The Death Shot Part 33

"In coorse," resumes Woodley, "we'll foller the trail o' Borla.s.se an'

his lot. It air sure to lead to the same place. What they're arter 'tain't eezy to tell. Some deviltry, for sartin. They purtend to make thar livin' by ropin' wild horses? I guess he gits more by takin' them as air tame;--as you, Clancy, hev reezun to know. I hain't a doubt he'd do wuss than that, ef opportunity offered. Thar's been more'n one case o' highway robbery out thar in West Texas, on emigrant people goin' that way; an' I don't know a likelier than Borla.s.se to a had a hand in't. Ef Kurnel Armstrong's party wan't so strong as 'tis, an' the kurnel hisself a old campayner, I mout hev my fears for 'em. I reckin they're safe enuf. Borla.s.se an' his fellurs won't dar tech them. Johnny sez thar war but ten or twelve in all. Still, tho' they moutn't openly attack the waggon train, thar's jest a chance o' their hangin' on its skirts, an' stealin' somethin' from it. Ye heerd in Naketosh o' a young Creole planter, by name Dupray, who's goed wi' Armstrong, an's tuk a big count o' dollars along. Jest the bait to temp Jim Borla.s.se; an' as for d.i.c.k Darke, thar's somethin' else to temp him. So--"

"Woodley!" exclaims Clancy, without waiting for the hunter to conclude; "we must be off from here. For G.o.d's sake let us go!"

His comrades, divining the cause of Clancy's impatience, make no attempt to restrain him. They have rested and sufficiently refreshed themselves. There is no reason for their remaining any longer on the ground.

Rising simultaneously, each unhitches his horse, and stands by the stirrup, taking in the slack of his reins.

Before they can spring into their saddles, the deer-hound darts off from their midst--as he does so giving out a growl.

The stroke of a hoof tells them of some one approaching, and the next moment a horseman is seen through the trees.

Apparently undaunted, he comes on towards their camp ground; but when near enough to have fair view of their faces, he suddenly reins up, and shows signs of a desire to retreat.

If this be his intention, it is too late.

Before he can wrench round his horse a rifle is levelled, its barrel bearing upon his body; while a voice sounds threateningly in his ears, in clear tone, p.r.o.nouncing the words,--

"Keep yur ground, Joe Harkness! Don't attempt retreetin'. If ye do, I'll send a bullet through ye sure as my name's Sime Woodley."

The threat is sufficient. Harkness--for it is he--ceases tugging upon his rein, and permits his horse to stand still.

Then, at a second command from Woodley, accompanied by; a similar menace, he urges the animal into action, and moves on towards their bivouac.

In less than sixty seconds after, he is in their midst, dismounted and down upon his knees, piteously appealing to them to spare his life.

The ex-jailor's story is soon told, and that without any reservation.

The man who has connived at Richard Darke's escape, and made money by the connivance, is now more than repentant for his dereliction of duty.

For he has not only been bullied by Borla.s.se's band, but stripped of his ill-gotten gains. Still more, beaten, and otherwise so roughly handled that he has been long trying to get quit of their company. Having stolen away from their camp--while the robbers were asleep--he is now returning along the trail they had taken into Texas, on his way back to the States, with not much left him, except a very sorry horse and a sorrowing heart.

His captors soon discover that, with his sorrow, there is an admixture of spite against his late a.s.sociates. Against Darke in particular, who has proved ungrateful for the great service done him.

All this does Harkness communicate to them, and something besides.

Something that sets Clancy well-nigh crazed, and makes almost as much impression upon his fellow-travellers.

After hearing it they bound instantly to their saddles, and spur away from the spot; Harkness, as commanded, following at their horses' heels.

This he does without daring to disobey; trotting after, in company with the dog, seemingly less cur than himself.

They have no fear of his falling back. Woodley's rifle, whose barrel has been already borne upon him, can be again brought to the level in an instant of time.

The thought holds him secure, as if a trail-rope attached him to the tail of the hunter's horse.

CHAPTER FORTY TWO.

THE PRAIRIE CARAVAN.

Picture in imagination meadows, on which scythe of mower has never cut sward, nor haymaker set foot; meadows loaded with such luxuriance of vegetation--lush, tall gra.s.s--that tons of hay might be garnered off a single acre; meadows of such extent, that in speaking of them you may not use the word acres, but miles, even this but faintly conveying the idea of their immensity; in fancy summon up such a scene, and you will have before you what is a reality in Texas.

