The Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet in California, Sonora, and Western Part 24

That movement decided his fate, for not choosing to be shot at, nor to close with a fellow so powerful that he could have easily crushed my head between his thumb and finger, I drew at him; though rapid, my aim was certain, and he fell dead, without uttering a single word, the arrow having penetrated his heart. I then crawled to Gabriel, to whom I explained the matter, and left him, to take my station near the two remaining brigands. I found them busy searching the saddle-bags, and putting aside what they wished to secrete for their own use.

After they had been thus employed for half an hour, one of them put three saddles upon his head, and, thus loaded, returned to the burrow, desiring his companion to come along, and drink his coffee while it was hot. Some five minutes afterwards, the noise of a heavy fall was heard (it was that of the thief who had just left, who was killed by the tomahawk of Gabriel), and the remaining robber, loading himself with the saddle-bags, prepared to follow, swearing aloud against his companion, "who could not see before his eyes, and would break the pommels of the saddles."

I had just drawn my bow, and was taking my aim, when Gabriel, pa.s.sing me, made a signal to forbear, and rus.h.i.+ng upon the thief, he kicked him in the back, just as he was balancing the saddles upon his head. The thief fell down, and attempted to struggle, but the prodigious muscular strength of Gabriel was too much for him; in a moment he laid half strangled and motionless. We bound him firmly hand and foot, and carried him to his burrow; we laid the two bodies by his side, stowed our luggage in the burrow, and having destroyed all traces of the struggle, we prepared for the reception of the horse-thieves.

Chance befriended us. While we were drinking the coffee thus left as a prize to the conquerors, we heard at a distance the trampling of horses.

I seized one of the rifles, and Gabriel, after a moment of intense listening, prepared his la.s.so, and glided behind the bushes. It was not long before I perceived my own horse, who, having undoubtedly thrown his rider, was galloping back to the camp. He was closely pursued by one of the rascals, mounted upon Gabriel's horse, and calling out to the three robbers, "Stop him; Russy, Carlton--stop him!" At that moment, Gabriel's la.s.so fell upon his shoulders, and he fell off the horse as dead as if struck by lightning: his neck was broken.

Having gained our horses, we saddled them, and took our rifles, not doubting but that we would easily capture the remaining rascals, as the speed of our two steeds was very superior to that of the others. After half an hour's hard riding, we fell in with Roche and our companions, who had been equally fortunate. It appeared that the fellow who had been riding my horse had received a severe fall against a tree; and while one of his companions started in chase of the animal, who had galloped off, the two others tied their horses to the trees, and went to his a.s.sistance. When thus occupied, they were surprised, and bound hand and foot by Roche and his party.

We brought back our prisoners, and when we arrived at the burrow, we found that, far from having lost anything by the robbers, we had, on the contrary, obtained articles which we wanted. One of the lawyers found in the stone jug enough of whisky to fill his flask; the parson got another rifle, to replace that which he had lost in the prairie, and the pouches and powder-horns of the three first robbers were found well supplied with powder and b.a.l.l.s. We also took possession of four green Mackinau blankets and a bag of ground coffee.

We heartily thanked Providence, who had thrown the rascals in our way, and, after a good meal, we resumed our journey in a southern direction, each of the three lawyers leading, by a stout rope, one of the brigands, who were gagged and their hands firmly bound behind their backs. During the whole day, the parson amused himself with preaching honesty and morality to our prisoners, who, seeing now that they had not the least chance to escape, walked briskly alongside of the horses.

Towards evening we encamped in one of those plains, a mile in circ.u.mference, which are so frequently met with in the forests of the west. We had performed a journey of twenty miles, and that, with the forced ride which our beasts had performed in the morning, had quite tired them out. Besides, having now four men on foot, we could not proceed so fast as before. We lighted a fire and fed our prisoners, putting two of them in the centre of our circles, while the two others, who were much braised by their falls of the morning, took their station near the fire, and we covered them with a blanket. Though we believed we had nothing to fear from our prisoners, the two first being bound hand and foot, and the two last being too weak to move, we nevertheless resolved that a watch should be kept, and as Gabriel and I had not slept during the night before, we appointed Roche to keep the first watch.

