes of
reaching it before nightfall.  Can we do so?"

"There is nothing to hinder you: if you follow the instructions I shall
give."

On saying this, the stranger rode a few paces apart; and appeared to
scrutinise the country--as if to determine the direction which the
travellers should take.

Poised conspicuously upon the crest of the ridge, horse and man
presented a picture worthy of skilful delineation.

A steed, such as might have been ridden by an Arab sheik--blood-bay in
colour--broad in counter--with limbs clean as culms of cane, and hips of
elliptical outline, continued into a magnificent tail sweeping rearward
like a rainbow: on his back a rider--a young man of not more than
five-and-twenty--of noble form and features; habited in the picturesque
costume of a Mexican _ranchero_--spencer jacket of
velveteen--_calzoneros_ laced along the seams--_calzoncillos_ of
snow-white lawn--_botas_ of buff leather, heavily spurred at the heels--
around the waist a scarf of scarlet crape; and on his head a hat of
black glaze, banded with gold bullion.  Picture to yourself a horseman
thus habited; seated in a deep tree-saddle, of Moorish shape and Mexican
manufacture, with housings of leather stamped in antique patterns, such
as were worn by the caparisoned steeds of the Conquistadores; picture to
yourself such a _cavallero_, and you will have before your mind's eye a
counterpart of him, upon whom the planter and his people were gazing.

Through the curtains of the travelling carriage he was regarded with
glances that spoke of a singular sentiment.  For the first time in her
life, Louise Poindexter looked upon that--hitherto known only to her
imagination--a man of heroic mould.  Proud might he have been, could he
have guessed the interest which his presence was exciting in the breast
of the young Creole.

He could not, and did not.  He was not even aware of her existence.  He
had only glanced at the dust-bedaubed vehicle in passing--as one might
look upon the rude incrustation of an oyster, without suspecting that a
precious pearl may lie gleaming inside.

"By my faith!" he declared, facing round to the owner of the waggons, "I
can discover no landmarks for you to steer by.  For all that, I can find
the way myself.  You will have to cross the Leona five miles below the
Fort; and, as I have to go by the crossing myself, _you_ can follow the
tracks of my horse.  Good day, gentlemen!"

Thus abruptly bidding adieu, he pressed the spur against the side of his
steed; and started off at a gallop.

An unexpected--almost uncourteous departure!  So thought the planter and
his people.

They had no time to make observations upon it, before the stranger was
seen returning towards them!

In ten seconds he was again in their presence--all listening to learn
what had brought him back.

"I fear the tracks of my horse may prove of little service to you.  The
_mustangs_ have been this way, since the fire.  They have made
hoof-marks by the thousand.  Mine are shod; but, as you are not
accustomed to trailing, you may not be able to distinguish them--the
more so, that in these dry ashes all horse-tracks are so nearly alike."

"What are we to do?" despairingly asked the planter.

"I am sorry, Mr Poindexter, I cannot stay to conduct you, I am riding
express, with a despatch for the Fort.  If you _should_ lose my trail,
keep the sun on your right shoulders: so that your shadows may fall to
the left, at an angle of about fifteen degrees to your line of march.
Go straight forward for about five miles.  You will then come in sight
of the top of a tall tree--a _cypress_.  You will know it by its leaves
being _in the red_.  Head direct for this tree.  It stands on the bank
of the river; and close by is the crossing."

The young horseman, once more drawing up his reins, was about to ride
off; when something caused him to linger.  It was a pair of dark
lustrous eyes--observed by him for the first time--glancing through the
curtains of the travelling carriage.

Their owner was in shadow; but there was light enough to show that they
were set in a countenance of surpassing loveliness.  He perceived,
moreover, that they were turned upon himself--fixed, as he fancied, in
an expression that betokened interest--almost tenderness!

He returned it with an involuntary glance of admiration, which he made
but an awkward attempt to conceal.  Lest it might be mistaken for
rudeness, he suddenly faced round; and once more addressed himself to
the planter--who had just finished thanking him for his civility.

"I am but ill deserving thanks," was his rejoinder, "thus to leave you
with a chance of losing your way.  But, as I've told you, my time is
measured."

The despatch-bearer consulted his watch--as though not a little
reluctant to travel alone.

"You are very kind, sir," said Poindexter; "but with the directions you
have given us, I think we shall be able to manage.  The sun will surely
show us--"

"No: now I look at the sky, it will not.  There are clouds looming up on
the north.  In an hour, the sun may be obscured--at all events, before
you can get within sight of the cypress.  It will not do.  Stay!" he
continued, after a reflective pause, "I have a better plan still:
_follow the trail of my lazo_!"

While speaking, he had lifted the coiled rope from his saddlebow, and
flung the loose end to the earth--the other being secured to a ring in
the pommel.  Then raising his hat in graceful salutation--more than half
directed towards the travelling carriage--he gave the spur to his steed;
and once more bounded off over the prairie.

The lazo, lengthening out, tightened over the hips of his horse; and,
dragging a dozen yards behind, left a line upon the cinereous surface--
as if some slender serpent had been making its passage across the plain.

"An exceedingly curious fellow!" remarked the planter, as they stood
gazing after the horseman, fast becoming hidden behind a cloud of sable
dust.  "I ought to have asked him his name?"

"An exceedingly conceited fellow, I should say," muttered Calhoun; who
had not failed to notice the glance sent by the stranger in the
direction of the carriole, nor that which had challenged it.  "As to his
name, I don't think it matters much.  It mightn't be his own he would
give you.  Texas is full of such swells, who take new names when they
get here--by way of improvement, if for no better reason."

"Come, cousin Cash," protested young Poindexter; "you are unjust to the
stranger.  He appears to be educated--in fact, a gentleman--worthy of
bearing the best of names, I should say."

"A gentleman!  Deuced unlikely: rigged out in that fanfaron fashion.  I
never saw a man yet, that took to a Mexican dress, who wasn't a _Jack_.
He's one, I'll be bound."

During this brief conversation, the fair occupant of the carriole was
seen to bend forward; and direct a look of evident interest, after the
form of the horseman fast receding from her view.

To this, perhaps, might have been traced the acrimony observable in the
speech of Calhoun.

"What is it, Loo?" he inquired, riding close up to the carriage, and
speaking in a voice not loud enough to be heard by the others.  "You
appear impatient to go forward?  Perhaps you'd like to ride off along
with that swaggering fellow?  It isn't too late: I'll lend you my
horse."

The young girl threw herself back upon the seat--evidently displeased,
both by the speech and the tone in which it was delivered.  But her
displeasure, instead of expressing itself in a frown, or in the shape of
an indignant rejoinder, was concealed under a guise far more galling to
him who had caused it.  A clear ringing laugh was the only reply
vouchsafed to him.

"So, so!  I thought there must be something--by the way you behaved
yourself in his presence.  You looked as if you would have relished a
_tete-a-tete_ with this showy despatch-bearer.  Taken with his stylish
dress, I suppose?  Fine feathers make fine birds.  His are borrowed.  I
may strip them off some day, along with a little of the skin that's
under them."

"For shame, Cassius! your words are a scandal!"

"'Tis you should think of scandal, Loo!  To let your thoughts turn on a
common scamp--a masquerading fellow like that!  No doubt the letter
carrier, employed by the officers at the Fort!"

"A letter carrier, you think?  Oh, how I should like to get love letters
by such a postman!"

"You had better hasten on, and tell him so.  My horse is at your
service."

"Ha! ha! ha!  What a simpleton you show yourself!  Suppose, for
jesting's sake, I _did_ have a fancy to overtake this prairie postman!
It couldn't be done upon that dull steed of yours: not a bit of it!  At
the rate he is going, he and his blood-bay will be out of sight before
you could change saddles for me.  Oh, no! he's not to be overtaken by
me, however much I might like it; and perhaps I _might like it_!"

"Don't let your father hear you talk in that way."

"Don't let him hear _you_ talk in that way," retorted the young lady,
for the first time speaking in a serious strain.  "Though you _are_ my
cousin, and papa may think you the pink of perfection, I don't--not I!
I never told you I did--did I?"  A frown, evidently called forth by some
unsatisfactory reflection, was the only reply to this tantalising
interrogative.

"You _are_ my cousin," she continued, in a tone that contrasted
strangely with the levity she had already exhibited, "but you are
nothing more--nothing more--Captain Cassius Calhoun!  You have no claim
to be my counsellor.  There is but one from whom I am in duty bound to
take advice, or bear reproach.  I therefore beg of you, Master Cash,
that you will not again presume to repeat such sentiments--as those you
have just favoured me with.  I shall remain mistress of my own
thoughts--and actions, too--till I have found a master who can control
them.  It is not you!"

Having delivered this speech, with eyes flashing--half angrily, half
contemptuously--upon her cousin, the young Creole once more threw
herself back upon the cushions of the carriole.

The closing curtains admonished the ex-officer, that further
conversation was not desired.

Quailing under the lash of indignant innocence, he was only too happy to
hear the loud "gee-on" of the teamsters, as the waggons commenced moving
over the sombre surface--not more sombre than his own thoughts.



CHAPTER THREE.

THE PRAIRIE FINGER-POST.

The travellers felt no further uneasiness about the route.  The
snake-like trail was continuous; and so plain that a child might have
followed it.

It did not run in a right line, but meandering among the thickets; at
times turning out of the way, in places where the ground was clear of
timber.  This had evidently been done with an intent to avoid
obstruction to the waggons: since at each of these windings the
travellers could perceive that there were breaks, or other inequalities,
in the surface.

"How very thoughtful of the young fellow!" remarked Poindexter.  "I
really feel regret at not having asked for his name.  If he belong to
the Fort, we shall see him again."

"No doubt of it," assented his son.  "I hope we shall."

His daughter, reclining in shadow, overheard the conjectural speech, as
well as the rejoinder.  She said nothing; but her glance towards Henry
seemed to declare that her heart fondly echoed the hope.

Cheered by the prospect of soon terminating a toilsome journey--as also
by the pleasant anticipation of beholding, before sunset, his new
purchase--the planter was in one of his happiest moods.  His
aristocratic bosom was moved by an unusual amount of condescension, to
all around him.  He chatted familiarly with his overseer; stopped to
crack a joke with "Uncle" Scipio, hobbling along on blistered heels; and
encouraged "Aunt" Chloe in the transport of her piccaninny.

"Marvellous!" might the observer exclaim--misled by such exceptional
interludes, so pathetically described by the scribblers in Lucifer's
pay--"what a fine patriarchal institution is slavery, after all!  After
all we have said and done to abolish it!  A waste of sympathy--sheer
philanthropic folly to attempt the destruction of this ancient edifice--
worthy corner-stone to a `chivalric' nation!  Oh, ye abolition fanatics!
why do ye clamour against it?  Know ye not that some must suffer--must
work and starve--that others may enjoy the luxury of idleness?  That
some must be slaves, that others may be free?"

Such arguments--at which a world might weep--have been of late but too
often urged.  Woe to the man who speaks, and the nation that gives ear
to them!

The planter's high spirits were shared by his party, Calhoun alone
excepted.  They were reflected in the faces of his black bondsmen, who
regarded him as the source, and dispenser, of their happiness, or
misery--omnipotent--next to God.  They loved him less than God, and
feared him more; though he was by no means a bad master--that is, _by
comparison_.  He did not absolutely take delight in torturing them.  He
liked to see them well fed and clad--their epidermis shining with the
exudation of its own oil.  These signs bespoke the importance of their
proprietor--himself.  He was satisfied to let them off with an
occasional "cow-hiding"--salutary, he would assure you; and in all his
"stock" there was not one black skin marked with the mutilations of
vengeance--a proud boast for a Mississippian slave-owner, and more than
most could truthfully lay claim to.

In the presence of such an exemplary owner, no wonder that the
cheerfulness was universal--or that the slaves should partake of their
master's joy, and give way to their garrulity.

It was not destined that this joyfulness should continue to the end of
their journey.  It was after a time interrupted--not suddenly, nor by
any fault on the part of those indulging in it, but by causes and
circumstances over which they had not the slightest control.

As the stranger had predicted: the sun ceased to be visible, before the
cypress came in sight.

There was nothing in this to cause apprehension.  The line of the lazo
was conspicuous as ever; and they needed no guidance from the sun: only
that his cloud-eclipse produced a corresponding effect upon their
spirits.

"One might suppose it close upon nightfall," observed the planter,
drawing out his gold repeater, and glancing at its dial; "and yet it's
only three o'clock!  Lucky the young fellow has left us such a sure
guide.  But for him, we might have floundered among these ashes till
sundown; perhaps have been compelled to sleep upon them."

"A black bed it would be," jokingly rejoined Henry, with the design of
rendering the conversation more cheerful.  "Ugh!  I should have such
ugly dreams, were I to sleep upon it."

"And I, too," added his sister, protruding her pretty face through the
curtains, and taking a survey of the surrounding scene: "I'm sure I
should dream of Tartarus, and Pluto, and Proserpine, and--"

"Hya! hya! hya!" grinned the black Jehu, on the box--enrolled in the
plantation books as _Pluto Poindexter_--"De young missa dream 'bout _me_
in de mids' ob dis brack praira!  Golly! dat am a good joke--berry!
Hya! hya! hya!"

"Don't be too sure, all of ye," said the surly nephew, at this moment
coming up, and taking part in the conversation--"don't be too sure that
you won't have to make your beds upon it yet.  I hope it may be no
worse."

"What mean you, Cash?" inquired the uncle.

"I mean, uncle, that that fellow's been misleading us.  I won't say it
for certain; but it looks ugly.  We've come more than five miles--six, I
should say--and where's the tree?  I've examined the horizon, with a
pair of as good eyes as most have got, I reckon; and there isn't such a
thing in sight."

"But why should the stranger have deceived us?"

"Ah--why?  That's just it.  There may be more reasons than one."

"Give us one, then!" challenged a silvery voice from the carriole.
"We're all ears to hear it!"

"You're all ears to take in everything that's told you by a stranger,"
sneeringly replied Calhoun.  "I suppose if I gave my reason, you'd be so
charitable as to call it a false alarm!"

"That depends on its character, Master Cassius.  I think you might
venture to try us.  We scarcely expect a false alarm from a soldier, as
well as traveller, of your experience."

Calhoun felt the taunt; and would probably have withheld the
communication he had intended to make, but for Poindexter himself.

"Come, Cassius, explain yourself!" demanded the planter, in a tone of
respectful authority.  "You have said enough to excite something more
than curiosity.  For what reason should the young fellow be leading us
astray?"

"Well, uncle," answered the ex-officer, retreating a little from his
original accusation, "I haven't said for certain that he _is_; only that
it looks like it."

"In what way?"

"Well, one don't know what may happen.  Travelling parties as strong,
and stronger than we, have been attacked on these plains, and plundered
of every thing--murdered."

"Mercy!" exclaimed Louise, in a tone of terror, more affected than real.

"By Indians," replied Poindexter.

"Ah--Indians, indeed!  Sometimes it may be; and sometimes, too, they may
be whites who play at that game--not all Mexican whites, neither.  It
only needs a bit of brown paint; a horsehair wig, with half a dozen
feathers stuck into it; that, and plenty of hullabalooing.  If we were
to be robbed by a party of _white_ Indians, it wouldn't be the first
time the thing's been done.  We as good as half deserve it--for our
greenness, in trusting too much to a stranger."

"Good heavens, nephew! this is a serious accusation.  Do you mean to say
that the despatch-rider--if he be one--is leading us into--into an
ambuscade?"

"No, uncle; I don't say that.  I only say that such things have been
done; and it's possible he _may_."

"But not _probable_," emphatically interposed the voice from the
carriole, in a tone tauntingly quizzical.

"No!" exclaimed the stripling Henry, who, although riding a few paces
ahead, had overheard the conversation.  "Your suspicions are unjust,
cousin Cassius.  I pronounce them a calumny.  What's more, I can prove
them so.  Look there!"

The youth had reined up his horse, and was pointing to an object placed
conspicuously by the side of the path; which, before speaking, he had
closely scrutinised.  It was a tall plant of the _columnar cactus_,
whose green succulent stem had escaped scathing by the fire.

It was not to the plant itself that Henry Poindexter directed the
attention of his companions; but to a small white disc, of the form of a
parallelogram, impaled upon one of its spines.  No one accustomed to the
usages of civilised life could mistake the "card."  It was one.

"Hear what's written upon it!" continued the young man, riding nearer,
and reading aloud the directions pencilled upon the bit of pasteboard.

"The cypress in sight!"

"Where?" inquired Poindexter.

"There's a hand," rejoined Henry, "with a finger pointing--no doubt in
the direction of the tree."

All eyes were instantly turned towards the quarter of the compass,
indicated by the cipher on the card.

Had the sun been shining, the cypress might have been seen at the first
glance.  As it was, the sky--late of cerulean hue--was now of a leaden
grey; and no straining of the eyes could detect anything along the
horizon resembling the top of a tree.

"There's nothing of the kind," asserted Calhoun, with restored
confidence, at the same time returning to his unworthy accusation.
"It's only a dodge--another link in the chain of tricks the scamp is
playing us."

"You mistake, cousin Cassius," replied that same voice that had so often
contradicted him.  "Look through this lorgnette!  If you haven't lost
the sight of those superior eyes of yours, you'll see something _very
like a tree_--a tall tree--and a cypress, too, if ever there was one in
the swamps of Louisiana."

Calhoun disdained to take the opera glass from the hands of his cousin.
He knew it would convict him: for he could not suppose she was telling
an untruth.

Poindexter availed himself of its aid; and, adjusting the focus to his
failing sight, was enabled to distinguish the red-leafed cypress,
topping up over the edge of the prairie.

"It's true," he said: "the tree is there.  The young fellow is honest:
you've been wronging him, Cash.  I didn't think it likely he should have
taken such a queer plan to make fools of us.  He there!  Mr Sansom!
Direct your teamsters to drive on!"

Calhoun, not caring to continue the conversation, nor yet remain longer
in company, spitefully spurred his horse, and trotted off over the
prairie.

"Let me look at that card, Henry?" said Louise, speaking to her brother
in a restrained voice.  "I'm curious to see the cipher that has been of
such service to us.  Bring it away, brother: it can be of no further use
where it is--now that we have sighted the tree."

Henry, without the slightest suspicion of his sister's motive for making
the request, yielded obedience to it.

Releasing the piece of pasteboard from its impalement, he "chucked" it
into her lap.

"_Maurice Gerald_!" muttered the young Creole, after deciphering the
name upon the card.  "Maurice Gerald!" she repeated, in apostrophic
thought, as she deposited the piece of pasteboard in her bosom.
"Whoever you are--whence you have come--whither you are going--what you
may be--_Henceforth there is a fate between us_!  I feel it--I know it--
sure as there's a sky above!  Oh! how that sky lowers!  Am I to take it
as a type of this still untraced destiny?"



CHAPTER FOUR.

THE BLACK NORTHER.

For some seconds, after surrendering herself to the Sybilline thoughts
thus expressed, the young lady sate in silence--her white hands clasped
across her temples, as if her whole soul was absorbed in an attempt,
either to explain the past, or penetrate the future.

Her reverie--whatever might be its cause--was not of long duration.  She
was awakened from it, on hearing exclamations without--mingled with
words that declared some object of apprehension.

She recognised her brother's voice, speaking in tones that betokened
alarm.

"Look, father! don't you see them?"

"Where, Henry--where?"

"Yonder--behind the waggons.  You see them now?"