In seeming these plains have no boundary save the sky--no limit nearer than the horizon. And since to the eye of the traveller this keeps continually changing, he may well believe them without limit at all, and fancy himself moving in the midst of a green sea, boundless as ocean itself, his horse the boat on which he has embarked.

In places this extended surface presents a somewhat monotonous aspect, though it is not so everywhere. Here and there it is pleasantly interspersed with trees, some standing solitary, but mostly in groves, copses, or belts; these looking, for all the world, like islands in the ocean. So perfect is the resemblance, that this very name has been given them, by men of Norman and Saxon race; whose ancestors, after crossing the Atlantic, carried into the colonies many ideas of the mariner, with much of his nomenclature. To them the isolated groves are "islands;" larger tracts of timber, seen afar, "land;" narrow s.p.a.ces between, "straits;" and indentations along their edges "bays."

To carry the a.n.a.logy further, the herds of buffalo, with bodies half buried in the tall gra.s.s, may be likened to "schools" of whales; the wild horses to porpoises at play; the deer to dolphins; and the fleet antelopes to flying-fish.

Completing the figure, we have the vultures that soar above, performing the part of predatory sea-gulls; the eagle representing the rarer frigate-bird, or albatross.

In the midst of this verdant expanse, less than a quarter of a century ago, man was rarely met; still more rarely civilised man; and rarer yet his dwelling-place. If at times a human being appeared among the prairie groves, he was not there as a sojourner--only a traveller, pa.s.sing from place to place. The herds of cattle, with s.h.a.ggy frontlets and humped shoulders--the droves of horses, long-tailed and with full flowing manes--the proud antlered stags, and p.r.o.ng-horned antelopes, were not his. He had no control over them. The turf he trod was free to them for pasture, as to him for pa.s.sage; and, as he made way through their midst, his presence scarce affrighted them. He and his might boast of being "war's arbiter's," and lords of the great ocean. They were not lords of that emerald sea stretching between the Sabine River and the Rio Grande. Civilised man had as yet but shown himself upon its sh.o.r.es.

Since then he has entered upon, and scratched a portion of its surface; though not much, compared with its immensity. There are still grand expanses of the Texan prairie unfurrowed by the ploughshare of the colonist--almost untrodden by the foot of the explorer. Even at this hour, the traveller may journey for days on gra.s.s-grown plains, amidst groves of timber, without seeing tower, steeple, or so much as a chimney rising above the tree-tops. If he perceive a solitary smoke, curling skyward, he knows that it is over the camp-fire of some one like himself--a wayfarer.

And it may be above the bivouac of those he would do well to shun. For upon the green surface of the prairie, as upon the blue expanse of the ocean, all men met with are not honest. There be land-sharks as well as water-sharks--prairie pirates as corsairs of the sea.

No spectacle more picturesque, nor yet more pleasing, than that of an emigrant caravan _en route_ over the plains. The huge waggons--"prairie s.h.i.+ps," as oft, and not inaptly, named--with their white canva.s.s tilts, typifying spread sails, aligned and moving along one after the other, like a _corps d'armee_ on march by columns; a group of hors.e.m.e.n ahead, representing its vanguard; others on the flanks, and still another party riding behind, to look after strays and stragglers, the rear-guard.

Usually a herd of cattle along--steers for the plough, young bullocks to supply beef for consumption on the journey, milch kine to give comfort to the children and colour to the tea and coffee--among them an old bull or two, to propagate the species on reaching the projected settlement.

Not unfrequently a drove of pigs, or flock of sheep, with coops containing ducks, geese, turkeys, Guinea-fowl--perhaps a screaming peac.o.c.k, but certainly Chanticleer and his harem.

A train of Texan settlers has its peculiarities, though now not so marked as in the times of which we write. Then a noted feature was the negro--his _status_ a slave. He would be seen afoot, toiling on at the tails of the waggons, not in silence or despondingly, as if the march were a forced one. Footsore he might be, in his cheap "brogans" of Penitentiary fabric, and sore aweary of the way, but never sad. On the contrary, ever hilarious, exchanging jests with his fellow-pedestrians, or a word with Dinah in the wagon, jibing the teamsters, mocking the mule-drivers, sending his cachinations in sonorous ring along the moving line; himself far more mirthful than his master--more enjoying the march.