When I awoke, I felt chilly, and to my astonishment I perceived that our fire was down. I rose and looked immediately for the prisoners. The two that we had put within our circle were still snoring heavily, but the others, whose feet we had not bound on account of their painful bruises, were gone. I looked for the watch, and found that it was one of the lawyers, who, having drank too freely of the whisky, had fallen asleep.

The thieves had left the blanket; I touched it; I perceived that it was yet warm, so that I knew they could not have been gone a long while.

The day was just breaking, and I awoke my companions, the lawyer was much ashamed of himself, and offered the humblest apologies, and as a proof of his repentance, he poured on the ground the remainder of the liquor in his flask. As soon as Gabriel and Roche were up, we searched in the gra.s.s for the foot-prints, which we were not long in finding, and which conducted us straight to the place where we had left our horses loose and grazing. Then, for the first time, we perceived that the horses which were shod, and which belonged to the three lawyers, had had their shoes taken off, when in possession of the thieves the day before.

By the foot-prints, multiplied in every direction, it was evident that the fugitives had attempted, though in vain, to seize upon some of our horses. Following the foot-marks a little farther, brought us to a small sandy creek, where the track was lost; and on the other side, to our great astonishment, we saw plainly (at least the appearance seemed to imply as much), that help had been at hand, and that the thieves had escaped upon a tall American horse, ambling so lightly, that the four shoes of the animal were comparatively but feebly marked on the ground.

It seemed, also, that the left foreleg of the animal had been at some time hurt, for the stopping was not regular, being sometimes longer, sometimes shorter, and now and then deviating two or three inches from the line.

I thought immediately that we had been discovered by another roving party of the brigands, and that they had gone to get a reinforcement to overpower us, but upon a closer examination of the track, I came at once to the solution of the mystery. I remarked that on the print left by the shoes, the places upon which the head of the nails should have pressed deeper, were, on the contrary, convex, the shoes were, therefore, not fixed by nails; and my suspicions being awakened, I soon spied upon a soft sandy spot, through which the track pa.s.sed, that there was something trailing from the left hind foot, and I satisfied myself that this last slight mark was made by a piece of twine. A little afterwards I remarked that on the softer parts of the ground, and two or three inches behind and before the horse-shoe prints, were two circular impressions, which I ascertained to be the heel and the toe-marks left by a man's moca.s.sins.

The mystery was revealed. We had never searched our prisoners, one of whom must have had some of the shoes taken off the horses, which shoes, in these districts, are very valuable, as they cannot be replaced.

Having tried in vain to catch some of our horses, they had washed out the tracks in the creek, and had fixed the horse-shoes to their own feet with pieces of twine; after which, putting themselves in a line at the required distance one from the other, they had started off, both with the same foot, imitating thus the pacing of a swift horse.

The plan was cunning enough, and proved that the blackguards were no novices in their profession, but they had not yet sufficiently acquired that peculiar tact natural to savage life. Had they been Indians, they would have fixed small pieces of wood into the holes of the shoe to imitate the nails, and they would then have escaped. We returned to the camp to arm ourselves, and the lawyers, wis.h.i.+ng to recover our confidence, entreated that they might be permitted to chase and recapture the fellows. At noon they returned quite exhausted, but they had been successful; the prisoners were now bound hand and foot, and also tied by the waist to a young pine, which we felled for the purpose.

It was useless to travel further on that day, as the lawyers' horses were quite blown, and having now plenty of ammunition, some of us went in pursuit of turkeys and pheasants, for a day or two's provisions. All my efforts to obtain information from the prisoners were vain. To my inquiries as to what direction lay the settlements, I received no answer.

Towards evening, as we were taking our meal, we were visited by a band of dogs, who, stopping ten yards from us, began to bark most furiously.

Thinking at first they belonged to the band of robbers, who employed them to follow travellers, we hastily seized our arms, and prepared for a fight; but Gabriel a.s.serting the dogs were a particular breed belonging to the Cherokees, Choctaws, Creeks, and other tribes of half-civilized Indians, established upon the Red River, we began shouting and firing our rifles, so as to guide towards us the Indians, who, we presumed, could not be far behind their dogs. We did not wait long, for a few minutes afterwards a gallant band of eighty Cherokees dashed through the cover, and reined up their horses before us. All was explained in a moment.