"I do--though I can't say what they are.  They look like--like--"
Poindexter was puzzled for a simile--"I really don't know what."

"Waterspouts?" suggested the ex-captain, who, at sight of the strange
objects, had condescended to rejoin the party around the carriole.
"Surely it can't be that?  It's too far from the sea.  I never heard of
their occurring on the prairies."

"They are in motion, whatever they be," said Henry.  "See! they keep
closing, and then going apart.  But for that, one might mistake them for
huge obelisks of black marble!"

"Giants, or ghouls!" jokingly suggested Calhoun; "ogres from some other
world, who've taken a fancy to have a promenade on this abominable
prairie!"

The ex-officer was only humorous with an effort.  As well as the others,
he was under the influence of an uneasy feeling.

And no wonder.  Against the northern horizon had suddenly become
upreared a number of ink-coloured columns--half a score of them--unlike
anything ever seen before.  They were not of regular columnar form, nor
fixed in any way; but constantly changing size, shape, and place--now
steadfast for a time--now gliding over the charred surface like giants
upon skates--anon, bending and balancing towards one another in the most
fantastic figurings!

It required no great effort of imagination, to fancy the Titans of old,
resuscitated on the prairies of Texas, leading a measure after some wild
carousal in the company of Bacchus!

In the proximity of phenomena never observed before--unearthly in their
aspect--unknown to every individual of the party--it was but natural
these should be inspired with alarm.

And such was the fact.  A sense of danger pervaded every bosom.  All
were impressed with a belief: that they were in the presence of some
_peril of the prairies_.

A general halt had been made on first observing the strange objects: the
negroes on foot, as well as the teamsters, giving utterance to shouts of
terror.  The animals--mules as well as horses, had come instinctively to
a stand--the latter neighing and trembling--the former filling the air
with their shrill screams.

These were not the only sounds.  From the sable towers could be heard a
hoarse swishing noise, that resembled the sough of a waterfall--at
intervals breaking into reverberations like the roll of musketry, or the
detonations of distant thunder!

These noises were gradually growing louder and more distinct.  The
danger, whatever it might be, was drawing nearer!

Consternation became depicted on the countenances of the travellers,
Calhoun's forming no exception.  The ex-officer no longer pretended
levity.  The eyes of all were turned towards the lowering sky, and the
band of black columns that appeared coming on to crush them!

At this crisis a shout, reaching their ears from the opposite side, was
a source of relief--despite the unmistakable accent of alarm in which it
was uttered.

Turning, they beheld a horseman in full gallop--riding direct towards
them.

The horse was black as coal: the rider of like hue, even to the skin of
his face.  For all that he was recognised: as the stranger, upon the
trail of whose lazo they had been travelling.

The perceptions of woman are quicker than those of man: the young lady
within the carriole was the first to identify him.  "Onward!" he cried,
as soon as within speaking distance.  "On--on! as fast as you can
drive!"

"What is it?" demanded the planter, in bewildered alarm.  "Is there a
danger?"

"There is.  I did not anticipate it, as I passed you.  It was only after
reaching the river, I saw the sure signs of it."

"Of what, sir?"

"The _norther_."

"You mean the storm of that name?"

"I do."

"I never heard of its being dangerous," interposed Calhoun, "except to
vessels at sea.  It's precious cold, I know; but--"

"You'll find it worse than cold, sir," interrupted the young horseman,
"if you're not quick in getting out of its way.  Mr Poindexter," he
continued, turning to the planter, and speaking with impatient emphasis,
"I tell you, that you and your party are in peril.  A norther is not
always to be dreaded; but this one--look yonder!  You see those black
pillars?"

"We've been wondering--didn't know what to make of them."

"They're nothing--only the precursors of the storm.  Look beyond!  Don't
you see a coal-black cloud spreading over the sky?  That's what you have
to dread.  I don't wish to cause you unnecessary alarm: but I tell you,
there's death in yonder shadow!  It's in motion, and coming this way.
You have no chance to escape it, except by speed.  If you do not make
haste, it will be too late.  In ten minutes' time you may be enveloped,
and then--quick, sir, I entreat you!  Order your drivers to hurry
forward as fast as they can!  The sky--heaven itself--commands you!"

The planter did not think of refusing compliance, with an appeal urged
in such energetic terms.  The order was given for the teams to be set in
motion, and driven at top speed.

Terror, that inspired the animals equally with their drivers, rendered
superfluous the use of the whip.

The travelling carriage, with the mounted men, moved in front, as
before.  The stranger alone threw himself in the rear--as if to act as a
guard against the threatening danger.

At intervals he was observed to rein up his horse, and look back: each
time by his glances betraying increased apprehension.

Perceiving it, the planter approached, and accosted him with the
inquiry:

"Is there still a danger?"

"I am sorry to answer you in the affirmative," said he: "I had hopes
that the wind might be the other way."

"Wind, sir?  There is none--that I can perceive."

"Not here.  Yonder it is blowing a hurricane, and this way too--direct.
By heavens! it is nearing us rapidly!  I doubt if we shall be able to
clear the burnt track."

"What is to be done?" exclaimed the planter, terrified by the
announcement.

"Are your mules doing their best?"

"They are: they could not be driven faster."

"I fear we shall _be too late, then_!"

As the speaker gave utterance to this gloomy conjecture, he reined round
once more; and sate regarding the cloud columns--as if calculating the
rate at which they were advancing.

The lines, contracting around his lips, told of something more than
dissatisfaction.

"Yes: too late!" he exclaimed, suddenly terminating his scrutiny.  "They
are moving faster than we--far faster.  There is no hope of our escaping
them!"

"Good God, sir! is the danger so great?  Can we do nothing to avoid it?"

The stranger did not make immediate reply.  For some seconds he remained
silent, as if reflecting--his glance no longer turned towards the sky,
but wandering among the waggons.

"Is there no chance of escape?" urged the planter, with the impatience
of a man in presence of a great peril.

"There is!" joyfully responded the horseman, as if some hopeful thought
had at length suggested itself.  "There _is a chance_.  I did not think
of it before.  We cannot shun the storm--the danger we may.  Quick, Mr
Poindexter!  Order your men to muffle the mules--the horses too--
otherwise the animals will be blinded, and go mad.  Blankets--cloaks--
anything will do.  When that's done, let all seek shelter within the
waggons.  Let the tilts be closed at the ends.  I shall myself look to
the travelling carriage."

Having delivered this chapter of instructions--which Poindexter,
assisted by the overseer, hastened to direct the execution of--the young
horseman galloped towards the front.

"Madame!" said he, reining up alongside the carriole, and speaking with
as much suavity as the circumstances would admit of, "you must close the
curtains all round.  Your coachman will have to get inside; and you,
gentlemen!" he continued, addressing himself to Henry and Calhoun--"and
you, sir;" to Poindexter, who had just come up.  "There will be room for
all.  Inside, I beseech you!  Lose no time.  In a few seconds the storm
will be upon us!"

"And you, sir?" inquired the planter, with a show of interest in the man
who was making such exertions to secure them against some yet
unascertained danger.  "What of yourself?"

"Don't waste a moment upon me.  I know what's coming.  It isn't the
first time I have encountered it.  In--in, I entreat you!  You haven't a
second to spare.  Listen to that shriek!  Quick, or the dust-cloud will
be around us!"

The planter and his son sprang together to the ground; and retreated
into the travelling carriage.

Calhoun, refusing to dismount, remained stiffly seated in his saddle.
Why should _he_ skulk from a visionary danger, that did not deter a man
in Mexican garb?

The latter turned away; as he did so, directing the overseer to get
inside the nearest waggon--a direction which was obeyed with alacrity--
and, for the first time, the stranger was left free to take care of
himself.

Quickly unfolding his _serape_--hitherto strapped across the cantle of
his saddle--he flung it over the head of his horse.  Then, drawing the
edges back, he fastened it, bag-fashion, around the animal's neck.  With
equal alertness he undid his scarf of China crape; and stretched it
around his sombrero--fixing it in such a way, that one edge was held
under the bullion band, while the other dropped down over the brim--thus
forming a silken visor for his face.

Before finally closing it, he turned once more towards the carriole;
and, to his surprise, saw Calhoun still in the saddle.  Humanity
triumphed over a feeling of incipient aversion.

"Once again, sir, I adjure you to get inside!  If you do not you'll have
cause to repent it.  Within ten minutes' time, you may be a dead man!"

The positive emphasis with which the caution was delivered produced its
effect.  In the presence of mortal foeman, Cassius Calhoun was no
coward.  But there was an enemy approaching that was not mortal--not in
any way understood.  It was already making itself manifest, in tones
that resembled thunder--in shadows that mocked the darkness of midnight.
Who would not have felt fear at the approach of a destroyer so
declaring itself?

The ex-officer was unable to resist the united warnings of earth and
heaven; and, slipping out of his saddle with a show of reluctance--
intended to save appearances--he clambered into the carriage, and
ensconced himself behind the closely-drawn curtains.

To describe what followed is beyond the power of the pen.  No eye beheld
the spectacle: for none dared look upon it.  Even had this been
possible, nothing could have been seen.  In five minutes after the
muffling of the mules, the train was enveloped in worse than Cimmerian
darkness.

The opening scene can alone be depicted: for that only was observed by
the travellers.  One of the sable columns, moving in the advance, broke
as it came in collision with the waggon-tilts.  Down came a shower of
black dust, as if the sky had commenced raining gunpowder!  It was a
foretaste of what was to follow.

There was a short interval of open atmosphere--hot as the inside of an
oven.  Then succeeded puffs, and whirling gusts, of wind--cold as if
projected from caves of ice, and accompanied by a noise as though all
the trumpets of Aeolus were announcing the advent of the Storm-King!

In another instant the _norther_ was around them; and the waggon train,
halted on a subtropical plain, was enveloped in an atmosphere, akin to
that which congeals the icebergs of the Arctic Ocean!

Nothing more was seen--nothing heard, save the whistling of the wind, or
its hoarse roaring, as it thundered against the tilts of the waggons.
The mules having instinctively turned stern towards it, stood silent in
their traces; and the voices of the travellers, in solemn converse
inside, could not be distinguished amid the howling of the hurricane.

Every aperture had been closed: for it was soon discovered, that to show
a face from under the sheltering canvas was to court suffocation.  The
air was surcharged with ashes, lifted aloft from the burnt plain, and
reduced, by the whirling of the wind, to an impalpable but poisonous
powder.

For over an hour did the atmosphere carry this cinereous cloud; during
which period lasted the imprisonment of the travellers.

At length a voice, speaking close by the curtains of the carriole,
announced their release.

"You can come forth!" said the stranger, the crape scarf thrown back
above the brim of his hat.  "You will still have the storm to contend
against.  It will last to the end of your journey; and, perhaps, for
three days longer.  But you have nothing further to fear.  The ashes are
all swept off.  They've gone before you; and you're not likely to
overtake them this side the Rio Grande."

"Sir!" said the planter, hastily descending the steps of the carriage,
"we have to thank you for--for--"

"Our lives, father!" cried Henry, supplying the proper words.  "I hope,
sir, you will favour us with your name?"

"_Maurice Gerald_!" returned the stranger; "though, at the Fort, you
will find me better known as _Maurice the mustanger_."

"A mustanger!" scornfully muttered Calhoun, but only loud enough to be
heard by Louise.

"Only a mustanger!" reflected the aristocratic Poindexter, the fervour
of his gratitude becoming sensibly chilled.

"For guide, you will no longer need either myself, or my lazo," said the
hunter of wild horses.  "The cypress is in sight: keep straight towards
it.  After crossing, you will see the flag over the Fort.  You may yet
reach your journey's end before night.  I have no time to tarry; and
must say adieu."

Satan himself, astride a Tartarean steed, could not have looked more
like the devil than did Maurice the Mustanger, as he separated for the
second time from the planter and his party.  But neither his ashy
envelope, nor the announcement of his humble calling, did aught to
damage him in the estimation of one, whose thoughts were already
predisposed in his favour--Louise Poindexter.

On hearing him declare his name--by presumption already known to her--
she but more tenderly cherished the bit of cardboard, chafing against
her snow-white bosom; at the same time muttering in soft pensive
soliloquy, heard only by herself:--

"Maurice the mustanger! despite your sooty covering--despite your modest
pretence--you have touched the heart of a Creole maiden.  _Mon
Dieu_--_mon Dieu!  He is too like Lucifer for me to despise him_!"



CHAPTER FIVE.

THE HOME OF THE HORSE-HUNTER.

Where the _Rio de Nueces_ (River of Nuts) collects its waters from a
hundred tributary streams--lining the map like the limbs of a grand
genealogical tree--you may look upon a land of surpassing fairness.  Its
surface is "rolling prairie," interspersed with clumps of post-oak and
pecan, here and there along the banks of the watercourses uniting into
continuous groves.

In some places these timbered tracts assume the aspect of the true
_chapparal_--a thicket, rather than a forest--its principal growth being
various kinds of acacia, associated with copaiva and creosote trees,
with wild aloes, with eccentric shapes of cereus, cactus, and
arborescent yucca.

These spinous forms of vegetation, though repulsive to the eye of the
agriculturist--as proving the utter sterility of the soil--present an
attractive aspect to the botanist, or the lover of Nature; especially
when the cereus unfolds its huge wax-like blossoms, or the _Fouquiera
splendens_ overtops the surrounding shrubbery with its spike of
resplendent flowers, like a red flag hanging unfolded along its staff.

The whole region, however, is not of this character.  There are
stretches of greater fertility; where a black calcareous earth gives
nourishment to trees of taller growth, and more luxuriant foliage.  The
"wild China"--a true _sapindal_--the pecan, the elm, the hackberry, and
the oak of several species--with here and there a cypress or
Cottonwood--form the components of many a sylvan scene, which, from the
blending of their leaves of various shades of green, and the ever
changing contour of their clumps, deserves to be denominated fair.

The streams of this region are of crystal purity--their waters tinted
only by the reflection of sapphire skies.  Its sun, moon, and stars are
scarcely ever concealed behind a cloud.  The demon of disease has not
found his way into this salubrious spot: no epidemic can dwell within
its borders.

Despite these advantages, civilised man has not yet made it his home.
Its paths are trodden only by the red-skinned rovers of the prairie--
Lipano or Comanche--and these only when mounted, and upon the _maraud_
towards the settlements of the Lower Nueces, or Leona.

It may be on this account--though it would almost seem as if they were
actuated by a love of the beautiful and picturesque--that the true
children of Nature, the wild animals, have selected this spot as their
favourite habitat and home.  In no part of Texas does the stag bound up
so often before you; and nowhere is the timid antelope so frequently
seen.  The rabbit, and his gigantic cousin, the mule-rabbit, are
scarcely ever out of sight; while the polecat, the opossum, and the
curious peccary, are encountered at frequent intervals.

Birds, too, of beautiful forms and colours, enliven the landscape.  The
quail whirrs up from the path; the king vulture wheels in the ambient
air; the wild turkey, of gigantic stature, suns his resplendent gorget
by the side of the pecan copse, and the singular tailor-bird--known
among the rude Rangers as the "bird of paradise"--flouts his long
scissors-like tail among the feathery fronds of the acacia.

Beautiful butterflies spread their wide wings in flapping flight; or,
perched upon some gay corolla, look as if they formed part of the
flower.  Huge bees (_Meliponae_), clad in velvet liveries, buzz amid the
blossoming bushes, disputing possession with hawkmoths and humming-birds
not much larger than themselves.

They are not all innocent, the denizens of this lovely land.  Here the
rattlesnake attains to larger dimensions than in any other part of North
America, and shares the covert with the more dangerous _moccasin_.
Here, too, the tarantula inflicts its venomous sting; the scorpion
poisons with its bite; and the centipede, by simply crawling over the
skin, causes a fever that may prove fatal!

Along the wooded banks of the streams may be encountered the spotted
ocelot, the puma, and their more powerful congener, the jaguar; the last
of these _felidae_ being here upon the northern limit of its
geographical range.

Along the edges of the chapparal skulks the gaunt Texan wolf--solitarily
and in silence; while a kindred and more cowardly species, the _coyote_,
may be observed, far out upon the open plain, hunting in packs.

Sharing the same range with these, the most truculent of quadrupeds, may
be seen the noblest and most beautiful of animals--perhaps nobler and
more beautiful than man--certainly the most distinguished of man's
companions--the horse!

Here--independent of man's caprice, his jaw unchecked by bit or curb,
his back unscathed by pack or saddle--he roams unrestrained; giving way
to all the wildness of his nature.

But even in this, his favourite haunt, he is not always left alone.  Man
presumes to be his pursuer and tamer: for here was he sought, captured,
and conquered, by _Maurice the Mustanger_.

On the banks of the _Alamo_--one of the most sparkling streamlets that
pay tribute to the Nueces--stood a dwelling, unpretentious as any to be
found within the limits of Texas, and certainly as picturesque.

Its walls were composed of split trunk of the arborescent yucca, set
stockade-fashion in the ground; while its roof was a thatch furnished by
the long bayonet-shaped loaves of the same gigantic lily.

The interstices between the uprights, instead of being "chinked" with
clay--as is common in the cabins of Western Texas--were covered by a
sheeting of horse-skins; attached, not by iron tacks, but with the sharp
spines that terminate the leaves of the _pita_ plant.

On the bluffs, that on both sides overlooked the rivulet--and which were
but the termination of the escarpment of the higher plain--grew in
abundance the material out of which the hut had been constructed: tree
yuccas and _magueys_, amidst other rugged types of sterile vegetation;
whereas the fertile valley below was covered with a growth of heavy
timber--consisting chiefly of red-mulberry, post-oak, and pecan, that
formed a forest of several leagues in length.  The timbered tract was,
in fact, conterminous with the bottom lands; the tops of the trees
scarce rising to a level with the escarpment of the cliff.

It was not continuous.  Along the edge of the streamlet were breaks--
forming little meads, or savannahs, covered with that most nutritious of
grasses, known among Mexicans as _grama_.

In the concavity of one of these, of semicircular shape--which served as
a natural lawn--stood the primitive dwelling above described; the
streamlet representing the chord; while the curve was traced by the
trunks of the trees, that resembled a series of columns supporting the
roof of some sylvan coliseum.

The structure was in shadow, a little retired among the trees; as if the
site had been chosen with a view to concealment.  It could have been
seen but by one passing along the bank of the stream; and then only with
the observer directly in front of it.  Its rude style of architecture,
and russet hue, contributed still further to its _inconspicuousness_.

The house was a mere cabin--not larger than a marquee tent--with only a
single aperture, the door--if we except the flue of a slender clay
chimney, erected at one end against the upright posts.  The doorway had
a door, a light framework of wood, with a horse-skin stretched over it,
and hung upon hinges cut from the same hide.

In the rear was an open shed, thatched with yucca leaves, and supported
by half a dozen posts.  Around this was a small enclosure, obtained by
tying cross poles to the trunks of the adjacent trees.

A still more extensive enclosure, containing within its circumference
more than an acre of the timbered tract, and fenced in a similar manner,
extended rearward from the cabin, terminating against the bluff.  Its
turf tracked and torn by numerous hoof-prints--in some places trampled
into a hard surface--told of its use: a "corral" for wild
horses--_mustangs_.

This was made still more manifest by the presence of a dozen or more of
these animals within the enclosure; whose glaring eyeballs, and excited
actions, gave evidence of their recent capture, and how ill they brooked
the imprisonment of that shadowy paddock.