Strange it is, but true, that a lifetime of bondage does not stifle merriment in the heart of the Ethiopian. Grace of G.o.d to the sons of Ham--merciful compensation for mercies endured by them from the day Canaan was cursed, as it were a doom from the dawning of creation!

Just such a train as described is that commanded by Colonel Armstrong, _en route_ towards Western Texas. Starting from Natchitoches some twenty days ago, it has reached the Colorado river, crossed it, and is now wending its way towards the San Saba, a tributary of the former stream.

It is one of the largest caravans that has yet pa.s.sed over the prairies of Texas, counting between twenty and thirty "Conestoga" wagons, with several "carrioles" and vehicles of varied kind. Full fifty hors.e.m.e.n ride in its front, on its flank, and rear; while five times the number of pedestrians, men with black or yellow skins, keep pace with it. A proportionate number of women and children are carried in the wagons, their dusky faces peeping out from under the tilts, in contrast with the colour of the rain-bleached canva.s.s; while other women and children of white complexion ride in the vehicles with springs.

In one of the latter--a barouche of the American build--travel two young ladies, distinguished by particular attentions. Half a dozen hors.e.m.e.n hover around their carriage, acting as its escort, each apparently anxious to exchange words with them. With one they can talk, jest, laugh, chatter as much as they like; but the other repels them. For the soul of the former is full of joy; that of the latter steeped in sadness.

Superfluous to say, they are Jessie and Helen Armstrong. And needless to tell why the one is gay, the other grave. Since we last saw them in the hotel of Natchitoches, no change has taken place in their hearts or their hopes. The younger of the two, Jessie, is still an expectant bride, certain soon to be a wife; and with this certainty rejoices in the future. Helen, with no such expectation, no wish for it, feeling as one widowed, grieves over the past. The former sees her lover by her side living and loving, constantly, caressingly; the latter can but think of hers as something afar off--a dream--a dread vision--a cold corpse--herself the cause of it!

Colonel Armstrong's eldest daughter is indeed sad--a prey to repining.

Her heart, after receiving so many shocks, has almost succ.u.mbed to that the supremest, most painful suffering that can afflict humanity--the malady of _melancholia_. The word conveys but a faint idea of the suffering itself. Only they who have known it--fortunately but few--can comprehend the terror, the wan, wasting misery, endured by those whose nerves have given way under some terrible stroke of misfortune. 'Tis the story of a broken heart.

Byron has told us "the heart may break and brokenly live on." In this her hour of unhappiness, Helen Armstrong would not and could not believe him. It may seem strange that Jessie is still only a bride to be. But no. She remembers the promise made to her father--to share with him a home in Texas, however humble it might be. All the same, now that she knows it will be splendid; knowing, too, it is to be shared by another-- her Louis. He is still but her _fiancee_; but his troth is plighted, his truthfulness beyond suspicion. They are all but man and wife; which they will be soon as the new home is reached.

The goal of their journey is to be the culminating point of Jessie's joy--the climax of her life's happiness.

CHAPTER FORTY THREE.

THE HAND OF G.o.d.

Scarce any stream of South-Western Texas but runs between bluffs. There is a valley or "bottom-land," only a little elevated above the water's surface, and often submerged during inundations,--beyond this the bluffs. The valley may be a mile or more in width, in some places ten, at others contracted, till the opposing cliffs are scarce a pistol-shot apart. And of these there are frequently two or three tiers, or terraces, receding backward from the river, the crest of the last and outmost being but the edge of an upland plain, which is often sterile and treeless. Any timber upon it is stunted, and of those species to which a dry soil is congenial. Mezquite, juniper, and "black-jack" oaks grow in groves or spinneys; while standing apart may be observed the arborescent jucca--the "dragon-tree" of the Western world, towering above an underwood unlike any other, composed of _cactaceae_ in all the varieties of cereus, cactus, and echinocactus. Altogether unlike is the bottom-land bordering upon the river. There the vegetation is lush and luxuriant, showing a growth of large forest timber--the trees set thickly, and matted with many parasites, that look like cables coiling around and keeping them together. These timbered tracts are not continuous, but show stretches of open between,--here little glades filled with flowers, there grand meadows overgrown with gra.s.s--so tall that the horseman riding through it has his shoulders swept by the spikes, which shed their pollen upon his coat.