A system of general depredation had been carried on, for a long while with impunity, upon the plantations above the great bend of the Red River. The people of Arkansas accused the Texans, who, in their turn, a.s.serted that the parties were Indians. Governor Yell, of the Arkansas, complained to Ross, the highly talented chief of the Cherokees, who answered that the robbers were Arkansas men and Texans, and, as a proof of his a.s.sertion, he ordered a band to scour the country, until they had fallen in with and captured the depredators. For the last two days, they had been following some tracks, till their dogs, having crossed the trail left by the lawyers and their prisoners, guided the warriors to our encampments.

We gave them all our prisoners, whom we were very glad to get rid of; and the Indian leader generously ordered one of his men to give up his horse and saddle to the parson. To this, however, we would not consent, unless we paid for the animal; and each of us subscribing ten dollars, we presented the money to the man, who certainly did not lose by the bargain.

The next morning, the leader of the Cherokee party advised me to take a southern direction, till we should arrive at the head waters of the river Sabine, from whence, proceeding either northward or eastward, we should, in a few days, reach the Red River, through the cane-brakes and the clearings of the new settlers. Before parting, the Indians made us presents of pipes and tobacco, of which we were much in want; and after a hearty breakfast, we resumed our journey.

CHAPTER x.x.xI.

The Cherokee Indians, a portion of whom we had just met on such friendly terms, are probably destined to act no inconsiderable part in the future history of Texas. Within the last few years they have given a severe lesson to the governments of both Texas and the United States. The reader is already aware that, through a mistaken policy, the government of Was.h.i.+ngton have removed from several southern states those tribes of half-civilized Indians which indubitably were the most honourable and industrious portion of the population of these very states. The Cherokees, the Creeks, and the Choctaws, among others, were established on the northern banks of the Red River, in the territory west of the Arkansas.

The Cherokees, with a population of twenty-four thousand individuals; the Creeks, with twenty thousand, and the Choctaws, with fifteen, as soon as they reached their new country, applied themselves to agriculture, and as they possessed wealth, slaves, and cattle, their cotton plantations soon became the finest west from the Mississippi, and latterly all the cotton grown by the Americans and the Texans, within one hundred miles from the Indian settlements, has been brought up to their mills and presses, to be cleaned and put into bales, before it was s.h.i.+pped to New Orleans. Some years before the independence of Texas, a small number of these Cherokees had settled as planters upon the Texan territory, where, by their good conduct and superior management of their farms, they had acquired great wealth, and had conciliated the goodwill of the warlike tribes of Indians around them, such as the Cushates, the Caddoes, and even the Comanches.

As soon as the Texans declared their independence, their rulers, thinking that no better population could exist in the northern districts than that of the Cherokees, invited a few hundred more to come from the Red River, and settle among them; and to engage them so to do, the first session of congress offered them a grant of two or three hundred thousand acres of land, to be selected by them in the district they would most prefer. Thus enticed, hundreds of wealthy Cherokee planters migrated to Texas, with their wealth and cattle. Such was the state of affairs until the presidency of Lamar, a man utterly unequal to the task of ruling over a new country.

Under his government, the Texans, no longer restrained by the energy and honourable feelings of an Austin or a Houston, followed the bent of their dispositions, and were guilty of acts of barbarism and cruelty which, had they, at the time, been properly represented to the civilized people of Europe, would have caused them to blot the name of Texas out of the list of nations.

I have already related the ma.s.sacre of the Comanches in San Antonio, and the miserable pilfering expedition to Santa Fe, but these two acts had been preceded by one still more disgraceful.

The Cherokees, who had migrated to Texas, were flouris.h.i.+ng in their new settlement, when the bankruptcy of the merchants in the United States was followed by that of the planters. The consequence was, that from Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, and Arkansas, hundreds of planters smuggled their negroes and other property into Texas, and as they dared not locate themselves too far west, from their dread of the Mexicans and Indians, they remained in the east country, upon the rivers of which only, at that time, navigation had been attempted.