The interior of the hut was not without some show of neatness and
comfort.  The sheeting of mustang-skins that covered the walls, with the
hairy side turned inward, presented no mean appearance.  The smooth
shining coats of all colours--black, bay, snow-white, sorrel, and
skewbald--offered to the eye a surface pleasantly variegated; and there
had evidently been some taste displayed in their arrangement.

The furniture was of the scantiest kind.  It consisted of a counterfeit
camp bedstead, formed by stretching a horse-hide over a framework of
trestles; a couple of stools--diminutive specimens on the same model;
and a rude table, shaped out of hewn slabs of the yucca-tree.  Something
like a second sleeping place appeared in a remote corner--a "shakedown,"
or "spread," of the universal mustang-skin.

What was least to be expected in such a place, was a shelf containing
about a score of books, with pens, ink, and _papeterie_; also a
newspaper lying upon the slab table.

Further proofs of civilisation, if not refinement, presented themselves
in the shape of a large leathern portmanteau, a double-barrelled gun,
with "Westley Richards" upon the breech; a drinking cup of chased
silver, a huntsman's horn, and a dog-call.

Upon the floor were a few culinary utensils, mostly of tin; while in one
corner stood a demijohn, covered with wicker, and evidently containing
something stronger than the water of the Alamo.

Other "chattels" in the cabin were perhaps more in keeping with the
place.  There was a high-peaked Mexican saddle; a bridle, with headstall
of plaited horsehair, and reins to correspond; two or three spare
_serapes_, and some odds and ends of raw-hide rope.

Such was the structure of the mustanger's dwelling--such its
surroundings--such its interior and contents, with the exception of its
living occupants--two in number.

On one of the stools standing in the centre of the floor was seated a
man, who could not be the mustanger himself.  In no way did he present
the semblance of a proprietor.  On the contrary, the air of the
servitor--the mien of habitual obedience--was impressed upon him beyond
the chance of misconstruction.

Rude as was the cabin that sheltered him, no one entering under its roof
would have mistaken him for its master.

Not that he appeared ill clad or fed, or in any way stinted in his
requirements.  He was a round plump specimen, with a shock of
carrot-coloured hair and a bright ruddy skin, habited in a suit of stout
stuff--half corduroy, half cotton-velvet.  The corduroy was in the shape
of a pair of knee-breeches, with gaiters to correspond; the velveteen,
once bottle green, now faded to a brownish hue, exhibited itself in a
sort of shooting coat, with ample pockets in the breast and skirts.

A "wide-awake" hat, cocked over a pair of eyes equally deserving the
appellation, completed the costume of the individual in question--if we
except a shirt of coarse calico, a red cotton kerchief loosely knotted
around his neck, and a pair of Irish _brogues_ upon his feet.

It needed neither the brogues, nor the corduroy breeches, to proclaim
his nationality.  His lips, nose, eyes, air, and attitude, were all
unmistakably Milesian.

Had there been any ambiguity about this, it would have been dispelled as
he opened his mouth for the emission of speech; and this he at intervals
did, in an accent that could only have been acquired in the shire of
Galway.  As he was the sole human occupant of the cabin, it might be
supposed that he spoke only in soliloquy.  Not so, however.  Couched
upon a piece of horse-skin, in front of the fire, with snout half buried
among the ashes, was a canine companion, whose appearance bespoke a
countryman--a huge Irish staghound, that looked as if he too understood
the speech of Connemara.

Whether he did so or not, it was addressed to him, as if he was expected
to comprehend every word.

"Och, Tara, me jewel!" exclaimed he in the corduroys, fraternally
interrogating the hound; "hadn't yez weesh now to be back in
Ballyballagh?  Wadn't yez loike to be wance more in the coortyard av the
owld castle, friskin' over the clane stones, an bein' tripe-fed till
there wasn't a rib to be seen in your sides--so different from what they
are now--when I kyan count ivery wan av them?  Sowl! it's meself that ud
loike to be there, anyhow!  But there's no knowin' when the young
masther 'll go back, an take us along wid him.  Niver mind, Tara!  He's
goin' to the Sittlements soon, ye owld dog; an he's promised to take us
thare; that's some consolashun.  Be japers! it's over three months since
I've been to the Fort, meself.  Maybe I'll find some owld acquaintance
among them Irish sodgers that's come lately; an be me sowl, av I do,
won't there be a dhrap betwane us--won't there, Tara?"

The staghound, raising his head at hearing the mention of his name, gave
a slight sniff, as if saying "Yes" in answer to the droll interrogatory.

"I'd like a dhrap now," continued the speaker, casting a covetous glance
towards the wickered jar; "mightily I wud that same; but the dimmyjan is
too near bein' empty, an the young masther might miss it.  Besides, it
wudn't be raal honest av me to take it widout lave--wud it, Tara?"

The dog again raised his head above the ashes, and sneezed as before.

"Why, that was _yis_, the last time ye spoke!  Div yez mane is for the
same now?  Till me, Tara!"

Once more the hound gave utterance to the sound--that appeared to be
caused either by a slight touch of influenza, or the ashes having
entered his nostrils.

"`Yis' again?  In trath that's just fwhat the dumb crayther manes!
Don't timpt me, ye owld thief!  No--no; I won't touch the whisky.  I'll
only draw the cork out av the dimmyjan, an take a smell at it.  Shure
the masther won't know anything about that; an if he did, he wudn't mind
it!  Smellin' kyant do the pothyeen any harm."

During the concluding portion of this utterance, the speaker had
forsaken his seat, and approached the corner where stood the jar.

Notwithstanding the professed innocence of his intent, there was a
stealthiness about his movements, that seemed to argue either a want of
confidence in his own integrity, or in his power to resist temptation.

He stood for a short while listening--his eyes turned towards the open
doorway; and then, taking up the demijohn, he drew out the stopper, and
held the neck to his nose.

For some seconds he remained in this attitude: giving out no other sign
than an occasional "sniff," similar to that uttered by the hound, and
which he had been fain to interpret as an affirmative answer to his
interrogatory.  It expressed the enjoyment he was deriving from the
_bouquet_ of the potent spirit.

But this only satisfied him for a very short time; and gradually the
bottom of the jar was seen going upwards, while the reverse end
descended in like ratio in the direction of his protruding lips.

"Be japers!" he exclaimed, once more glancing stealthily towards the
door, "flesh and blood cudn't stand the smell av that bewtiful whisky,
widout tastin' it.  Trath!  I'll chance it--jist the smallest thrifle to
wet the tap av my tongue.  Maybe it'll burn the skin av it; but no
matther--here goes!"

Without further ado the neck of the demijohn was brought in contact with
his lips; but instead of the "smallest thrifle" to wet the top of his
tongue, the "gluck--gluck" of the escaping fluid told that he was
administering a copious saturation to the whole lining of his larynx,
and something more.

After half a dozen "smacks" of the mouth, with other exclamations
denoting supreme satisfaction, he hastily restored the stopper; returned
the demijohn to its place; and glided back to his seat upon the stool.

"Tara, ye owld thief!" said he, addressing himself once more to his
canine companion, "it was you that timpted me!  No matther, man: the
masther 'll niver miss it; besides, he's goin' soon to the Fort, an can
lay in a fresh supply."

For a time the pilferer remained silent; either reflecting on the act he
had committed, or enjoying the effects which the "potheen" had produced
upon his spirits.

His silence was of short duration; and was terminated by a soliloquy.

"I wondher," muttered he, "fwhat makes Masther Maurice so anxious to get
back to the Sittlements.  He says he'll go wheniver he catches that
spotty mustang he has seen lately.  Sowl! isn't he bad afther that
baste!  I suppose it must be somethin' beyant the common--the more be
token, as he has chased the crayther three times widout bein' able to
throw his rope over it--an mounted on the blood-bay, too.  He sez he
won't give it up, till he gets howlt of it.  Trath!  I hope it'll be
grupped soon, or wez may stay here till the marnin' av doomsday.  Hush!
fwhat's that?"

Tara springing up from his couch of skin, and rushing out with a low
growl, had caused the exclamation.

"Phelim!" hailed a voice from the outside.  "Phelim!"

"It's the masther," muttered Phelim, as he jumped from his stool, and
followed the dog through the doorway.



CHAPTER SIX.

THE SPOTTED MUSTANG.

Phelim was not mistaken as to the voice that had hailed him.  It was
that of his master, Maurice Gerald.

On getting outside, he saw the mustanger at a short distance from the
door, and advancing towards it.

As the servant should have expected, his master was mounted upon his
horse--no longer of a reddish colour, but appearing almost black.  The
animal's coat was darkened with sweat; its counter and flanks speckled
with foam.

The blood-bay was not alone.  At the end of the lazo--drawn taut from
the saddle tree--was a companion, or, to speak more accurately, a
captive.  With a leathern thong looped around its under jaw, and firmly
embracing the bars of its mouth, kept in place by another passing over
its neck immediately behind the ears, was the captive secured.

It was a mustang of peculiar appearance, as regarded its markings; which
were of a kind rarely seen--even among the largest "gangs" that roam
over the prairie pastures, where colours of the most eccentric patterns
are not uncommon.

That of the animal in question was a ground of dark chocolate in places
approaching to black--with white spots distributed over it, as regularly
as the contrary colours upon the skin of the jaguar.

As if to give effect to this pleasing arrangement of hues, the creature
was of perfect shape--broad chested, full in the flank, and clean
limbed--with a hoof showing half a score of concentric rings, and a head
that might have been taken as a type of equine beauty.  It was of large
size for a mustang, though much smaller than the ordinary English horse;
even smaller than the blood-bay--himself a mustang--that had assisted in
its capture.

The beautiful captive was a mare--one of a _manada_ that frequented the
plains near the source of the Alamo; and where, for the third time, the
mustanger had unsuccessfully chased it.

In his case the proverb had proved untrue.  In the third time he had not
found the "charm"; though it favoured him in the fourth.  By the
fascination of a long rope, with a running noose at its end, he had
secured the creature that, for some reason known only to himself, he so
ardently wished to possess.

Phelim had never seen his master return from a horse-hunting excursion
in such a state of excitement; even when coming back--as he often did--
with half a dozen mustangs led loosely at the end of his lazo.

But never before at the end of that implement had Phelim beheld such a
beauty as the spotted mare.  She was a thing to excite the admiration of
one less a connoisseur in horse-flesh than the _ci-devant_ stable-boy of
Castle Ballagh.

"Hooch--hoop--hoora!" cried he, as he set eyes upon the captive, at the
same time tossing his hat high into the air.  "Thanks to the Howly
Vargin, an Saint Pathrick to boot, Masther Maurice, yez have cotched the
spotty at last!  It's a mare, be japers!  Och! the purthy crayther!  I
don't wondher yez hiv been so bad about gettin' howlt av her.  Sowl! if
yez had her in Ballinasloe Fair, yez might ask your own price, and get
it too, widout givin' sixpence av luckpenny.  Oh! the purty crayther!
Where will yez hiv her phut, masther?  Into the corral, wid the others?"

"No, she might get kicked among them.  We shall tie her in the shed.
Castro must pass his night outside among the trees.  If he's got any
gallantry in him he won't mind that.  Did you ever see anything so
beautiful as she is, Phelim--I mean in the way of horseflesh?"

"Niver, Masther Maurice; niver, in all me life!  An' I've seen some nice
bits av blood about Ballyballagh.  Oh, the purty crayther! she looks as
if a body cud ate her; and yit, in trath, she looks like she wud ate
you.  Yez haven't given her the schoolin' lesson, have yez?"

"No, Phelim: I don't want to break her just yet--not till I have time,
and can do it properly.  It would never do to spoil such perfection as
that.  I shall tame her, after we've taken her to the Settlements."

"Yez be goin' there, masther Maurice?  When?"

"To-morrow.  We shall start by daybreak, so as to make only one day
between here and the Fort."

"Sowl!  I'm glad to hear it.  Not on me own account, but yours, Masther
Maurice.  Maybe yez don't know that the whisky's on the idge of bein'
out?  From the rattle av the jar, I don't think there's more than three
naggins left.  Them sutlers at the Fort aren't honest.  They chate ye in
the mizyure; besides watherin' the whisky, so that it won't bear a dhrap
more out av the strame hare.  Trath! a gallon av Innishowen wud last
ayqual to three av this Amerikin _rotgut_, as the Yankees themselves
christen it."

"Never mind about the whisky, Phelim--I suppose there's enough to last
us for this night, and fill our flasks for the journey of to-morrow.
Look alive, old Ballyballagh!  Let us stable the spotted mare; and then
I shall have time to talk about a fresh supply of `potheen,' which I
know you like better than anything else--except yourself!"

"And you, Masther Maurice!" retorted the Galwegian, with a comical
twinkle of the eye, that caused his master to leap laughingly out of the
saddle.

The spotted mare was soon stabled in the shed, Castro being temporarily
attached to a tree; where Phelim proceeded to groom him after the most
approved prairie fashion.

The mustanger threw himself on his horse-skin couch, wearied with the
work of the day.  The capture of the "yegua pinta" had cost him a long
and arduous chase--such as he had never ridden before in pursuit of a
mustang.

There was a motive that had urged him on, unknown to Phelim--unknown to
Castro who carried him--unknown to living creature, save himself.

Notwithstanding that he had spent several days in the saddle--the last
three in constant pursuit of the spotted mare--despite the weariness
thus occasioned, he was unable to obtain repose.  At intervals he rose
to his feet, and paced the floor of his hut, as if stirred by some
exciting emotion.

For several nights he had slept uneasily--at intervals tossing upon his
_catre_--till not only his henchman Phelim, but his hound Tara, wondered
what could be the meaning of his _unrest_.

The former might have attributed it to his desire to possess the spotted
mare; had he not known that his master's feverish feeling antedated his
knowledge of the existence of this peculiar quadruped.

It was several days after his last return from the Fort that the "yegua
pinta" had first presented herself to the eye of the mustanger.  That
therefore could not be the cause of his altered demeanour.

His success in having secured the animal, instead of tranquillising his
spirit, seemed to have produced the contrary effect.  At least, so
thought Phelim: who--with the freedom of that relationship known as
"foster-brother"--had at length determined on questioning his master as
to the cause of his inquietude.  As the latter lay shifting from side to
side, he was saluted with the interrogatory--

"Masther Maurice, fwhat, in the name of the Howly Vargin, is the matther
wid ye?"

"Nothing, Phelim--nothing, _mabohil_!  What makes you think there is?"

"_Alannah_!  How kyan I help thinkin' it!  Yez kyant get a wink av
sleep; niver since ye returned the last time from the Sittlement.  Och!
yez hiv seen somethin' there that kapes ye awake?  Shure now, it isn't
wan av them Mixikin girls--_mowchachas_, as they call them?  No, I won't
believe it.  You wudn't be wan av the owld Geralds to care for such
trash as them."

"Nonsense, my good fellow!  There's nothing the matter with me.  It's
all your own imagination."

"Trath, masther, yez arr mistaken.  If there's anything asthray wid me
imaginashun, fhwat is it that's gone wrong wid your own?  That is, whin
yez arr aslape--which aren't often av late."

"When I'm asleep!  What do you mean, Phelim?"

"What div I mane?  Fwhy, that wheniver yez close your eyes an think yez
are sleepin', ye begin palaverin', as if a preast was confessin' ye!"

"Ah!  Is that so?  What have you heard me say?"

"Not much, masther, that I cud make sinse out av.  Yez be always tryin'
to pronounce a big name that appares to have no indin', though it begins
wid a _point_!"

"A name!  What name?"

"Sowl!  I kyan't till ye exakly.  It's too long for me to remimber,
seein' that my edicashun was intirely neglicted.  But there's another
name that yez phut before it; an that I kyan tell ye.  It's a wuman's
name, though it's not common in the owld counthry.  It's Looaze that ye
say, Masther Maurice; an then comes _the point_."

"Ah!" interrupted the young Irishman, evidently not caring to converse
longer on the subject.  "Some name I may have heard--somewhere,
accidentally.  One does have such strange ideas in dreams!"

"Trath! yez spake the truth there; for in your drames, masther, ye talk
about a purty girl lookin' out av a carriage wid curtains to it, an
tellin' her to close them agaynst some danger that yez are going to save
her from."

"I wonder what puts such nonsense into my head?"

"I wondher meself," rejoined Phelim, fixing his eyes upon his young
master with a stealthy but scrutinising look.  "Shure," he continued,
"if I may make bowld to axe the quistyun--shure, Masther Maurice, yez
haven't been makin' a Judy Fitzsummon's mother av yerself, an fallin' in
love wid wan of these Yankee weemen out hare?  Och an-an-ee! that wud be
a misforthune; an thwat wud she say--the purty colleen wid the goodlen
hair an blue eyes, that lives not twinty miles from Ballyballagh?"

"Poh, poh!  Phelim! you're taking leave of your senses, I fear."

"Trath, masther, I aren't; but I know somethin' I wud like to take lave
av."

"What is that?  Not me, I hope?"

"You, _alannah_?  Niver!  It's Tixas I mane.  I'd like to take lave of
that; an you goin' along wid me back to the owld sad.  Arrah, now,
fhwat's the use av yer stayin' here, wastin' the best part av yer days
in doin' nothin'?  Shure yez don't make more than a bare livin' by the
horse-catchin'; an if yez did, what mathers it?  Yer owld aunt at Castle
Ballagh can't howld out much longer; an when she's did, the bewtiful
demane 'll be yours, spite av the dhirty way she's thratin' ye.  Shure
the property's got a tail to it; an not a mother's son av them can kape
ye out av it!"

"Ha! ha! ha!" laughed the young Irishman: "you're quite a lawyer,
Phelim.  What a first-rate attorney you'd have made!  But come!  You
forget that I haven't tasted food since morning.  What have you got in
the larder?"

"Trath! there's no great stock, masther.  Yez haven't laid in anythin'
for the three days yez hiv been afther spotty.  There's only the cowld
venison an the corn-bread.  If yez like I'll phut the venison in the
pat, an make a hash av it."

"Yes, do so.  I can wait."

"Won't yez wait betther afther tastin' a dhrap av the crayther?"

"True--let me have it."

"Will yez take it nate, or with a little wather?  Trath! it won't carry
much av that same."

"A glass of grog--draw the water fresh from the stream."

Phelim took hold of the silver drinking-cup, and was about stepping
outside, when a growl from Tara, accompanied by a start, and followed by
a rush across the floor, caused the servitor to approach the door with a
certain degree of caution.

The barking of the dog soon subsided into a series of joyful
whimperings, which told that he had been gratified by the sight of some
old acquaintance.

"It's owld Zeb Stump," said Phelim, first peeping out, and then stepping
boldly forth--with the double design of greeting the new-comer, and
executing the order he had received from his master.

The individual, who had thus freely presented himself in front of the
mustanger's cabin, was as unlike either of its occupants, as one from
the other.

He stood fall six feet high, in a pair of tall boots, fabricated out of
tanned alligator skin; into the ample tops of which were thrust the
bottoms of his pantaloons--the latter being of woollen homespun, that
had been dyed with "dog-wood ooze," but was now of a simple dirt colour.
A deerskin under shirt, without any other, covered his breast and
shoulders; over which was a "blanket coat," that had once been green,
long since gone to a greenish yellow, with most of the wool worn off.

There was no other garment to be seen: a slouch felt hat, of greyish
colour, badly battered, completing the simple, and somewhat scant,
collection of his wardrobe.

He was equipped in the style of a backwoods hunter, of the true Daniel
Boone breed: bullet-pouch, and large crescent-shaped powder-horn, both
suspended by shoulder-straps, hanging under the right arm; a waist-belt
of thick leather keeping his coat closed and sustaining a skin sheath,
from which protruded the rough stag-horn handle of a long-bladed knife.

He did not affect either mocassins, leggings, nor the caped and fringed
tunic shirt of dressed deerskin worn by most Texan hunters.  There was
no embroidery upon his coarse clothing, no carving upon his
accoutrements or weapons, nothing in his _tout ensemble_ intended as
ornamental.  Everything was plain almost to rudeness: as if dictated by
a spirit that despised "fanfaron."

Even the rifle, his reliable weapon--the chief tool of his trade--looked
like a rounded bar of iron, with a piece of brown unpolished wood at the
end, forming its stock; stock and barrel, when the butt rested on the
ground, reaching up to the level of his shoulder.

The individual thus clothed and equipped was apparently about fifty
years of age, with a complexion inclining to dark, and features that, at
first sight, exhibited a grave aspect.

On close scrutiny, however, could be detected an underlying stratum of
quiet humour; and in the twinkle of a small greyish eye there was
evidence that its owner could keenly relish a joke, or, at times,
perpetrate one.

The Irishman had pronounced his name: it was Zebulon Stump, or "Old Zeb
Stump," as he was better known to the very limited circle of his
acquaintances.

"Kaintuck, by birth an raisin',"--as he would have described himself, if
asked the country of his nativity--he had passed the early part of his
life among the primeval forests of the Lower Mississippi--his sole
calling that of a hunter; and now, at a later period, he was performing
the same _metier_ in the wilds of south-western Texas.

The behaviour of the staghound, as it bounded before him, exhibiting a
series of canine welcomes, told of a friendly acquaintance between Zeb
Stump and Maurice the mustanger.

"Evenin'!" laconically saluted Zeb, as his tail figure shadowed the
cabin door.

"Good evening', Mr Stump!" rejoined the owner of the hut, rising to
receive him.  "Step inside, and take a seat!"

The hunter accepted the invitation; and, making a single stride across
the floor, after some awkward manoeuvring, succeeded in planting himself
on the stool lately occupied by Phelim.  The lowness of the seat brought
his knees upon a level with his chin, the tall rifle rising like a
pikestaff several feet above his head.

"Durn stools, anyhow!" muttered he, evidently dissatisfied with the
posture; "an' churs, too, for thet matter.  I likes to plant my starn
upon a log: thur ye've got somethin' under ye as ain't like to guv way."

"Try that," said his host, pointing to the leathern portmanteau in the
corner: "you'll find it a firmer seat."

Old Zeb, adopting the suggestion, unfolded the zigzag of his colossal
carcase, and transferred it to the trunk.

"On foot, Mr Stump, as usual?"

"No: I got my old critter out thur, tied to a saplin'.  I wa'n't a
huntin'."

"You never hunt on horseback, I believe?"

"I shed be a greenhorn if I dud.  Anybody as goes huntin' a hossback
must be a durnation fool!"

"But it's the universal fashion in Texas!"

"Univarsal or no, it air a fool's fashion--a durned lazy fool's fashion!
I kill more meat in one day afut, then I ked in a hul week wi' a hoss
atween my legs.  I don't misdoubt that a hoss air the best thing for
you--bein' as yur game's entire different.  But when ye go arter baar,
or deer, or turkey eyther, ye won't see much o' them, trampin' about
through the timmer a hossback, an scarrin' everythin' es hes got ears
'ithin the circuit o' a mile.  As for hosses, I shodn't be bothered wi'
ne'er a one no how, ef twa'n't for packin' the meat: thet's why I keep
my ole maar."

"She's outside, you say?  Let Phelim take her round to the shed.  You'll
stay all night?"

"I kim for that purpiss.  But ye needn't trouble about the maar: she air
hitched safe enuf.  I'll let her out on the laryitt, afore I take to
grass."

"You'll have something to eat?  Phelim was just getting supper ready.
I'm sorry I can't offer you anything very dainty--some hash of venison."

"Nothin' better 'n good deermeat, 'ceptin it be baar; but I like both
done over the coals.  Maybe I can help ye to some'at thet'll make a
roast.  Mister Pheelum, ef ye don't mind steppin' to whar my critter air
hitched, ye'll find a gobbler hangin' over the horn o' the seddle.  I
shot the bird as I war comin' up the crik."

"Oh, that is rare good fortune!  Our larder has got very low--quite out,
in truth.  I've been so occupied, for the last three days, in chasing a
very curious mustang, that I never thought of taking my gun with me.
Phelim and I, and Tara, too, had got to the edge of starvation."

"Whet sort o' a mustang?" inquired the hunter, in a tone that betrayed
interest, and without appearing to notice the final remark.

"A mare; with white spots on a dark chocolate ground--a splendid
creature!"

"Durn it, young fellur! thet air's the very bizness thet's brung me over
to ye."

"Indeed!"

"I've seed that mustang--maar, ye say it air, though I kedn't tell, as
she'd niver let me 'ithin hef a mile o' her.  I've seed her several
times out on the purayra, an I jest wanted ye to go arter her.  I'll
tell ye why.  I've been to the Leeona settlements since I seed you last,
and since I seed her too.  Wal, theer hev kum thur a man as I knowed on
the Mississippi.  He air a rich planter, as used to keep up the tallest
kind o' doin's, 'specially in the feestin' way.  Many's the jeint o'
deermeat, and many's the turkey-gobbler this hyur coon hes surplied for
his table.  His name air Peintdexter."

"Poindexter?"

"Thet air the name--one o' the best known on the Mississippi from
Orleens to Saint Looey.  He war rich then; an, I reck'n, ain't poor
now--seein' as he's brought about a hunderd niggers along wi' him.
Beside, thur's a nephew o' hisn, by name Calhoun.  He's got the dollars,
an nothin' to do wi' 'em but lend 'em to his uncle--the which, for a
sartin reezun, I think he _will_.  Now, young fellur, I'll tell ye why I
wanted to see _you_.  Thet 'ere planter hev got a darter, as air dead
bent upon hossflesh.  She used to ride the skittishest kind o' cattle in
Loozeyanner, whar they lived.  She heern me tellin' the old 'un 'bout
the spotted mustang; and nothin' would content her thur and then, till
he promised he'd offer a big price for catchin' the critter.  He sayed
he'd give a kupple o' hunderd dollars for the anymal, ef 'twur anythin
like what I sayed it wur.  In coorse, I knowed thet 'ud send all the
mustangers in the settlement straight custrut arter it; so, sayin'
nuthin' to nobody, I kim over hyur, fast as my ole maar 'ud fetch me.
You grup thet 'ere spotty, an Zeb Stump 'll go yur bail ye'll grab them
two hunderd dollars."

"Will you step this way, Mr Stump?" said the young Irishman, rising
from his stool, and proceeding in the direction of the door.

The hunter followed, not without showing some surprise at the abrupt
invitation.

Maurice conducted his visitor round to the rear of the cabin; and,
pointing into the shed, inquired--

"Does that look anything like the mustang you've been speaking of?"

"Dog-gone my cats, ef 'taint the eyedenticul same!  Grupped already!
Two hunderd dollars, easy as slidin' down a barked saplin'!  Young
fellur, yur in luck: two hunderd, slick sure!--and durn me, ef the
anymal ain't worth every cent o' the money!  Geehosofat! what a putty
beest it air!  Won't Miss Peintdexter be pleezed!  It'll turn that young
critter 'most crazy!"



CHAPTER SEVEN.

NOCTURNAL ANNOYANCES.

The unexpected discovery, that his purpose had been already anticipated
by the capture of the spotted mustang, raised the spirits of the old
hunter to a high pitch of excitement.

They were further elevated by a portion of the contents of the demijohn,
which held out beyond Phelim's expectations: giving all hands an
appetising "nip" before attacking the roast turkey, with another go each
to wash it down, and several more to accompany the post-cenal pipe.

While this was being indulged in, a conversation was carried on; the
themes being those that all prairie men delight to talk about: Indian
and hunter lore.

As Zeb Stump was a sort of living encyclopaedia of the latter, he was
allowed to do most of the talking; and he did it in such a fashion as to
draw many a wondering ejaculation, from the tongue of the astonished
Galwegian.

Long before midnight, however, the conversation was brought to a close.
Perhaps the empty demijohn was, as much as anything else, the monitor
that urged their retiring to rest; though there was another and more
creditable reason.  On the morrow, the mustanger intended to start for
the Settlements; and it was necessary that all should be astir at an
early hour, to make preparation for the journey.  The wild horses, as
yet but slightly tamed, had to be strung together, to secure against
their escaping by the way; and many other matters required attending to
previous to departure.

The hunter had already tethered out his "ole maar"--as he designated the
sorry specimen of horseflesh he was occasionally accustomed to
bestride--and had brought back with him an old yellowish blanket, which
was all he ever used for a bed.

"You may take my bedstead," said his courteous host; "I can lay myself
on a skin along the floor."

"No," responded the guest; "none o' yer shelves for Zeb Stump to sleep
on.  I prefer the solid groun'.  I kin sleep sounder on it; an
bus-sides, thur's no fear o' fallin' over."

"If you prefer it, then, take the floor.  Here's the best place.  I'll
spread a hide for you."

"Young fellur, don't you do anythin' o' the sort; ye'll only be wastin'
yur time.  This child don't sleep on no floors.  His bed air the green
grass o' the purayra."

"What! you're not going to sleep outside?" inquired the mustanger in
some surprise--seeing that his guest, with the old blanket over his arm,
was making for the door.

"I ain't agoin' to do anythin' else."

"Why, the night is freezing cold--almost as chilly as a norther!"

"Durn that!  It air better to stan' a leetle chillishness, than a
feelin' o' suffercation--which last I wud sartintly hev to go through ef
I slep inside o' a house."

"Surely you are jesting, Mr Stump?"

"Young fellur!" emphatically rejoined the hunter, without making direct
reply to the question.  "It air now nigh all o' six yeer since Zeb Stump
hev stretched his ole karkiss under a roof.  I oncest used to hev a sort
o' a house in the hollow o' a sycamore-tree.  That wur on the
Massissippi, when my ole ooman wur alive, an I kep up the 'stablishment
to 'commerdate her.  Arter she went under, I moved into Loozeyanny; an
then arterward kim out hyur.  Since then the blue sky o' Texas hev been
my only kiver, eyther wakin' or sleepin'."

"If you prefer to lie outside--"

"I prefar it," laconically rejoined the hunter, at the same time
stalking over the threshold, and gliding out upon the little lawn that
lay between the cabin and the creek.

His old blanket was not the only thing he carried along with him.
Beside it, hanging over his arm, could be seen some six or seven yards
of a horsehair rope.  It was a piece of a _cabriesto_--usually employed
for tethering horses--though it was not for this purpose it was now to
be used.

Having carefully scrutinised the grass within a circumference of several
feet in diameter--which a shining moon enabled him to do--he laid the
rope with like care around the spot examined, shaping it into a sort of
irregular ellipse.

Stepping inside this, and wrapping the old blanket around him, he
quietly let himself down into a recumbent position.  In an instant after
he appeared to be asleep.

And he was asleep, as his strong breathing testified: for Zeb Stump,
with a hale constitution and a quiet conscience, had only to summon
sleep, and it came.

He was not permitted long to indulge his repose without interruption.  A
pair of wondering eyes had watched his every movement--the eyes of
Phelim O'Neal.

"Mother av Mozis!" muttered the Galwegian; "fwhat can be the manin' av
the owld chap's surroundin' himself wid the rope?"

The Irishman's curiosity for a while struggled with his courtesy, but at
length overcame it; and just as the slumberer delivered his third snore,
he stole towards him, shook him out of his sleep, and propounded a
question based upon the one he had already put to himself.

"Durn ye for a Irish donkey!" exclaimed Stump, in evident displeasure at
being disturbed; "ye made me think it war mornin'!  What do I put the
rope roun' me for?  What else wud it be for, but to keep off the
varmints!"

"What varmints, Misther Stump?  Snakes, div yez mane?"

"Snakes in coorse.  Durn ye, go to your bed!"

Notwithstanding the sharp rebuke, Phelim returned to the cabin
apparently in high glee.  If there was anything in Texas, "barrin' an
above the Indyins themselves," as he used to say, "that kept him from
slapin', it was them vinamous sarpints.  He hadn't had a good night's
rest, iver since he'd been in the counthry for thinkin' av the ugly
vipers, or dhramin' about thim.  What a pity Saint Pathrick hadn't paid
Tixas a visit before goin' to grace!"

Phelim in his remote residence, isolated as he had been from all
intercourse, had never before witnessed the trick of the _cabriesto_.

He was not slow to avail himself of the knowledge thus acquired.
Returning to the cabin, and creeping stealthily inside--as if not
wishing to wake his master, already asleep--he was seen to take a
_cabriesto_ from its peg; and then going forth again, he carried the
long rope around the stockade walls--paying it out as he proceeded.

Having completed the circumvallation, he re-entered the hut; as he
stepped over the threshold, muttering to himself--

"Sowl!  Phalim O'Nale, you'll slape sound for this night, spite ov all
the snakes in Tixas!"

For some minutes after Phelim's soliloquy, a profound stillness reigned
around the hut of the mustanger.  There was like silence inside; for the
countryman of Saint Patrick, no longer apprehensive on the score of
reptile intruders, had fallen asleep, almost on the moment of his
sinking down upon his spread horse-skin.

For a while it seemed as if everybody was in the enjoyment of perfect
repose, Tara and the captive steeds included.  The only sound heard was
that made by Zeb Stump's "maar," close by cropping the sweet _grama_
grass.

Presently, however, it might have been perceived that the old hunter was
himself stirring.  Instead of lying still in the recumbent attitude to
which he had consigned himself, he could be seen shifting from side to
side, as if some feverish thought was keeping him awake.

After repeating this movement some half-score of times, he at length
raised himself into a sitting posture, and looked discontentedly around.

"Dod-rot his ignorance and imperence--the Irish cuss!" were the words
that came hissing through his teeth.  "He's spoilt my night's rest, durn
him!  'Twould sarve him 'bout right to drag him out, an giv him a
duckin' in the crik.  Dog-goned ef I don't feel 'clined torst doin' it;
only I don't like to displeeze the other Irish, who air a somebody.
Possible I don't git a wink o' sleep till mornin'."

Having delivered himself of this peevish soliloquy, the hunter once more
drew the blanket around his body, and returned to the horizontal
position.

Not to sleep, however; as was testified by the tossing and fidgeting
that followed--terminated by his again raising himself into a sitting
posture.

A soliloquy, very similar to his former one, once more proceeded from
his lips; this time the threat of ducking Phelim in the creek being
expressed with a more emphatic accent of determination.

He appeared to be wavering, as to whether he should carry the design
into execution, when an object coming under his eye gave a new turn to
his thoughts.

On the ground, not twenty feet from where he sate, a long thin body was
seen gliding over the grass.  Its serpent shape, and smooth lubricated
skin--reflecting the silvery light of the moon--rendered the reptile
easy of identification.

"Snake!" mutteringly exclaimed he, as his eye rested upon the reptilian
form.  "Wonder what sort it air, slickerin' aboout hyur at this time o'
the night?  It air too large for a _rattle_; though thur air some in
these parts most as big as it.  But it air too clur i' the colour, an
thin about the belly, for ole rattle-tail!  No; 'tain't one o' them.
Hah--now I ree-cog-nise the varmint!  It air a _chicken_, out on the
sarch arter eggs, I reck'n!  Durn the thing! it air comin' torst me,
straight as it kin crawl!"

The tone in which the speaker delivered himself told that he was in no
fear of the reptile--even after discovering that it was making approach.
He knew that the snake would not cross the _cabriesto_; but on touching
it would turn away: as if the horsehair rope was a line of living fire.
Secure within his magic circle, he could have looked tranquilly at the
intruder, though it had been the most poisonous of prairie serpents.

But it was not.  On the contrary, it was one of the most innocuous--
harmless as the "chicken," from which the species takes its trivial
title--at the same time that it is one of the largest in the list of
North-American _reptilia_.

The expression on Zeb's face, as he sat regarding it, was simply one of
curiosity, and not very keen.  To a hunter in the constant habit of
couching himself upon the grass, there was nothing in the sight either
strange or terrifying; not even when the creature came close up to the
_cabriesto_, and, with head slightly elevated, rubbed its snout against
the rope!

After that there was less reason to be afraid; for the snake, on doing
so, instantly turned round and commenced retreating over the sward.

For a second or two the hunter watched it moving away, without making
any movement himself.  He seemed undecided as to whether he should
follow and destroy it, or leave it to go as it had come--unscathed.  Had
it been a rattlesnake, "copperhead," or "mocassin," he would have acted
up to the curse delivered in the garden of Eden, and planted the heel of
his heavy alligator-skin boot upon its head.  But a harmless
chicken-snake did not come within the limits of Zeb Stump's antipathy:
as was evidenced by some words muttered by him as it slowly receded from
the spot.

"Poor crawlin' critter; let it go!  It ain't no enemy o' mine; though it
do suck a turkey's egg now an then, an in coorse scarcities the breed o'
the birds.  Thet air only its nater, an no reezun why I shed be angry
wi' it.  But thur's a durned good reezun why I shed be wi' thet Irish--
the dog-goned, stinkin' fool, to ha' woke me es he dud!  I feel
dod-rotted like sarvin' him out, ef I ked only think o' some way as
wudn't diskermode the young fellur.  Stay!  By Geehosofat, I've got the
idee--the very thing--sure es my name air Zeb Stump!"

On giving utterance to the last words, the hunter--whose countenance had
suddenly assumed an expression of quizzical cheerfulness--sprang to his
feet; and, with bent body, hastened in pursuit of the retreating
reptile.

A few strides brought him alongside of it; when he pounced upon it with
all his ten digits extended.

In another moment its long glittering body was uplifted from the ground,
and writhing in his grasp.

"Now, Mister Pheelum," exclaimed he, as if apostrophising the serpent,
"ef I don't gi'e yur Irish soul a scare thet 'll keep ye awake till
mornin', I don't know buzzart from turkey.  Hyur goes to purvide ye wi'
a bedfellur!"

On saying this, he advanced towards the hut; and, silently skulking
under its shadow, released the serpent from his gripe--letting it fall
within the circle of the _cabriesto_, with which Phelim had so craftily
surrounded his sleeping-place.

Then returning to his grassy couch, and once more pulling the old
blanket over his shoulders, he muttered--

"The varmint won't come out acrost the rope--thet air sartin; an it
ain't agoin' to leave a yurd o' the groun' 'ithout explorin' for a place
to git clur--thet's eequally sartin.  Ef it don't crawl over thet Irish
greenhorn 'ithin the hef o' an hour, then ole Zeb Stump air a greenhorn
hisself.  Hi! what's thet?  Dog-goned of 'taint on him arready!"

If the hunter had any further reflections to give tongue to, they could
not have been heard: for at that moment there arose a confusion of
noises that must have startled every living creature on the Alamo, and
for miles up and down the stream.

It was a human voice that had given the cue--or rather, a human howl,
such as could proceed only from the throat of a Galwegian.  Phelim
O'Neal was the originator of the infernal _fracas_.

His voice, however, was soon drowned by a chorus of barkings, snortings,
and neighings, that continued without interruption for a period of
several minutes.