These new comers, however, had to struggle with many difficulties; they had to clear the ground, to build bridges, to dry up mud-holes and swamps; and, moreover, they found that they could not enter into compet.i.tion with the Cherokees, who having been established there for a longer time, and raising abundant crops of maize, cotton, and tobacco, were enabled to sell their provisions at one-half the price which the white planter wished to realize. The Europeans, of course, preferred to settle near the Cherokees, from whom they could obtain their Indian corn at fifty cents a bushel, while the American planters demanded two dollars, and sometimes three. In a short time, the Cherokee district became thickly settled, possessing good roads, and bridges and ferries upon every muddy creek; in short, it was, in civilization, full a century ahead of all the other eastern establishments of Texas.

The Texan planters from the United States represented to the government that they would have no chance of cultivating the country and building eastern cities, as long as the Cherokees were allowed to remain; and, moreover, they backed their pet.i.tion with a clause showing that the minimum price the Cherokee land would be sold at to new comers from the United States was ten dollars an acre. This last argument prevailed, and in spite of the opposition of two or three honest men, the greedy legislators attacked the validity of the acts made during the former presidency; the Cherokees' grant was recalled, and notice given to them that they should forthwith give up their plantations and retire from Texas.

To this order the Cherokees did not deign to give an answer, and, aware of the character of the Texans, they never attempted to appeal for justice; but, on the contrary, prepared themselves to defend their property from any invasion. Seeing them so determined, the Texans'

ardour cooled a little, and they offered the Indians twelve cents an acre for their land, which proposition was not attended to; and probably the Cherokees, from the fear which they inspired, would never have been molested had it not been for an act of the greatest cowardice on the part of the Texan government, and a most guilty indifference on that of the United States.

In Alabama, Tennessee, and Arkansas, labour had fallen so low, that thousands of individuals had abandoned their farms to become horse-thieves and negro smugglers. Many among them had gone to sell the produce of their depredations to the Cherokees, who not only did not condescend to deal with them, but punished them with rigour, subjecting them to their own code of laws. These ruffians nurtured plans of vengeance which they dared not themselves execute, but, knowing the greedy spirit of their countrymen, they spread the most incredible stories of Cherokee wealth and comforts. The plan succeeded well, for as soon as the altercation between the Texans and Cherokee Indians was made known to the Western States, several bands were immediately formed, who, in the expectation of a rich booty, entered Texas, and offered the Congress to drive away the Cherokees. As soon as this was known, representations were made by honourable men to the government of the United States, but no notice was taken, and the Western States, probably to get rid at once of the sc.u.m of their population, gave every encouragement to the expedition.

For a few months the Cherokees invariably discomfited their invaders, destroying their bands as soon as they were newly formed, and treating them as common robbers; but, being farmers, they could not fight and cultivate their ground at the same time, and they now thought of abandoning so unhospitable a land; the more so as, discovering that the Cherokees were more than a match for them in the field, a system of incendiarism and plunder was resorted to, which proved more disastrous to the Cherokees than the previous open warfare.

The Cherokees wisely reflected, that as long as the inhabitants of the Western States would entertain the hope of plunder and booty, they would constantly pour upon them their worthless population. They, therefore, destroyed their farms and their bridges; and collecting their horses and cattle, they retreated upon the Red River among their own people. The Cherokee campaign is a topic of much boasting among the Texans, as they say they expelled the Indians from their country; but a fact, which they are not anxious to publish, is, that for every Cherokee killed, twenty Texans bit the dust.

Since that period the Cherokees, Choctaws, and Creeks have had several war councils, and I doubt not that they are only waiting for an opportunity to retaliate, and will eventually sweep off the entire eastern population of Texas.

The fact is, that a democratic form of government is powerless when the nation is so utterly depraved. Austin, the father of Texan colonization, quitted the country in disgust. Houston, whose military talents and well-known courage obtained for him the presidency, has declared his intention to do the same, and to retire to the United States, to follow up his original profession of a lawyer. Such is the demoralized state of Texas at the present moment; what it may hereafter be is in the womb of Time.

CHAPTER x.x.xII.