"What is it?" demanded his master, as he leaped from the _catre_, and
groped his way towards his terrified servitor.  "What the devil has got
into you, Phelim?  Have you seen a ghost?"

"Oh, masther!--by Jaysus! worse than that: I've been murdhered by a
snake.  It's bit me all over the body.  Blessed Saint Pathrick!  I'm a
poor lost sinner!  I'll be shure to die!"

"Bitten you, you say--where?" asked Maurice, hastily striking a light,
and proceeding to examine the skin of his henchman, assisted by the old
hunter--who had by this time arrived within the cabin.

"I see no sign of bite," continued the mustanger, after having turned
Phelim round and round, and closely scrutinised his epidermis.

"Ne'er a scratch," laconically interpolated Stump.

"Sowl! then, if I'm not bit, so much the better; but it crawled all over
me.  I can feel it now, as cowld as charity, on me skin."

"Was there a snake at all?" demanded Maurice, inclined to doubt the
statement of his follower.  "You've been dreaming of one, Phelim--
nothing more."

"Not a bit of a dhrame, masther: it was a raal sarpint.  Be me sowl, I'm
shure of it!"

"I reck'n thur's been snake," drily remarked the hunter.  "Let's see if
we kin track it up.  Kewrious it air, too.  Thur's a hair rope all roun'
the house.  Wonder how the varmint could ha' crossed thet?  Thur--thur
it is!"

The hunter, as he spoke, pointed to a corner of the cabin, where the
serpent was seen spirally coiled.

"Only a chicken!" he continued: "no more harm in it than in a suckin'
dove.  It kedn't ha' bit ye, Mister Pheelum; but we'll put it past
bitin', anyhow."

Saying this, the hunter seized the snake in his hands; and, raising it
aloft, brought it down upon the floor of the cabin with a "thwank" that
almost deprived it of the power of motion.

"Thru now, Mister Pheelum!" he exclaimed, giving it the finishing touch
with the heel of his heavy boot, "ye may go back to yur bed agin, an
sleep 'ithout fear o' bein' disturbed till the mornin'--leastwise, by
snakes."

Kicking the defunct reptile before him, Zeb Stump strode out of the hut,
gleefully chuckling to himself, as, for the third time, he extended his
colossal carcase along the sward.



CHAPTER EIGHT.

THE CRAWL OF THE ALACRAN.

The killing of the snake appeared to be the cue for a general return to
quiescence.  The howlings of the hound ceased with those of the
henchman.  The mustangs once more stood silent under the shadowy trees.

Inside the cabin the only noise heard was an occasional shuffling, when
Phelim, no longer feeling confidence in the protection of his
_cabriesto_, turned restlessly on his horseskin.

Outside also there was but one sound, to disturb the stillness though
its intonation was in striking contrast with that heard within.  It
might have been likened to a cross between the grunt of an alligator and
the croaking of a bull-frog; but proceeding, as it did, from the
nostrils of Zeb Stump, it could only be the snore of the slumbering
hunter.  Its sonorous fulness proved him to be soundly asleep.

He was--had been, almost from the moment of re-establishing himself
within the circle of his _cabriesto_.  The _revanche_ obtained over his
late disturber had acted as a settler to his nerves; and once more was
he enjoying the relaxation of perfect repose.

For nearly an hour did this contrasting duet continue, varied only by an
occasional _recitative_ in the hoot of the great horned owl, or a
_cantata penserosa_ in the lugubrious wail of the prairie wolf.

At the end of this interval, however, the chorus recommenced, breaking
out abruptly as before, and as before led by the vociferous voice of the
Connemara man.

"Meliah murdher!" cried he, his first exclamation not only startling the
host of the hut, but the guest so soundly sleeping outside.  "Howly
Mother!  Vargin av unpurticted innocence!  Save me--save me!"

"Save you from what?" demanded his master, once more springing from his
couch and hastening to strike a light.  "What is it, you confounded
fellow?"

"Another snake, yer hanner!  Och! be me sowl! a far wickeder sarpent
than the wan Misther Stump killed.  It's bit me all over the breast.  I
feel the place burnin' where it crawled across me, just as if the
horse-shoer at Ballyballagh had scorched me wid a rid-hot iron!"

"Durn ye for a stinkin' skunk!" shouted Zeb Stump, with his blanket
about his shoulder, quite filling the doorway.  "Ye've twicest spiled my
night's sleep, ye Irish fool!  'Scuse me, Mister Gerald!  Thur air fools
in all countries, I reck'n, 'Merican as well as Irish--but this hyur
follerer o' yourn air the durndest o' the kind iver I kim acrost.
Dog-goned if I see how we air to get any sleep the night, 'less we
drownd _him_ in the crik fust!"

"Och!  Misther Stump dear, don't talk that way.  I sware to yez both
there's another snake.  I'm shure it's in the kyabin yit.  It's only a
minute since I feeled it creepin' over me."

"You must ha' been dreemin?" rejoined the hunter, in a more complacent
tone, and speaking half interrogatively.  "I tell ye no snake in Texas
will cross a hosshair rope.  The tother 'un must ha' been inside the
house afore ye laid the laryitt roun' it.  'Taint likely there keel ha'
been two on 'em.  We kin soon settle that by sarchin'."

"Oh, murdher!  Luk hare!" cried the Galwegian, pulling off his shirt and
laying bare his breast.  "Thare's the riptoile's track, right acrass
over me ribs!  Didn't I tell yez there was another snake?  O blissed
Mother, what will become av me?  It feels like a strake av fire!"

"Snake!" exclaimed Stump, stepping up to the affrighted Irishman, and
holding the candle close to his skin.  "Snake i'deed!  By the 'tarnal
airthquake, it air no snake!  It air wuss than that!"

"Worse than a snake?" shouted Phelim in dismay.  "Worse, yez say,
Misther Stump?  Div yez mane that it's dangerous?"

"Wal, it mout be, an it moutn't.  Thet ere 'll depend on whether I kin
find somethin' 'bout hyur, an find it soon.  Ef I don't, then, Mister
Pheelum, I won't answer--"

"Oh, Misther Stump, don't say thare's danger!"

"What is it?" demanded Maurice, as his eyes rested upon a reddish line
running diagonally across the breast of his follower, and which looked
as if traced by the point of a hot spindle.  "What is it, anyhow?" he
repeated with increasing anxiety, as he observed the serious look with
which the hunter regarded the strange marking.  "I never saw the like
before.  Is it something to be alarmed about?"

"All o' thet, Mister Gerald," replied Stump, motioning Maurice outside
the hut, and speaking to him in a whisper, so as not to be overheard by
Phelim.

"But what is it?" eagerly asked the mustanger.  "_It air the crawl o'
the pisen centipede_."

"The poison centipede!  Has it bitten him?"

"No, I hardly think it hez.  But it don't need thet.  The _crawl_ o'
itself air enuf to kill him!"

"Merciful Heaven! you don't mean that?"

"I do, Mister Gerald.  I've seed more 'an one good fellur go under wi'
that same sort o' a stripe acrost his skin.  If thur ain't somethin'
done, an thet soon, he'll fust get into a ragin' fever, an then he'll go
out o' his senses, jest as if the bite o' a mad dog had gin him the
hydrophoby.  It air no use frightenin' him howsomdever, till I sees what
I kin do.  Thur's a yarb, or rayther it air a plant, as grows in these
parts.  Ef I kin find it handy, there'll be no defeequilty in curin' o'
him.  But as the cussed lack wud hev it, the moon hez sneaked out o'
sight; an I kin only get the yarb by gropin'.  I know there air plenty
o' it up on the bluff; an ef you'll go back inside, an keep the fellur
quiet, I'll see what kin be done.  I won't be gone but a minute."

The whispered colloquy, and the fact of the speakers having gone outside
to carry it on, instead of tranquillising the fears of Phelim, had by
this time augmented them to an extreme degree: and just as the old
hunter, bent upon his herborising errand, disappeared in the darkness,
he came rushing forth from the hut, howling more piteously than ever.

It was some time before his master could get him tranquillised, and then
only by assuring him--on a faith not very firm--that there was not the
slightest danger.

A few seconds after this had been accomplished, Zeb Stump reappeared in
the doorway, with a countenance that produced a pleasant change in the
feelings of those inside.  His confident air and attitude proclaimed, as
plainly as words could have done, that he had discovered that of which
he had gone in search--the "yarb."  In his right hand he held a number
of oval shaped objects of dark green colour--all of them bristling with
sharp spines, set over the surface in equidistant clusters.  Maurice
recognised the leaves of a plant well known to him--the _oregano_
cactus.

"Don't be skeeart, Mister Pheelum!" said the old hunter, in a
consolatory tone, as he stepped across the threshold.  "Thur's nothin'
to fear now.  I hev got the bolsum as 'll draw the burnin' out o' yur
blood, quicker 'an flame ud scorch a feather.  Stop yur yellin', man!
Ye've rousted every bird an beast, an creepin' thing too, I reckon, out
o' thar slumbers, for more an twenty mile up an down the crik.  Ef you
go on at that grist much longer, ye'll bring the Kumanchees out o' thur
mountains, an that 'ud be wuss mayhap than the crawl o' this
hunderd-legged critter.  Mister Gerald, you git riddy a bandige, whiles
I purpares the powltiss."

Drawing his knife from its sheath, the hunter first lopped off the
spines; and then, removing the outside skin, he split the thick
succulent leaves of the cactus into slices of about an eighth of an inch
in thickness.  These he spread contiguously upon a strip of clean cotton
stuff already prepared by the mustanger; and then, with the ability of a
hunter, laid the "powltiss," as he termed it, along the inflamed line,
which he declared to have been made by the claws of the centipede, but
which in reality was caused by the injection of venom from its
poison-charged mandibles, a thousand times inserted into the flesh of
the sleeper!

The application of the _oregano_ was almost instantaneous in its effect.
The acrid juice of the plant, producing a counter poison, killed that
which had been secreted by the animal; and the patient, relieved from
further apprehension, and soothed by the sweet confidence of security--
stronger from reaction--soon fell off into a profound and restorative
slumber.

After searching for the centipede and failing to find it--for this
hideous reptile, known in Mexico as the _alacran_, unlike the
rattlesnake, has no fear of crossing a _cabriesto_--the improvised
physician strode silently out of the cabin; and, once more committing
himself to his grassy couch, slept undisturbed till the morning.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

At the earliest hour of daybreak all three were astir--Phelim having
recovered both from his fright and his fever.  Having made their
matutinal meal upon the _debris_ of the roast turkey, they hastened to
take their departure from the hut.  The quondam stable-boy of
Ballyballagh, assisted by the Texan hunter, prepared the wild steeds for
transport across the plains--by stringing them securely together--while
Maurice looked after his own horse and the spotted mare.  More
especially did he expend his time upon the beautiful captive--carefully
combing out her mane and tail, and removing from her glossy coat the
stains that told of the severe chase she had cost him before her proud
neck yielded to the constraint of his lazo.

"Durn it, man!" exclaimed Zeb, as, with some surprise, he stood watching
the movements of the mustanger, "ye needn't ha' been hef so purtickler!
Wudley Pointdexter ain't the man as 'll go back from a barg'in.  Ye'll
git the two hunderd dollars, sure as my name air Zeblun Stump; an
dog-gone my cats, ef the maar ain't worth every red cent o' the money!"

Maurice heard the remarks without making reply; but the half suppressed
smile playing around his lips told that the Kentuckian had altogether
misconstrued the motive for his assiduous grooming.

In less than an hour after, the mustanger was on the march, mounted on
his blood-bay, and leading the spotted mare at the end of his lazo;
while the captive _cavallada_, under the guidance of the Galwegian
groom, went trooping at a brisk pace over the plain.

Zeb Stump, astride his "ole maar," could only keep up by a constant
hammering with his heels; and Tara, picking his steps through the
spinous _mezquite_ grass, trotted listlessly in the rear.

The hut, with its skin-door closed against animal intruders, was left to
take care of itself; its silent solitude, for a time, to be disturbed
only by the hooting of the horned owl, the scream of the cougar, or the
howl-bark of the hungering coyote.



CHAPTER NINE.

THE FRONTIER FORT.

The "star-spangled banner" suspended above Fort Inge, as it flouts forth
from its tall staff, flings its fitful shadow over a scene of strange
and original interest.

It is a picture of pure frontier life--which perhaps only the pencil of
the younger Vernet could truthfully portray--half military, half
civilian--half savage, half civilised--mottled with figures of men whose
complexions, costumes, and callings, proclaim them appertaining to the
extremes of both, and every possible gradation between.

Even the _mise-en-scene_--the Fort itself--is of this _miscegenous_
character.  That star-spangled banner waves not over bastions and
battlements; it flings no shadow over casemate or covered way, fosse,
scarpment, or glacis--scarce anything that appertains to a fortress.  A
rude stockade, constructed out of trunks of _algarobia_, enclosing
shed-stabling for two hundred horses; outside this a half-score of
buildings of the plainest architectural style--some of them mere huts of
"wattle and daub"--_jacales_--the biggest a barrack; behind it the
hospital, the stores of the commissary, and quartermaster; on one side
the guardhouse; and on the other, more pretentiously placed, the
messroom and officers' quarters; all plain in their appearance--
plastered and whitewashed with the lime plentifully found on the Leona--
all neat and clean, as becomes a cantonment of troops wearing the
uniform of a great civilised nation.  Such is Fort Inge.

At a short distance off another group of houses meets the eye--nearly,
if not quite, as imposing as the cluster above described bearing the
name of "The Fort."  They are just outside the shadow of the flag,
though under its protection--for to it are they indebted for their
origin and existence.  They are the germ of the village that universally
springs up in the proximity of an American military post--in all
probability, and at no very remote period, to become a town--perhaps a
great city.

At present their occupants are a sutler, whose store contains
"knick-knacks" not classed among commissariat rations; an hotel-keeper
whose bar-room, with white sanded floor and shelves sparkling with
prismatic glass, tempts the idler to step in; a brace of gamblers whose
rival tables of _faro_ and _monte_ extract from the pockets of the
soldiers most part of their pay; a score of dark-eyed senoritas of
questionable reputation; a like number of hunters, teamsters,
_mustangers_, and nondescripts--such as constitute in all countries the
hangers-on of a military cantonment, or the followers of a camp.

The houses in the occupancy of this motley corporation have been "sited"
with some design.  Perhaps they are the property of a single speculator.
They stand around a "square," where, instead of lamp-posts or statues,
may be seen the decaying trunk of a cypress, or the bushy form of a
hackberry rising out of a _tapis_ of trodden grass.

The Leona--at this point a mere rivulet--glides past in the rear both of
fort and village.  To the front extends a level plain, green as verdure
can make it--in the distance darkened by a bordering of woods, in which
post-oaks and pecans, live oaks and elms, struggle for existence with
spinous plants of cactus and anona; with scores of creepers, climbers,
and parasites almost unknown to the botanist.  To the south and east
along the banks of the stream, you see scattered houses: the homesteads
of plantations; some of them rude and of recent construction, with a few
of more pretentious style, and evidently of older origin.  One of these
last particularly attracts the attention: a structure of superior size--
with flat roof, surmounted by a crenelled parapet--whose white walls
show conspicuously against the green background of forest with which it
is half encircled.  It is the hacienda of _Casa del Corvo_.

Turning your eye northward, you behold a curious isolated eminence--a
gigantic cone of rocks--rising several hundred feet above the level of
the plain; and beyond, in dim distance, a waving horizontal line
indicating the outlines of the Guadalupe mountains--the outstanding
spurs of that elevated and almost untrodden plateau, the _Llano
Estacado_.

Look aloft!  You behold a sky, half sapphire, half turquoise; by day,
showing no other spot than the orb of its golden god; by night, studded
with stars that appear clipped from clear steel, and a moon whose
well-defined disc outshines the effulgence of silver.

Look below--at that hour when moon and stars have disappeared, and the
land-wind arrives from Matagorda Bay, laden with the fragrance of
flowers; when it strikes the starry flag, unfolding it to the eye of the
morn--then look below, and behold the picture that should have been
painted by the pencil of Vernet--too varied and vivid, too plentiful in
shapes, costumes, and colouring, to be sketched by the pen.

In the tableau you distinguish soldiers in uniform--the light blue of
the United States infantry, the darker cloth of the dragoons, and the
almost invisible green of the mounted riflemen.

You will see but few in full uniform--only the officer of the day, the
captain of the guard, and the guard itself.

Their comrades off duty lounge about the barracks, or within the
stockade enclosure, in red flannel shirts, slouch hats, and boots
innocent of blacking.

They mingle with men whose costumes make no pretence to a military
character: tall hunters in tunics of dressed deerskin, with leggings to
correspond--herdsmen and mustangers, habited _a la Mexicaine_--Mexicans
themselves, in wide _calzoneros_, _serapes_ on their shoulders, _botas_
on their legs, huge spurs upon their heels, and glazed _sombreros_ set
jauntily on their crowns.  They palaver with Indians on a friendly visit
to the Fort, for trade or treaty; whose tents stand at some distance,
and from whose shoulders hang blankets of red, and green, and blue--
giving them a picturesque, even classical, appearance, in spite of the
hideous paint with which they have bedaubed their skins, and the dirt
that renders sticky their long black hair, lengthened by tresses taken
from the tails of their horses.

Picture to the eye of your imagination this jumble of mixed
nationalities--in their varied costumes of race, condition, and calling;
jot in here and there a black-skinned scion of Ethiopia, the body
servant of some officer, or the emissary of a planter from the adjacent
settlements; imagine them standing in gossiping groups, or stalking over
the level plain, amidst some half-dozen halted waggons; a couple of
six-pounders upon their carriages, with caissons close by; a square tent
or two, with its surmounting fly--occupied by some eccentric officer who
prefers sleeping under canvas; a stack of bayoneted rifles belonging to
the soldiers on guard,--imagine all these component parts, and you will
have before your mind's eye a truthful picture of a military fort upon
the frontier of Texas, and the extreme selvedge of civilisation.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

About a week after the arrival of the Louisiana planter at his new home,
three officers were seen standing upon the parade ground in front of
Fort Inge, with their eyes turned towards the hacienda of Casa del
Corvo.

They were all young men: the oldest not over thirty years of age.  His
shoulder-straps with the double bar proclaimed him a captain; the
second, with a single cross bar, was a first lieutenant; while the
youngest of the two, with an empty chevron, was either a second
lieutenant or "brevet."

They were off duty; engaged in conversation--their theme, the "new
people" in Casa del Corvo--by which was meant the Louisiana planter and
his family.

"A sort of housewarming it's to be," said the infantry captain, alluding
to an invitation that had reached the Fort, extending to all the
commissioned officers of the garrison.  "Dinner first, and dancing
afterwards--a regular field day, where I suppose we shall see paraded
the aristocracy and beauty of the settlement."

"Aristocracy?" laughingly rejoined the lieutenant of dragoons.  "Not
much of that here, I fancy; and of beauty still less."

"You mistake, Hancock.  There are both upon the banks of the Leona.
Some good States families have strayed out this way.  We'll meet them at
Poindexter's party, no doubt.  On the question of aristocracy, the host
himself, if you'll pardon a poor joke, is himself a host.  He has enough
of it to inoculate all the company that may be present; and as for
beauty, I'll back his daughter against anything this side the Sabine.
The commissary's niece will be no longer belle about here."

"Oh, indeed!" drawled the lieutenant of rifles, in a tone that told of
his being chafed by this representation.  "Miss Poindexter must be
deuced good-looking, then."

"She's all that, I tell you, if she be anything like what she was when I
last saw her, which was at a Bayou Lafourche ball.  There were half a
dozen young Creoles there, who came nigh crossing swords about her."

"A coquette, I suppose?" insinuated the rifleman.

"Nothing of the kind, Crossman.  Quite the contrary, I assure you.
She's a girl of spirit, though--likely enough to snub any fellow who
might try to be too familiar.  She's not without some of the father's
pride.  It's a family trait of the Poindexters."

"Just the girl I should cotton to," jocosely remarked the young dragoon.
"And if she's as good-looking as you say, Captain Sloman, I shall
certainly go in for her.  Unlike Crossman here, I'm clear of all
entanglements of the heart.  Thank the Lord for it!"

"Well, Mr Hancock," rejoined the infantry officer, a gentleman of sober
inclinings, "I'm not given to betting; but I'd lay a big wager you won't
say that, after you have seen Louise Poindexter--that is, if you speak
your mind."

"Pshaw, Sloman! don't you be alarmed about me.  I've been too often
under the fire of bright eyes to have any fear of them."

"None so bright as hers."

"Deuce take it! you make a fellow fall in love with this lady without
having set eyes upon her.  She must be something extraordinary--
incomparable."

"She was both, when I last saw her."

"How long ago was that?"

"The Lafourche ball?  Let me see--about eighteen months.  Just after we
got back from Mexico.  She was then `coming out' as society styles it:--

"A new star in the firmament, to light and glory born!"

"Eighteen months is a long time," sagely remarked Crossman--"a long time
for an unmarried maiden--especially among Creoles, where they often get
spliced at twelve, instead of `sweet sixteen.'  Her beauty may have lost
some of its bloom?"

"I believe not a bit.  I should have called to see; only I knew they
were in the middle of their `plenishing,' and mightn't desire to be
visited.  But the major has been to Casa del Corvo, and brought back
such a report about Miss Poindexter's beauty as almost got him into a
scrape with the lady commanding the post."

"Upon my soul, Captain Sloman!" asseverated the lieutenant of dragoons,
"you've excited my curiosity to such a degree, I feel already half in
love with Louise Poindexter!"

"Before you get altogether into it," rejoined the officer of infantry,
in a serious tone, "let me recommend a little caution.  There's a _bete
noir_ in the background."

"A brother, I suppose?  That is the individual usually so regarded."

"There is a brother, but it's not he.  A free noble young fellow he is--
the only Poindexter I ever knew not eaten up with pride, he's quite the
reverse."

"The aristocratic father, then?  Surely he wouldn't object to a
quartering with the Hancocks?"

"I'm not so sure of that; seeing that the Hancocks are Yankees, and he's
a _chivalric Southerner_!  But it's not old Poindexter I mean."

"Who, then, is the black beast, or what is it--if not a human?"

"It is human, after a fashion.  A male cousin--a queer card he is--by
name Cassius Calhoun."

"I think I've heard the name."

"So have I," said the lieutenant of rifles.

"So has almost everybody who had anything to do with the Mexican war--
that is, who took part in Scott's campaign.  He figured there
extensively, and not very creditably either.  He was captain in a
volunteer regiment of Mississippians--for he hails from that State; but
he was oftener met with at the _monte-table_ than in the quarters of his
regiment.  He had one or two affairs, that gave him the reputation of a
bully.  But that notoriety was not of Mexican-war origin.  He had earned
it before going there; and was well known among the desperadoes of New
Orleans as a _dangerous man_."

"What of all that?" asked the young dragoon, in a tone slightly
savouring of defiance.  "Who cares whether Mr Cassius Calhoun be a
dangerous man, or a harmless one?  Not I.  He's only the girl's cousin,
you say?"

"Something more, perhaps.  I have reason to think he's her lover."

"Accepted, do you suppose?"

"That I can't tell.  I only know, or suspect, that he's the favourite of
the father.  I have heard reasons why; given only in whispers, it is
true, but too probable to be scouted.  The old story--influence
springing from mortgage money.  Poindexter's not so rich as he has
been--else we'd never have seen him out here."

"If the lady be as attractive as you say, I suppose we'll have Captain
Cassius out here also, before long?"

"Before long!  Is that all you know about it?  He _is_ here; came along
with the family, and is now residing with them.  Some say he's a partner
in the planting speculation.  I saw him this very morning--down in the
hotel bar-room--`liquoring up,' and swaggering in his old way."

"A swarthy-complexioned man, of about thirty, with dark hair and
moustaches; wearing a blue cloth frock, half military cut, and a Colt's
revolver strapped over his thigh?"

"Ay, and a bowie knife, if you had looked for it, under the breast of
his coat.  That's the man."

"He's rather a formidable-looking fellow," remarked the young rifleman.
"If a bully, his looks don't belie him."

"Damn his looks!" half angrily exclaimed the dragoon.  "We don't hold
commissions in Uncle Sam's army to be scared by looks, nor bullies
either.  If he comes any of his bullying over me, he'll find I'm as
quick with a trigger as he."

At that moment the bugle brayed out the call for morning parade--a
ceremony observed at the little frontier fort as regularly as if a whole
_corps-d'armee_ had been present--and the three officers separating,
betook themselves to their quarters to prepare their several companies
for the inspection of the major in command of the cantonment.



CHAPTER TEN.

CASA DEL CORVO.

The estate, or "hacienda," known as Casa del Corvo, extended along the
wooded bottom of the Leona River for more than a league, and twice that
distance southwards across the contiguous prairie.

The house itself--usually, though not correctly, styled the _hacienda_--
stood within long cannon range of Fort Inge; from which its white walls
were partially visible; the remaining portion being shadowed by tall
forest trees that skirted the banks of the stream.

Its site was peculiar, and no doubt chosen with a view to defence: for
its foundations had been laid at a time when Indian assailants might be
expected; as indeed they might be, and often are, at the present hour.

There was a curve of the river closing upon itself, like the shoe of a
racehorse, or the arc of a circle, three parts complete; the chord of
which, or a parallelogram traced upon it, might be taken as the
ground-plan of the dwelling.  Hence the name--Casa del Corvo--"the House
of the Curve" (curved river).

The facade, or entrance side, fronted towards the prairie--the latter
forming a noble lawn that extended to the edge of the horizon--in
comparison with which an imperial park would have shrunk into the
dimensions of a paddock.

The architecture of Casa del Corvo, like that of other large country
mansions in Mexico, was of a style that might be termed Morisco-Mexican:
being a single story in height, with a flat roof--_azotea_--spouted and
parapeted all round; having a courtyard inside the walls, termed
_patio_, open to the sky, with a flagged floor, a fountain, and a stone
stairway leading up to the roof; a grand entrance gateway--the
_saguan_--with a massive wooden door, thickly studded with bolt-heads;
and two or three windows on each side, defended by a _grille_ of strong
iron bars, called _reja_.  These are the chief characteristics of a
Mexican hacienda; and Casa del Corvo differed but little from the type
almost universal throughout the vast territories of Spanish America.

Such was the homestead that adorned the newly acquired estate of the
Louisiana planter--that had become his property by purchase.

As yet no change had taken place in the exterior of the dwelling; nor
much in its interior, if we except the _personnel_ of its occupants.  A
physiognomy, half Anglo-Saxon, half Franco-American, presented itself in
courtyard and corridor, where formerly were seen only faces of pure
Spanish type; and instead of the rich sonorous language of Andalusia,
was now heard the harsher guttural of a semi-Teutonic tongue--
occasionally diversified by the sweeter accentuation of Creolian French.

Outside the walls of the mansion--in the village-like cluster of
yucca-thatched huts which formerly gave housing to the _peons_ and other
dependants of the hacienda--the transformation was more striking.  Where
the tall thin _vaquero_, in broad-brimmed hat of black glaze, and
chequered _serape_, strode proudly over the sward--his spurs tinkling at
every step--was now met the authoritative "overseer," in blue jersey, or
blanket coat--his whip cracking at every corner; where the red children
of Azteca and Anahuac, scantily clad in tanned sheepskin, could be seen,
with sad solemn aspect, lounging listlessly by their _jacales_, or
trotting silently along, were now heard the black sons and daughters of
Ethiopia, from morn till night chattering their gay "gumbo," or with
song and dance seemingly contradicting the idea: that slavery is a
heritage of unhappiness!

Was it a change for the better upon the estate of Casa del Corvo?

There was a time when the people of England would have answered--no;
with a unanimity and emphasis calculated to drown all disbelief in their
sincerity.

Alas, for human weakness and hypocrisy!  Our long cherished sympathy
with the slave proves to have been only a tissue of sheer dissembling.
Led by an oligarchy--not the true aristocracy of our country: for these
are too noble to have yielded to such, deep designings--but an oligarchy
composed of conspiring plebs, who have smuggled themselves into the
first places of power in all the four estates--guided by these prurient
conspirators against the people's rights--England has proved untrue to
her creed so loudly proclaimed--truculent to the trust reposed in her by
the universal acclaim, of the nations.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

On a theme altogether different dwelt the thoughts of Louise Poindexter,
as she flung herself into a chair in front of her dressing-glass, and
directed her maid Florinda to prepare her for the reception of guests--
expected soon to arrive at the hacienda.

It was the day fixed for the "house-warming," and about an hour before
the time appointed for dinner to be on the table.  This might have
explained a certain restlessness observable in the air of the young
Creole--especially observed by Florinda; but it did not.  The maid had
her own thoughts about the cause of her mistress's disquietude--as was
proved by the conversation that ensued between them.

Scarce could it be called a conversation.  It was more as if the young
lady were thinking aloud, with her attendant acting as an echo.  During
all her life, the Creole had been accustomed to look upon her sable
handmaid as a thing from whom it was not worth while concealing her
thoughts, any more than she would from the chairs, the table, the sofa,
or any other article of furniture in the apartment.  There was but the
difference of Florinda being a little more animated and companionable,
and the advantage of her being able to give a vocal response to the
observations addressed to her.

For the first ten minutes after entering the chamber, Florinda had
sustained the brunt of the dialogue on indifferent topics--her mistress
only interfering with an occasional ejaculation.

"Oh, Miss Looey!" pursued the negress, as her fingers fondly played
among the lustrous tresses of her young mistress's hair, "how bewful you
hair am!  Like de long 'Panish moss dat hang from de cyprus-tree; only
dat it am ob a diff'rent colour, an shine like the sugar-house 'lasses."

As already stated, Louise Poindexter was a Creole.  After that, it is
scarce necessary to say that her hair was of a dark colour; and--as the
sable maid in rude speech had expressed it--luxuriant as Spanish moss.
It was not black; but of a rich glowing brown--such as may be observed
in the tinting of a tortoise-shell, or the coat of a winter-trapped
sable.

"Ah!" continued Florinda, spreading out an immense "hank" of the hair,
that glistened like a chestnut against her dark palm, "if I had dat
lubbly hair on ma head, in'tead ob dis cuss'd cully wool, I fotch em all
to ma feet--ebbry one oh dem."

"What do you mean, girl?" inquired the young lady, as if just aroused
from some dreamy reverie.  "What's that you've been saying?  Fetch them
to your feet?  Fetch whom?"

"Na, now; you know what dis chile mean?"

"'Pon honour, I do not."

"Make em lub me.  Dat's what I should hab say."

"But whom?"

"All de white gen'l'm.  De young planter, de officer ob de Fort--all ob
dem.  Wif you hair, Miss Looey, I could dem all make conquess."

"Ha--ha--ha!" laughed the young lady, amused at the idea of Florinda
figuring under that magnificent chevelure.  "You think, with my hair
upon your head, you would be invincible among the men?"

"No, missa--not you hair alone--but wif you sweet face--you skin, white
as de alumbaster--you tall figga--you grand look.  Oh, Miss Looey, you
am so 'plendidly bewful!  I hear de white gen'l'm say so.  I no need
hear em say it.  I see dat for masef."

"You're learning to flatter, Florinda."

"No, 'deed, missa--ne'er a word ob flattery--ne'er a word, I swa it.  By
de 'postles, I swa it."

To one who looked upon her mistress, the earnest asseveration of the
maid was not necessary to prove the sincerity of her speech, however
hyperbolical it might appear.  To say that Louise Poindexter was
beautiful, would only be to repeat the universal verdict of the society
that surrounded her.  A single glance was sufficient to satisfy any one
upon this point--strangers as well as acquaintances.  It was a kind of
beauty that needed no _discovering_--and yet it is difficult to describe
it.  The pen cannot portray swell a face.  Even the pencil could convey
but a faint idea of it: for no painter, however skilled, could represent
upon cold canvas the glowing ethereal light that emanated from her eyes,
and appeared to radiate over her countenance.  Her features were purely
classic: resembling those types of female beauty chosen by Phidias or
Praxiteles.  And yet in all the Grecian Pantheon there is no face to
which it could have been likened: for it was not the countenance of a
goddess; but, something more attractive to the eye of man, the face of a
woman.

A suspicion of sensuality, apparent in the voluptuous curving of the
lower lip--still more pronounced in the prominent rounding beneath the
cheeks--while depriving the countenance of its pure spiritualism, did
not perhaps detract from its beauty.  There are men, who, in this
departure from the divine type, would have perceived a superior charm:
since in Louise Poindexter they would have seen not a divinity to be
worshipped, but a woman to be loved.

Her only reply vouchsafed to Florinda's earnest asseveration was a
laugh--careless, though not incredulous.  The young Creole did not need
to be reminded of her beauty.  She was not unconscious of it: as could
be told by her taking more than one long look into the mirror before
which her toilet was being made.  The flattery of the negress scarce
called up an emotion; certainly not more than she might have felt at the
fawning of a pet spaniel; and she soon after surrendered herself to the
reverie from which the speech had aroused her.

Florinda was not silenced by observing her mistress's air of
abstraction.  The girl had evidently something on her mind--some
mystery, of which she desired the _eclaircissement_--and was determined
to have it.

"Ah!" she continued, as if talking to herself; "if Florinda had half de
charm ob young missa, she for nobody care--she for nobody heave do deep
sigh!"

"Sigh!" repeated her mistress, suddenly startled by the speech.  "What
do you mean by that?"

"Pa' dieu, Miss Looey, Florinda no so blind you tink; nor so deaf
neider.  She you see long time sit in de same place; you nebber 'peak no
word--you only heave de sigh--de long deep sigh.  You nebba do dat in de
ole plantashun in Loozyanny."

"Florinda!  I fear you are taking leave of your senses, or have left
them behind you in Louisiana?  Perhaps there's something in the climate
here that affects you.  Is that so, girl?"

"Pa' dieu, Miss Looey, dat question ob youself ask.  You no be angry
case I 'peak so plain.  Florinda you slave--she you lub like brack
sisser.  She no happy hear you sigh.  Dat why she hab take de freedom.
You no be angry wif me?"

"Certainly not.  Why should I be angry with you, child?  I'm not.  I
didn't say I was; only you are quite mistaken in your ideas.  What
you've seen, or heard, could be only a fancy of your own.  As for
sighing, heigho!  I have something else to think of just now.  I have to
entertain about a hundred guests--nearly all strangers, too; among them
the young planters and officers whom you would entangle if you had my
hair.  Ha! ha! ha!  _I_ don't desire to enmesh them--not one of them!
So twist it up as you like--without the semblance of a snare in it."

"Oh!  Miss Looey, you so 'peak?" inquired the negress with an air of
evident interest.  "You say none ob dem gen'l'm you care for?  Dere am
two, tree, berry, berry, berry han'som'.  One planter dar be, and two ob
de officer--all young gen'l'm.  You know de tree I mean.  All ob dem hab
been 'tentive to you.  You sure, missa, tain't one ob dem dat you make
sigh?"

"Sigh again!  Ha! ha! ha!  But come, Florinda, we're losing time.
Recollect I've got to be in the drawing-room to receive a hundred
guests.  I must have at least half an hour to compose myself into an
attitude befitting such an extensive reception."

"No fear, Miss Looey--no fear.  I you toilette make in time--plenty ob
time.  No much trouble you dress.  Pa' dieu, in any dress you look
'plendid.  You be de belle if you dress like one ob de fiel' hand ob de
plantashun."

"What a flatterer you are grown, Florinda!  I shall begin to suspect
that you are after some favour.  Do you wish me to intercede, and make
up your quarrel with Pluto?"

"No, missa.  I be friend nebber more wid Pluto.  He show hisseff such
great coward when come dat storm on de brack prairee.  Ah, Miss Looey!
what we boaf do if dat young white gen'l'm on de red hoss no come ridin'
dat way?"

"If he had not, cher Florinde, it is highly probable neither of us
should now have been here."

"Oh, missa! wasn't he real fancy man, dat 'ere?  You see him bewful
face.  You see him thick hair, jess de colour ob you own--only curled
leetle bit like mine.  Talk ob de young planter, or dem officer at de
Fort!  De brack folk say he no good for nuffin, like dem--he only poor
white trash.  Who care fo' dat?  He am de sort ob man could dis chile
make sigh.  Ah! de berry, berry sort!"

Up to this point the young Creole had preserved a certain tranquillity
of countenance.  She tried to continue it; but the effort failed her.
Whether by accident or design, Florinda had touched the most sensitive
chord in the spirit of her mistress.

She would have been loth to confess it, even to her slave; and it was a
relief to her, when loud voices heard in the courtyard gave a colourable
excuse for terminating her toilette, along with the delicate dialogue
upon which she might have been constrained to enter.



CHAPTER ELEVEN.

AN UNEXPECTED ARRIVAL.

"Say, ye durnationed nigger! whar's yur master?"

"Mass Poindex'er, sar?  De ole massr, or de young 'un?"

"Young 'un be durned!  I mean Mister Peintdexter.  Who else shed I?
Whar air he?"

"Ho--ho! sar! dey am boaf at home--dat is, dey am boaf away from de
house--de ole massr an de young Massr Henry.  Dey am down de ribber, wha
de folk am makin' de new fence.  Ho! ho! you find 'em dar."

"Down the river!  How fur d'ye reck'n?"

"Ho! ho! sar.  Dis nigga reck'n it be 'bout tree or four mile--dat at de
berry leas'."

"Three or four mile?  Ye must be a durnationed fool, nigger.  Mister
Peintdexter's plantation don't go thet fur; an I reck'n he ain't the man
to be makin' a fence on some'dy else's clarin'.  Lookee hyur!  What time
air he expected hum?  Ye've got a straighter idee o' thet, I hope?"

"Dey boaf 'pected home berry soon, de young massr and de ole massr, and
Mass Ca'houn too.  Ho! ho! dar's agwine to be big dooin's 'bout dis yar
shanty--yer see dat fo' yeseff by de smell ob de kitchen.  Ho! ho!  All
sorts o' gran' feassin'--do roas' an de bile, an de barbecue; de
pot-pies, an de chicken fixins.  Ho! ho! ain't thar agwine to go it hyar
jess like de ole times on de coass ob de Massippy!  Hoora fo' ole Mass
Poindex'er!  He de right sort.  Ho! ho! 'tranger! why you no holla too:
you no friend ob de massr?"

"Durn you, nigger, don't ye remember me?  Now I look into yur ugly mug,
I recollex you."