We had now entered the white settlements of the Sabine river, and found, to our astonishment, that, far from arriving at civilization, we were receding from it; the farms of the Wakoes and well-cultivated fields of the p.a.w.nee-Picts, their numerous cattle and comfortable dwellings, were a strong contrast to the miserable twelve-feet-square mud-and-log cabins we pa.s.sed by. Every farmer we met was a perfect picture of wretchedness and misery; their women dirty and covered with rags, which could scarcely conceal their nudity; the cattle lean and starving; and the horses so weak that they could scarcely stand upon their legs.

Where was the boasted superiority of the Texans over the Indian race? or were these individuals around us of that cla.s.s of beings who, not daring to reside within the jurisdiction of the law, were obliged to lead a borderer's life, exposed to all the horrors of Indian warfare and famine? Upon inquiry, we discovered that these frontier men were all, more or less, eminent members of the Texan Republic, one being a general, another a colonel; some speakers of the House of Representatives; and many of them members of Congress, judges, and magistrates. Notwithstanding their high official appointments, we did not think it prudent to stop among them, but pushed on briskly, with our rifles across the pommels of our saddles; indeed, from the covetous eyes which these magistrates and big men occasionally cast upon our horses and saddle-bags, we expected at every moment that we should be attacked.

A smart ride of two hours brought us to a second settlement, which contrasted most singularly with the first. Here, all the houses were neat and s.p.a.cious, with fine barns and stables; the fields were well enclosed, and covered with a green carpet of clover, upon which were grazing cattle and horses of a superior breed.

This sight of comfort and plenty restored our confidence in civilization, which confidence we had totally lost at the first settlement we had fallen in with; and perceiving, among others, a dwelling surrounded with gardens arranged with some taste, we stopped our horses and asked for accommodation for ourselves and beasts. Three or four smart young boys rushed out, to take care of our horses, and a venerable old man invited us to honour his hearth. He was a Mormon, and informed us that hundreds of farmers belonging to that sect had established themselves in East Texas, at a short distance from each other, and that, if we were going to travel through the Arkansas, and chose to do so, we could stop every other day at a Mormon farm, until we arrived at the southern borders of the state of Missouri.

We resolved to avail ourselves of this information, antic.i.p.ating that every Mormon dwelling would be as clean and comfortable as the one we were in; but we afterwards found out our mistake, for, during the fifteen days' journey which we travelled between the Sabine and a place called Boston, we stopped at six different Mormon farms, either for night or for noon meals, but, unlike the first, they were anything but comfortable or prosperous. One circ.u.mstance, however, attracted particularly our attention; it was, that, rich or poor, the Mormon planters had superior cattle and horses, and that they had invariably stored up in their granaries or barns the last year's crop of everything that would keep. Afterwards I learned that these farmers were only stipendiary agents of the elders of the Mormons, who, in the case of a westward invasion being decided upon by Joe Smith and his people, would immediately furnish their army with fresh horses and all the provisions necessary for a campaign.

One morning we met with a Texan constable going to arrest a murderer. He asked us what o'clock it was, as he had not a _watch_, and told us that a few minutes' ride would bring us to Boston, a new Texan city. We searched in vain for any vestiges which could announce our being in the vicinity of even a village; at last, however, emerging from a swamp, through which we had been forcing our way for more than an hour, we descried between the trees a long building, made of the rough logs of the black pine, and as we advanced, we perceived that the s.p.a.ce between the logs (about six inches) had not been filled up, probably to obtain a more free circulation of air. This building, a naked negro informed us, was Amba.s.sadors' Hall, the great and only hotel of Texan Boston.

Two hundred yards farther we perceived a mult.i.tude of individuals swarming around another erection of the same description, but without a roof, and I spurred on my horse, believing we should be in time to witness some c.o.c.kfighting or a boxing-match; but my American fellow-travellers, better acquainted with the manners and customs of the natives, declared it was the "Court-House." As we had nothing to do there, we turned our horses' heads towards the tavern, and the barking of a pack of hungry dogs soon called around us a host of the Bostonians.

It is strange that the name of city should be given to an unfinished log-house, but such is the case in Texas; every individual possessing three hundred acres of land calls his lot a city, and his house becomes at once the tavern, the post-office, the court-house, the gaol, the bank, the land-office, and, in fact, everything. I knew a man near the Red River, who had obtained from government an appointment of postmaster, and during the five years of his holding the office, he had not had a single letter in his hand.