"Gorramighty! 'tain't Mass 'Tump--'t use to fotch de ven'son an de
turkey gobbla to de ole plantashun?  By de jumbo, it am, tho'.  Law,
Mass 'Tump, dis nigga 'members you like it wa de day afore yesserday.
Ise heern you called de odder day; but I war away from 'bout de place.
I'm de coachman now--dribes de carriage dat carries de lady ob de
'tablishment--de bewful Missy Loo.  Lor, massr, she berry fine gal.  Dey
do say she beat Florinday into fits.  Nebba mind, Mass 'Tump, you better
wait till ole massr come home.  He am _a bound to be hya_, in de
shortess poss'ble time."

"Wal, if thet's so, I'll wait upon him," rejoined the hunter, leisurely
lifting his leg over the saddle--in which up to this time he had
retained his seat.  "Now, ole fellur," he added, passing the bridle into
the hands of the negro, "you gi'e the maar half a dozen yeers o' corn
out o' the crib.  I've rid the critter better 'n a score o' miles like a
streak o' lightnin'--all to do yur master a sarvice."

"Oh, Mr Zebulon Stump, is it you?" exclaimed a silvery voice, followed
by the appearance of Louise Poindexter upon the verandah.

"I thought it was," continued the young lady, coming up to the railings,
"though I didn't expect to see you so soon.  You said you were going
upon a long journey.  Well--I am pleased that you are here; and so will
papa and Henry be.  Pluto! go instantly to Chloe, the cook, and see what
she can give you for Mr Stump's dinner.  You have not dined, I know.
You are dusty--you've been travelling?  Here, Morinda!  Haste you to the
sideboard, and pour out some drink.  Mr Stump will be thirsty, I'm
sure, this hot day.  What would you prefer--port, sherry, claret?  Ah,
now, if I recollect, you used to be partial to Monongahela whisky.  I
think there is some.  Morinda, see if there be!  Step into the verandah,
dear Mr Stump, and take a seat.  You were inquiring for papa?  I expect
him home every minute.  I shall try to entertain you till he come."

Had the young lady paused sooner in her speech, she would not have
received an immediate reply.  Even as it was, some seconds elapsed
before Zeb made rejoinder.  He stood gazing upon her, as if struck
speechless by the sheer intensity of his admiration.

"Lord o' marcy, Miss Lewaze!" he at length gasped forth, "I thort when I
used to see you on the Massissippi, ye war the puttiest critter on the
airth; but now, I think ye the puttiest thing eyther on airth or in
hewing.  Geehosofat!"

The old hunter's praise was scarce exaggerated.  Fresh from the
toilette, the gloss of her luxuriant hair untarnished by the notion of
the atmosphere; her cheeks glowing with a carmine tint, produced by the
application of cold water; her fine figure, gracefully draped in a robe
of India muslin--white and semi-translucent--certainly did Louise
Poindexter appear as pretty as anything upon earth--if not in heaven.

"Geehosofat!" again exclaimed the hunter, following up his complimentary
speech, "I hev in my time seed what I thort war some putty critters o'
the sheemale kind--my ole 'ooman herself warn't so bad-lookin' when I
fast kim acrost her in Kaintuck--thet she warn't.  But I will say this,
Miss Lewaze: ef the puttiest bits o' all o' them war clipped out an then
jeined thegither agin, they wudn't make up the thousanth part o' a angel
sech as you."

"Oh--oh--oh!  Mr Stump--Mr Stump!  I'm astonished to hear _you_ talk
in this manner.  Texas has quite turned you into a courtier.  If you go
on so, I fear you will lose your character for plain speaking!  After
that I am sure you will stand in need of a very big drink.  Haste,
Morinda!  I think you said you would prefer whisky?"

"Ef I didn't say it, I thunk it; an that air about the same.  Yur right,
miss, I prefar the corn afore any o' them thur furrin lickers; an I
sticks to it whuriver I kin git it.  Texas hain't made no alterashun in
me in the matter o' lickerin'."

"Mass 'Tump, you it hab mix wif water?" inquired Florinda, coming
forward with a tumbler about one-half full of "Monongahela."

"No, gurl.  Durn yur water!  I hev hed enuf o' thet since I started this
mornin'.  I hain't hed a taste o' licker the hul day--ne'er as much as
the smell o' it."

"Dear Mr Stump! surely you can't drink it that way?  Why, it will burn
your throat!  Have a little sugar, or honey, along with it?"

"Speil it, miss.  It air sweet enuf 'ithout that sort o' docterin';
'specially arter you hev looked inter the glass.  Yu'll see ef I can't
drink it.  Hyur goes to try!"

The old hunter raised the tumbler to his chin; and after giving three
gulps, and the fraction of a fourth, returned it empty into the hands of
Florinda.  A loud smacking of the lips almost drowned the simultaneous
exclamations of astonishment uttered by the young lady and her maid.

"Burn my throat, ye say?  Ne'er a bit.  It hez jest eiled thet ere
jugewlar, an put it in order for a bit o' a palaver I wants to hev wi'
yur father--'bout thet ere spotty mow-stang."

"Oh, true!  I had forgotten.  No, I hadn't either; but I did not suppose
you had time to have news of it.  Have you heard anything of the pretty
creature?"

"Putty critter ye may well pernounce it.  It ur all o' thet.  Besides,
it ur a maar."

"A ma-a-r!  What is that, Mr Stump?  I don't understand."

"A maar I sayed.  Shurly ye know what a maar is?"

"Ma-a-r--ma-a-r!  Why, no, not exactly.  Is it a Mexican word?  _Mar_ in
Spanish signifies the sea."

"In coorse it air a Mexikin maar--all mowstangs air.  They air all on
'em o' a breed as wur oncest brought over from some European country by
the fust o' them as settled in these hyur parts--leesewise I hev heern
so."

"Still, Mr Stump, I do not comprehend you.  What makes this mustang a
ma-a-r?"

"What makes her a _maar_?  'Case she ain't a _hoss_; thet's what make
it, Miss Peintdexter."

"Oh--now--I--I think I comprehend.  But did you say you have heard of
the animal--I mean since you left us?"

"Heern o' her, seed her, an feeled her."

"Indeed!"

"She air grupped."

"Ah, caught! what capital news!  I shall be so delighted to see the
beautiful thing; and ride it too.  I haven't had a horse worth a piece
of orange-peel since I've been in Texas.  Papa has promised to purchase
this one for me at any price.  But who is the lucky individual who
accomplished the capture?"

"Ye mean who grupped the maar?"

"Yes--yes--who?"

"Why, in coorse it wur a mowstanger."

"A mustanger?"

"Ye-es--an such a one as thur ain't another on all these purayras--
eyther to ride a hoss, or throw a laryitt over one.  Yo may talk about
yur Mexikins!  I never seed neery Mexikin ked manage hoss-doin's like
that young fellur; an thur ain't a drop o' thur pisen blood in his
veins.  He ur es white es I am myself."

"His name?"

"Wal, es to the name o' his family, that I niver heern.  His Christyun
name air Maurice.  He's knowed up thur 'bout the Fort as Maurice the
mowstanger."

The old hunter was not sufficiently observant to take note of the tone
of eager interest in which the question had been asked, nor the sudden
deepening of colour upon the cheeks of the questioner as she heard the
answer.

Neither had escaped the observation of Florinda.

"La, Miss Looey!" exclaimed the latter, "shoo dat de name ob de brave
young white gen'l'm--he dat us save from being smodered on de brack
prairee?"

"Geehosofat, yes!" resumed the hunter, relieving the young lady from the
necessity of making reply.  "Now I think o't, he told me o' thet
suckumstance this very mornin', afore we started.  He air the same.
Thet's the very fellur es hev trapped spotty; an he air toatin' the
critter along at this eyedentical minnit, in kump'ny wi' about a dozen
others o' the same cavyurd.  He oughter be hyur afore sundown.  I pushed
my ole maar ahead, so 's to tell yur father the spotty war comin', and
let him git the fust chance o' buyin'.  I know'd as how thet ere bit o'
hosdoin's don't get druv fur into the Settlements efore someb'dy snaps
her up.  I thort o' _you_, Miss Lewaze, and how ye tuk on so when I tolt
ye 'bout the critter.  Wal, make yur mind eezy; ye shell hev the fast
chance.  Ole Zeb Stump 'll be yur bail for thet."

"Oh, Mr Stump, it is so kind of you!  I am very, very grateful.  You
will now excuse me for a moment.  Father will soon be back.  We have a
dinner-party to-day; and I have to prepare for receiving a great many
people.  Florinda, see that Mr Stump's luncheon is set out for him.
Go, girl--go at once about it!"

"And, Mr Stump," continued the young lady, drawing nearer to the
hunter, and speaking in a more subdued tone of voice, "if the young--
young gentleman should arrive while the other people are here--perhaps
he don't know them--will you see that he is not neglected?  There is
wine yonder, in the verandah, and other things.  You know what I mean,
dear Mr Stump?"

"Durned if I do, Miss Lewaze; that air, not adzackly.  I kin unnerstan'
all thet ere 'bout the licker' an other fixins.  But who air the young
gen'leman yur speakin' o'?  Thet's the thing as bamboozles me."

"Surely you know who I mean!  The young gentleman--the young man--who,
you say, is bringing in the horses."

"Oh! ah!  Maurice the mowstanger!  That's it, is it?  Wal, I reck'n yur
not a hundred mile astray in calling _him_ a gen'leman; tho' it ain't
offen es a mowstanger gits thet entitlement, or desarves it eyther.  _He
air one_, every inch o' him--a gen'leman by barth, breed, an raisin'--
tho' he air a hoss-hunter, an Irish at thet."

The eyes of Louise Poindexter sparkled with delight as she listened to
opinions so perfectly in unison with her own.

"I must tell ye, howsomdiver," continued the hunter, as some doubt had
come across his mind, "it won't do to show that 'ere young fellur any
sort o' second-hand hospertality.  As they used to say on the
Massissippi, he air `as proud as a Peintdexter.'  Excuse me, Miss
Lewaze, for lettin' the word slip.  I did think o't thet I war talkin'
to a Peintdexter--not the proudest, but the puttiest o' the name."

"Oh, Mr Stump! you can say what you please to me.  You know that I
could not be offended with you, you dear old giant!"

"He'd be meaner than a dwurf es ked eyther say or do anythin' to offend
you, miss."

"Thanks! thanks!  I know your honest heart--I know your devotion.
Perhaps some time--some time, Mr Stump,"--she spoke hesitatingly, but
apparently without any definite meaning--"I might stand in need of your
friendship."

"Ye won't need it long afore ye git it, then; thet ole Zeb Stump kin
promise ye, Miss Peintdexter.  He'd be stinkiner than a skunk, an a
bigger coward than a coyoat, es wouldn't stan' by sech as you, while
there wur a bottle-full o' breath left in the inside o' his body."

"A thousand thanks--again and again!  But what were you going to say?
You spoke of second-hand hospitality?"

"I dud."

"You meant--?"

"I meaned thet it 'ud be no use o' my inviting Maurice the mowstanger
eyther to eat or drink unner this hyur roof.  Unless yur father do that,
the young fellur 'll go 'ithout tastin'.  You unnerstan, Miss Lewaze, he
ain't one o' thet sort o' poor whites as kin be sent roun' to the
kitchen."

The young Creole stood for a second or two, without making rejoinder.
She appeared to be occupied with some abstruse calculation, that
engrossed the whole of her thoughts.

"Never mind about it," she at length said, in a tone that told the
calculation completed.  "Never mind, Mr Stump.  You need not invite
him.  Only let _me_ know when he arrives--unless we be at dinner, and
then, of course, he would not expect any one to appear.  But if he
_should_ come at that time, _you_ detain him--won't you?"

"Boun' to do it, ef you bid me."

"You will, then; and let me know he is here.  _I_ shall ask him to eat."

"Ef ye do, miss, I reck'n ye'll speil his appetite.  The sight o' you,
to say nothin' o' listenin' to your melodyus voice, ud cure a starvin'
wolf o' bein' hungry.  When I kim in hyur I war peckish enuf to swaller
a raw buzzart.  Neow I don't care a durn about eatin'.  I ked go 'ithout
chawin' meat for month."

As this exaggerated chapter of euphemism was responded to by a peal of
clear ringing laughter, the young lady pointed to the other side of the
patio; where her maid was seer emerging from the "cocina," carrying a
light tray--followed by Pluto with one of broader dimensions, more
heavily weighted.

"You great giant!" was the reply, given in a tone of sham reproach; "I
won't believe you have lost your appetite, until you have eaten Jack.
Yonder come Pluto and Morinda.  They bring something that will prove
more cheerful company than I; so I shall leave you to enjoy it.  Good
bye, Zeb--good bye, or, as the natives say here, _hasta luego_!"

Gaily were these words spoken--lightly did Louise Poindexter trip back
across the covered corridor.  Only after entering her chamber, and
finding herself _chez soi-meme_, did she give way to a reflection of a
more serious character, that found expression in words low murmured, but
full of mystic meaning:--

"It is my destiny: I feel--I know that it is!  I dare not meet, and yet
I cannot shun it--I may not--I would not--I _will not_!"



CHAPTER TWELVE.

TAMING A WILD MARE.

The pleasantest _apartment_ in a Mexican house is that which has the
roof for its floor, and the sky for its ceiling--the _azotea_.  In fine
weather--ever fine in that sunny clime--it is preferred to the
drawing-room; especially after dinner, when the sun begins to cast
rose-coloured rays upon the snow-clad summits of Orizava, Popocatepec,
Toluca, and the "Twin Sister;" when the rich wines of Xeres and Madeira
have warmed the imaginations of Andalusia's sons and daughters--
descendants of the Conquistadores--who mount up to their house-tops to
look upon a land of world-wide renown, rendered famous by the heroic
achievements of their ancestors.

Then does the Mexican "cavallero," clad in embroidered habiliments,
exhibit his splendid exterior to the eyes of some senorita--at the same
time puffing the smoke of his paper cigarito against her cheeks.  Then
does the dark-eyed doncella favourably listen to soft whisperings; or
perhaps only pretends to listen, while, with heart distraught, and eye
wandering away, she sends stealthy glances over the plain towards some
distant hacienda--the home of him she truly loves.

So enjoyable a fashion, as that of spending the twilight hours upon the
housetop, could not fail to be followed by any one who chanced to be the
occupant of a Mexican dwelling; and the family of the Louisiana planter
had adopted it, as a matter of course.

On that same evening, after the dining-hall had been deserted, the roof,
instead of the drawing-room, was chosen as the place of re-assemblage;
and as the sun descended towards the horizon, his slanting rays fell
upon a throng as gay, as cheerful, and perhaps as resplendent, as ever
trod the azotea of Casa del Corvo.  Moving about over its tessellated
tiles, standing in scattered groups, or lined along the parapet with
faces turned towards the plain, were women as fair and men as brave as
had ever assembled on that same spot--even when its ancient owner used
to distribute hospitality to the _hidalgos_ of the land--the _bluest_
blood in Coahuila and Texas.

The company now collected to welcome the advent of Woodley Poindexter on
his Texan estate, could also boast of this last distinction.  They were
the _elite_ of the Settlements--not only of the Leona, but of others
more distant.  There were guests from Gonzales, from Castroville, and
even from San Antonio--old friends of the planter, who, like him, had
sought a home in South-Western Texas, and who had ridden--some of them
over a hundred miles--to be present at this, his first grand
"reception."

The planter had spared neither pains nor expense to give it _eclat_.
What with the sprinkling of uniforms and epaulettes, supplied by the
Fort--what with the brass band borrowed from the same convenient
repository--what with the choice wines found in the cellars of Casa del
Corvo, and which had formed part of the purchase--there could be little
lacking to make Poindexter's party the most brilliant ever given upon
the banks of the Leona.

And to insure this effect, his lovely daughter Louise, late belle of
Louisiana--the fame of whose beauty had been before her, even in Texas--
acted as mistress of the ceremonies--moving about among the admiring
guests with the smile of a queen, and the grace of a goddess.

On that occasion was she the cynosure of a hundred pairs of eyes, the
happiness of a score of hearts, and perhaps the torture of as many more:
for not all were blessed who beheld her beauty.

Was she herself happy?

The interrogatory may appear singular--almost absurd.  Surrounded by
friends--admirers--one, at least, who adored her--a dozen whose
incipient love could but end in adoration--young planters, lawyers,
embryo statesmen, and some with reputation already achieved--sons of
Mars in armour, or with armour late laid aside--how could she be
otherwise than proudly, supremely happy?

A stranger might have asked the question; one superficially acquainted
with Creole character--more especially the character of the lady in
question.

But mingling in that splendid throng was a man who was no stranger to
either; and who, perhaps, more than any one present, watched her every
movement; and endeavoured more than any other to interpret its meaning.
Cassius Calhoun was the individual thus occupied.

She went not hither, nor thither, without his following her--not close,
like a shadow; but by stealth, flitting from place to place; upstairs,
and downstairs; standing in corners, with an air of apparent
abstraction; but all the while with eyes turned askant upon his cousin's
face, like a plain-clothes policeman employed on detective duty.

Strangely enough he did not seem to pay much regard to her speeches,
made in reply to the compliments showered upon her by several would-be
winners of a smile--not even when these were conspicuous and
respectable, as in the case of young Hancock of the dragoons.  To all
such he listened without visible emotion, as one listens to a
conversation in no way affecting the affairs either of self or friends.

It was only after ascending to the azotea, on observing his cousin near
the parapet, with her eye turned interrogatively towards the plain, that
his detective zeal became conspicuous--so much so as to attract the
notice of others.  More than once was it noticed by those standing near:
for more than once was repeated the act which gave cause to it.

At intervals, not very wide apart, the young mistress of Casa del Corvo
might have been seen to approach the parapet, and look across the plain,
with a glance that seemed to interrogate the horizon of the sky.

Why she did so no one could tell.  No one presumed to conjecture, except
Cassius Calhoun.  He had thoughts upon the subject--thoughts that were
torturing him.

When a group of moving forms appeared upon the prairie, emerging from
the garish light of the setting sun--when the spectators upon the azotea
pronounced it a drove of horses in charge of some mounted men--the
ex-officer of volunteers had a suspicion as to who was conducting that
_cavallada_.

Another appeared to feel an equal interest in its advent, though perhaps
from a different motive.  Long before the horse-drove had attracted the
observation of Poindexter's guests, his daughter had noted its
approach--from the time that a cloud of dust soared up against the
horizon, so slight and filmy as to have escaped detection by any eye not
bent expressly on discovering it.

From that moment the young Creole, under cover of a conversation carried
on amid a circle of fair companions, had been slyly scanning the
dust-cloud as it drew nearer; forming conjectures as to what was causing
it, upon knowledge already, and as she supposed, exclusively her own.

"Wild horses!" announced the major commandant of Fort Inge, after a
short inspection through his pocket telescope.  "Some one bringing them
in," he added, a second time raising the glass to his eye.  "Oh!  I see
now--it's Maurice the mustanger, who occasionally helps our men to a
remount.  He appears to be coming this way--direct to your place, Mr
Poindexter."

"If it be the young fellow you have named, that's not unlikely," replied
the owner of Casa del Corvo.  "I bargained with him to catch me a score
or two; and maybe this is the first instalment he's bringing me."

"Yes, I think it is," he added, after a look through the telescope.

"I am sure of it," said the planter's son.  "I can tell the horseman
yonder to be Maurice Gerald."

The planter's daughter could have done the same; though she made no
display of her knowledge.  She did not appear to be much interested in
the matter--indeed, rather indifferent.  She had become aware of being
watched by that evil eye, constantly burning upon her.

The _cavallada_ came up, Maurice sitting handsomely on his horse, with
the spotted mare at the end of his lazo.

"What a beautiful creature!" exclaimed several voices, as the captured
mustang was led up in front of the house, quivering with excitement at a
scene so new to it.

"It's worth a journey to the ground to look at such an animal!"
suggested the major's wife, a lady of enthusiastic inclinings.  "I
propose we all go down!  What say you, Miss Poindexter?"

"Oh, certainly," answered the mistress of the mansion, amidst a chorus
of other voices crying out--

"Let us go down!  Let us go down!"

Led by the majoress, the ladies filed down the stone stairway--the
gentlemen after; and in a score of seconds the horse-hunter, still
seated in his saddle, became, with his captive, the centre of the
distinguished circle.

Henry Poindexter had hurried down before the rest, and already, in the
frankest manner, bidden the stranger welcome.

Between the latter and Louise only a slight salutation could be
exchanged.  Familiarity with a horse-dealer--even supposing him to have
had the honour of an introduction--would scarce have been tolerated by
the "society."

Of the ladies, the major's wife alone addressed him in a familiar way;
but that was in a tone that told of superior position, coupled with
condescension.  He was more gratified by a glance--quick and silent--
when his eye changed intelligence with that of the young Creole.

Hers was not the only one that rested approvingly upon him.  In truth,
the mustanger looked splendid, despite his travel-stained habiliments.
His journey of over twenty miles had done little to fatigue him.  The
prairie breeze had freshened the colour upon his cheeks; and his full
round throat, naked to the breast-bone, and slightly bronzed with the
sun, contributed to the manliness of his mien.  Even the dust clinging
to his curled hair could not altogether conceal its natural gloss, nor
the luxuriance of its growth; while a figure tersely knit told of
strength and endurance beyond the ordinary endowment of man.  There were
stolen glances, endeavouring to catch his, sent by more than one of the
fair circle.  The pretty niece of the commissary smiled admiringly upon
him.  Some said the commissary's wife; but this could be only a slander,
to be traced, perhaps, to the doctor's better half--the Lady Teazle of
the cantonment.

"Surely," said Poindexter, after making an examination of the captured
mustang, "this must be the animal of which old Zeb Stump has been
telling me?"

"It ur thet eyedenticul same," answered the individual so described,
making his way towards Maurice with the design of assisting him.
"Ye-es, Mister Peintdexter; the eyedenticul critter--a maar, es ye kin
all see for yurselves--"

"Yes, yes," hurriedly interposed the planter, not desiring any further
elucidation.

"The young fellur hed grupped her afore I got thur; so I wur jess in the
nick o' time 'bout it.  She mout a been tuck elswhar, an then Miss
Lewaze thur mout a missed hevin' her."

"It is true indeed, Mr Stump!  It was very thoughtful of you.  I know
not how I shall ever be able to reciprocate your kindness?"

"Reciperkate!  Wal, I spose thet air means to do suthin in return.  Ye
kin do thet, miss, 'ithout much difeequilty.  I han't dud nothin' for
you, ceptin' make a bit o' a journey acrost the purayra.  To see yur
bewtyful self mounted on thet maar, wi' yur ploomed het upon yur head,
an yur long-tailed pettykote streakin' it ahint you, 'ud pay old Zeb
Stump to go clur to the Rockies, and back agin."

"Oh, Mr Stump! you are an incorrigible flatterer!  Look around you! you
will see many here more deserving of your compliments than I."

"Wal, wal!" rejoined Zeb, casting a look of careless scrutiny towards
the ladies, "I ain't a goin' to deny thet thur air gobs o' putty
critters hyur--dog-goned putty critters; but es they used to say in ole
Loozyanney, thur air but one Lewaze Peintdexter."

A burst of laughter--in which only a few feminine voices bore part--was
the reply to Zeb's gallant speech.

"I shall owe you two hundred dollars for this," said the planter,
addressing himself to Maurice, and pointing to the spotted mare.  "I
think that was the sum stipulated for by Mr Stump."

"I was not a party to the stipulation," replied the mustanger, with a
significant but well-intentioned smile.  "I cannot take your money.
_She_ is not for sale."

"Oh, indeed!" said the planter, drawing back with an air of proud
disappointment; while his brother planters, as well as the officers of
the Fort, looked astonished at the refusal of such a munificent price.
Two hundred dollars for an untamed mustang, when the usual rate of price
was from ten to twenty!  The mustanger must be mad?

He gave them no time to descant upon his sanity.

"Mr Poindexter," he continued, speaking in the same good-humoured
strain, "you have given me such a generous price for my other captives--
and before they were taken too--that I can afford to make a present--
what we over in Ireland call a `luckpenny.'  It is our custom there
also, when a horse-trade takes place at the house, to give the
_douceur_, not to the purchaser himself, but to one of the fair members
of his family.  May I have your permission to introduce this Hibernian
fashion into the settlements of Texas?"

"Certainly, by all means!" responded several voices, two or three of
them unmistakably with an Irish accentuation.

"Oh, certainly, Mr Gerald!" replied the planter, his conservatism
giving way to the popular will--"as you please about that."

"Thanks, gentlemen--thanks!" said the mustanger, with a patronising look
towards men who believed themselves to be his masters.  "This mustang is
my luckpenny; and if Miss Poindexter will condescend to accept of it, I
shall feel more than repaid for the three days' chase which the creature
has cost me.  Had she been the most cruel of coquettes, she could scarce
have been more difficult to subdue."

"I accept your gift, sir; and with gratitude," responded the young
Creole--for the first time prominently proclaiming herself, and stepping
freely forth as she spoke.  "But I have a fancy," she continued,
pointing to the mustang--at the same time that her eye rested
inquiringly on the countenance of the mustanger--"a fancy that your
captive is not yet _tamed_?  She but trembles in fear of the unknown
future.  She may yet kick against the traces, if she find the harness
not to her liking; and then what am I to do--poor I?"

"True, Maurice!" said the major, widely mistaken as to the meaning of
the mysterious speech, and addressing the only man on the ground who
could possibly have comprehended it; "Miss Poindexter speaks very
sensibly.  That mustang has not been tamed yet--any one may see it.
Come, my good fellow! give her the lesson.

"Ladies and gentlemen!" continued the major, turning towards the
company, "this is something worth your seeing--those of you who have not
witnessed the spectacle before.  Come, Maurice; mount, and show us a
specimen of prairie horsemanship.  She looks as though she would put
your skill to the test."

"You are right, major: she does!" replied the mustanger, with a quick
glance, directed not towards the captive quadruped, but to the young
Creole; who, with all her assumed courage, retired tremblingly behind
the circle of spectators.

"No matter, my man," pursued the major, in a tone intended for
encouragement.  "In spite of that devil sparkling in her eye, I'll lay
ten to one you'll take the conceit out of her.  Try!"

Without losing credit, the mustanger could not have declined acceding to
the major's request.  It was a challenge to skill--to equestrian
prowess--a thing not lightly esteemed upon the prairies of Texas.

He proclaimed his acceptance of it by leaping lightly out of his saddle,
resigning his own steed to Zeb Stump, and exclusively giving his
attention to the captive.

The only preliminary called for was the clearing of the ground.  This
was effected in an instant--the greater part of the company--with all
the ladies--returning to the azotea.

With only a piece of raw-hide rope looped around the under jaw, and
carried headstall fashion behind the ears--with only one rein in hand--
Maurice sprang to the back of the wild mare.

It was the first time she had ever been mounted by man--the first insult
of the kind offered to her.

A shrill spiteful scream spoke plainly her appreciation of and
determination to resent it.  It proclaimed defiance of the attempt to
degrade her to the condition of a slave!

With equine instinct, she reared upon her hind legs, for some seconds
balancing her body in an erect position.  Her rider, anticipating the
trick, had thrown his arms around her neck; and, close clasping her
throat, appeared part of herself.  But for this she might have poised
over upon her back, and crushed him beneath her.

The uprearing of the hind quarters was the next "trick" of the mustang--
sure of being tried, and most difficult for the rider to meet without
being thrown.  From sheer conceit in his skill, he had declined saddle
and stirrup, that would now have stood him in stead; but with these he
could not have claimed accomplishment of the boasted feat of the
prairies--_to tame the naked steed_.

He performed it without them.  As the mare raised her hind quarters
aloft, he turned quickly upon her back, threw his arms around the barrel
of her body, and resting his toes upon the angular points of her fore
shoulders, successfully resisted her efforts to unhorse him.

Twice or three times was the endeavour repeated by the mustang, and as
often foiled by the skill of the mustanger; and then, as if conscious
that such efforts were idle, the enraged animal plunged no longer; but,
springing away from the spot, entered upon a gallop that appeared to
have no goal this side the ending of the earth.

It must have come to an end somewhere; though not within sight of the
spectators, who kept their places, waiting for the horse-tamer's return.

Conjectures that he might be killed, or, at the least, badly "crippled,"
were freely ventured during his absence; and there was one who wished it
so.  But there was also one upon whom such an event would have produced
a painful impression--almost as painful as if her own life depended upon
his safe return.  Why Louise Poindexter, daughter of the proud Louisiana
sugar-planter--a belle--a beauty of more than provincial repute--who
could, by simply saying yes, have had for a husband the richest and
noblest in the land--why she should have fixed her fancy, or even
permitted her thoughts to stray, upon a poor horse-hunter of Texas, was
a mystery that even her own intellect--by no means a weak one--was
unable to fathom.

Perhaps she had not yet gone so far as to fix her fancy upon him.  She
did not think so herself.  Had she thought so, and reflected upon it,
perhaps she would have recoiled from the contemplation of certain
consequences, that could not have failed to present themselves to her
mind.

She was but conscious of having conceived some strange interest in a
strange individual--one who had presented himself in a fashion that
favoured fanciful reflections--one who differed essentially from the
common-place types introduced to her in the world of social
distinctions.

She was conscious, too, that this interest--originating in a word, a
glance, a gesture--listened to, or observed, amid the ashes of a burnt
prairie--instead of subsiding, had ever since been upon the increase!

It was not diminished when Maurice the mustanger came riding back across
the plain, with the wild mare between his legs--no more wild--no longer
desiring to destroy him--but with lowered crest and mien submissive,
acknowledging to all the world that she had found her master!

Without acknowledging it to the world, or even to herself, the young
Creole was inspired with a similar reflection.

"Miss Poindexter!" said the mustanger, gliding to the ground, and
without making any acknowledgment to the plaudits that were showered
upon him--"may I ask you to step up to her, throw this lazo over her
neck, and lead her to the stable?  By so doing, she will regard you as
her tamer; and ever after submit to your will, if you but exhibit the
sign that first deprived her of her liberty."

A prude would have paltered with the proposal--a coquette would have
declined it--a timid girl have shrunk back.

Not so Louise Poindexter--a descendant of one of the
_filles-a-la-casette_.  Without a moment's hesitation--without the
slightest show of prudery or fear--she stepped forth from the
aristocratic circle; as instructed, took hold of the horsehair rope;
whisked it across the neck of the tamed mustang; and led the captive off
towards the _caballeriza_ of Casa del Corvo.

As she did so, the mustanger's words were ringing in her ears, and
echoing through her heart with a strange foreboding weird signification.

"_She will regard you as her tamer; and ever after submit to your will,
if you but exhibit the sign that first deprived her of her liberty_."



CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

A PRAIRIE PIC-NIC.

The first rays from a rosy aurora, saluting the flag of Fort Inge, fell
with a more subdued light upon an assemblage of objects occupying the
parade-ground below--in front of the "officers' quarters."

A small sumpter-waggon stood in the centre of the group; having attached
to it a double span of tight little Mexican mules, whose quick impatient
"stomping," tails spitefully whisked, and ears at intervals turning
awry, told that they had been for some time in harness, and were
impatient to move off--warning the bystanders, as well, against a too
close approximation to their heels.

Literally speaking, there were no bystanders--if we except a man of
colossal size, in blanket coat, and slouch felt hat; who, despite the
obscure light straggling around his shoulders, could be identified as
Zeb Stump, the hunter.

He was not standing either, but seated astride his "ole maar," that
showed less anxiety to be off than either the Mexican mules or her own
master.

The other forms around the vehicle were all in motion--quick, hurried,
occasionally confused--hither and thither, from the waggon to the door
of the quarters, and back again from the house to the vehicle.

There were half a score of them, or thereabouts; varied in costume as in
the colour of their skins.  Most were soldiers, in fatigue dress, though
of different arms of the service.  Two would be taken to be mess-cooks;
and two or three more, officers' servants, who had been detailed from
the ranks.

A more legitimate specimen of this profession appeared in the person of
a well-dressed darkie, who moved about the ground in a very
authoritative manner; deriving his importance, from his office of _valet
de tout_ to the major in command of the cantonment.  A sergeant, as
shown by his three-barred chevron, was in charge of the mixed party,
directing their movements; the object of which was to load the waggon
with eatables and drinkables--in short, the paraphernalia of a pic-nic.

That it was intended to be upon a grand scale, was testified by the
amplitude and variety of the _impedimenta_.  There were hampers and
baskets of all shapes and sizes, including the well known
parallelopipedon, enclosing its twelve necks of shining silver-lead;
while the tin canisters, painted Spanish brown, along with the universal
sardine-case, proclaimed the presence of many luxuries not indigenous to
Texas.

However delicate and extensive the stock of provisions, there was one in
the party of purveyors who did not appear to think it complete.  The
dissatisfied Lucullus was Zeb Stump.

"Lookee hyur, surgint," said he, addressing himself confidentially to
the individual in charge, "I hain't seed neery smell o' corn put inter
the veehicle as yit; an', I reck'n, thet out on the purayra, thur'll be
some folks ud prefar a leetle corn to any o' thet theer furrin French
stuff.  Sham-pain, ye call it, I b'lieve."

"Prefer corn to champagne!  The horses you mean?"

"Hosses be durned.  I ain't talkin' 'bout hoss corn.  I mean
M'nongaheela."

"Oh--ah--I comprehend.  You're right about that, Mr Stump.  The whisky
mustn't be forgotten, Pomp.  I think I saw a jar inside, that's intended
to go?"

"Yaw--yaw, sagint," responded the dark-skinned domestic; "dar am dat
same wesicle.  Hya it is!" he added, lugging a large jar into the light,
and swinging it up into the waggon.

Old Zeb appearing to think the packing now complete, showed signs of
impatience to be off.

"Ain't ye riddy, surgint?" he inquired, shifting restlessly in his
stirrups.

"Not quite, Mr Stump.  The cook tells me the chickens want another turn
upon the spit, before we can take 'em along."

"Durn the chickens, an the cook too!  What air any dung-hill fowl to
compare wi' a wild turkey o' the purayra; an how am I to shoot one,
arter the sun hev clomb ten mile up the sky?  The major sayed I war to
git him a gobbler, whativer shed happen.  'Tain't so durnation eezy to
kill turkey gobbler arter sun-up, wi' a clamjamferry like this comin'
clost upon a fellur's heels?  Ye mustn't surpose, surgint, that thet ere
bird air as big a fool as the sodger o' a fort.  Of all the cunnin'
critters as ferquents these hyur purayras, a turkey air the cunninest;
an to git helf way roun' one o' 'em, ye must be up along wi' the sun;
and preehap a leetle urlier."

"True, Mr Stump.  I know the major wants a wild turkey.  He told me so;
and expects you to procure one on the way."

"No doubt he do; an preehap expex me likeways to purvid him wi' a
baffler's tongue, an hump--seein' as thur ain't sech a anymal on the
purayras o' South Texas--nor hain't a been for good twenty yurs past--
noterthstandin' what Eur-op-ean writers o' books hev said to the
contrary, an 'specially French 'uns, as I've heern.  Thur ain't no
burner 'bout hyur.  Thur's baar, an deer, an goats, an plenty o'
gobblers; but to hev one o' these critters for yur dinner, ye must git
it urly enuf for yur breakfist.  Unless I hev my own time, I won't
promise to guide yur party, an git gobbler both.  So, surgint, ef ye
expex yur grand kumpny to chaw turkey-meat this day, ye'll do well to be
makin' tracks for the purayra."

Stirred by the hunter's representation, the sergeant did all that was
possible to hasten the departure of himself and his parti-coloured
company; and, shortly after, the provision train, with Zeb Stump as its
guide, was wending its way across the extensive plain that lies between
the Leona and the "River of Nuts."

The parade-ground had been cleared of the waggon and its escort scarce
twenty minutes, when a party of somewhat different appearance commenced
assembling upon the same spot.

There were ladies on horseback; attended, not by grooms, as at the
"meet" in an English hunting-field, but by the gentlemen who were to
accompany them--their friends and acquaintances--fathers, brothers,
lovers, and husbands.  Most, if not all, who had figured at Poindexter's
dinner party, were soon upon the ground.

The planter himself was present; as also his son Henry, his nephew
Cassius Calhoun, and his daughter Louise--the young lady mounted upon
the spotted mustang, that had figured so conspicuously on the occasion
of the entertainment at Casa del Corvo.

The affair was a reciprocal treat--a simple return of hospitality; the
major and his officers being the hosts, the planter and his friends the
invited guests.  The entertainment about to be provided, if less
pretentious in luxurious appointments, was equally appropriate to the
time and place.  The guests of the cantonment were to be gratified by
witnessing a spectacle--grand as rare--a chase of wild steeds!

The arena of the sport could only be upon the wild-horse prairies--some
twenty miles to the southward of Fort Inge.  Hence the necessity for an
early start, and being preceded by a vehicle laden with an ample
_commissariat_.

Just as the sunbeams began to dance upon the crystal waters of the
Leona, the excursionists were ready to take their departure from the
parade-ground--with an escort of two-score dragoons that had been
ordered to ride in the rear.  Like the party that preceded them, they
too were provided with a guide--not an old backwoodsman in battered felt
hat, and faded blanket coat, astride a scraggy roadster; but a horseman
completely costumed and equipped, mounted upon a splendid steed, in
every way worthy to be the chaperone of such a distinguished expedition.

"Come, Maurice!" cried the major, on seeing that all had assembled,
"we're ready to be conducted to the game.  Ladies and gentlemen! this
young fellow is thoroughly acquainted with the haunts and habits of the
wild horses.  If there's a man in Texas, who can show us how to hunt
them, 'tis Maurice the mustanger."

"Faith, you flatter me, major!" rejoined the young Irishman, turning
with a courteous air towards the company; "I have not said so much as
that.  I can only promise to show you where you may _find_ them."

"Modest fellow!" soliloquised one, who trembled, as she gave thought to
what she more than half suspected to be an untruth.

"Lead on, then!" commanded the major; and, at the word, the gay
cavalcade, with the mustanger in the lead, commenced moving across the
parade-ground--while the star-spangled banner, unfurled by the morning
breeze, fluttered upon its staff as if waving them an elegant adieu!

A twenty-mile ride upon prairie turf is a mere bagatelle--before
breakfast, an airing.  In Texas it is so regarded by man, woman, and
horse.

It was accomplished in less than three hours--without further
inconvenience than that which arose from performing the last few miles
of it with appetites uncomfortably keen.

Fortunately the provision waggon, passed upon the road, came close upon
their heels; and, long before the sun had attained the meridian line,
the excursionists were in full pic-nic under the shade of a gigantic
pecan tree, that stood near the banks of the Nueces.

No incident had occurred on the way--worth recording.  The mustanger, as
guide, had ridden habitually in the advance; the company, with one or
two exceptions, thinking of him only in his official capacity--unless
when startled by some feat of horsemanship--such as leaping clear over a
prairie stream, or dry

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