By Arthur Quiller-Couch
On the 13th of October, 1811, we were cruising in the Endymion, off the north of Ireland, in a fine clear day succeeding one in which it had almost blown a hurricane. The master had just taken his meridian observation, the officer of the watch had reported the latitude, the captain had ordered it to be made twelve o'clock, and the boatswain, catching a word from the lieutenant, was in the full swing of his "Pipe to dinner!" when the captain called out—
"Stop! stop! I meant to go about first."
"Pipe belay! Mr. King," smartly ejaculated the officer of the watch, addressing the boatswain; which words, being heard over the decks, caused a sudden cessation of the sounds peculiar to that hungry season. The cook stood with a huge six-pound piece of pork uplifted on his tormentors, his mate ceased to bale out the pea-soup, and the whole ship seemed paralysed. The boatswain, having checked himself in the middle of his long-winded dinner-tune, drew a fresh inspiration, and dashed off into the opposite sharp, abrupt, cutting sound of the "Pipe belay!" the essence of which peculiar note is that its sounds should be understood and acted on with the utmost degree of promptitude.
There was now a dead pause of perfect silence all over the ship, in expectation of what was to come next. All eyes were turned to the chief.
"No; never mind; we'll wait," cried the good-natured captain, unwilling to interfere with the comforts of the men; "let them go to dinner; we shall tack at one o'clock, it will do just as well."
The boatswain, at a nod from the lieutenant of the watch, at once recommenced his merry "Pipe to dinner" notes; upon which a loud, joyous laugh rang from one end of the ship to the other. This hearty burst was not in the slightest degree disrespectful; on the contrary, it sounded like a grateful expression of glee at the prospect of the approaching good things which, by this time, were finding their speedy course down the hatchways.
Nothing was now heard but the cheerful chuckle of a well-fed company, the clatter of plates and knives, and the chit-chat of light hearts under the influence of temperate excitement.
When one o'clock came, the hands were called "About ship!" But as the helm was in the very act of going down, the look-out-man at the fore-topmast head called out—
"I see something a little on the lee-bow, sir!"
"Something! What do you mean by 'something'?" cried the first lieutenant, making a motion to the quarter-master at the con to right the helm again.
"I don't know what it is, sir," cried the man; "it is black, however."
"Black! Is it like a whale?" asked the officer, playing a little with his duty.
"Yes, sir," cried the look-out-man, unconscious that Shakespeare had been before him, "very like a whale!"
The captain and the officer exchanged glances at the poor fellow aloft having fallen into the trap laid for him, and the temptation must have been great to have inquired whether it were not "like a weasel"; but this might have been stretching the jest too far; so the lieutenant merely called to the signal midshipman, and desired him to skull up to the mast-head with his glass, to see what he made of the look-out-man's whale.
"It looks like a small rock," cried young "Skylark" as soon as he reached the top-gallant-yard and had taken the glass from his shoulders, across which he had slung it with a three-yarn fox.
"Stuff and nonsense!" replied the officers, "there are no rocks hereabouts; we can but just see the top of Muckish, behind Tory Island. Take another spy at your object, youngster; the mast-head-man and you will make it out to be something by-and-by, between you, I dare say."
"It's a boat, sir!" roared out the boy. "It's a boat adrift, two or three points on the lee-bow."
"Oh-ho!" said the officer, "that may be, sir," turning with an interrogative air to the captain, who gave orders to keep the frigate away a little that this strange-looking affair might be investigated. Meanwhile, as the ship was not to be tacked, the watch was called, and one half only of the people remained on deck. The rest strolled, sleepy, below; or disposed themselves in the sun on the lee gangway, mending their clothes, or telling long yarns.
A couple of fathoms of the fore and main sheets, and a slight touch of the weather topsail and top-gallant braces, with a check on the bow-lines, made the swift-footed Endymion spring forward, like a greyhound slipped from the leash. In a short time we made out that the object we were in chase of was, in fact, a boat. On approaching a little nearer, some heads of people became visible, and then several figures stood up, waving their hats to us. We brought to, just to windward of them, and sent a boat to see what was the matter.
It turned out as we supposed; they had belonged to a ship which had foundered in the recent gale. Although their vessel had become water-logged, they had contrived to hoist their long-boat out, and to stow in her twenty-one persons, some of them seamen and some passengers; of these, two were women, and three children. Their vessel, it appeared, had sprung a leak in middle of the gale, and, in spite of all their pumping, the water gained so fast upon them that they took to baling as a more effectual method. After a time, when this resource failed, the men, totally worn out and quite dispirited, gave it up as a bad job, abandoned their pumps, and actually lay down to sleep. In the morning the gale broke; but the ship had filled in the meantime, and was falling fast over her broadside. With some difficulty they disentangled the long-boat from the wreck, and thought themselves fortunate in being able to catch hold of a couple of small oars, with a studding-sail-boom for a mast, on which they hoisted a fragment of their main-hatchway tarpaulin for a sail. One ham and three gallons of water were all the provisions they were able to secure; and in this fashion they were set adrift on the wide sea. The master of the ship, with two gentlemen who were passengers, preferred to stick by the vessel while there was any part of her above water.
This, at least, was the story told us by the people we picked up.
The wind had been fair for the shore when the long-boat left the wreck, and though their ragged sail scarcely drove them along, their oars were only just sufficient to keep the boat's head the right way. Of course they made but slow progress; so that when they rose on the top of a swell, which was still very long and high in consequence of the gale, they could only just discover the distant land, Muckish, a remarkable flat-topped mountain on the northwest coast of Ireland, not very far from the promontory called the Bloody Foreland.
There appeared to have been little discipline among this forlorn crew, even when the breeze was in their favour; but when the wind chopped round, and blew off shore, they gave themselves up to despair, laid in their oars, let the sail flap to pieces, gobbled up all their provisions, and drank out their whole stock of water. Meanwhile the boat, which had been partially stove, in the confusion of clearing the ship, began to fill with water; and, as they all admitted afterwards, if it had not been for the courage and patience of the women under this sharp trial, they must have gone to the bottom.
As it was both cold and rainy, the poor children, who were too young to understand the nature of their situation, or the inutility of complaining, incessantly cried out for water, and begged that more clothes might be wrapped round them. Even after they came to us the little things were still crying, "Oh! do give us some water"—words which long sounded in our ears. None of these women were by any means strong—on the contrary, one of them seemed to be very delicate; yet they managed to rouse the men to a sense of their duty by a mixture of reproaches and entreaties, combined with the example of that singular fortitude which often gives more than masculine vigour to female minds in seasons of danger. How long this might have lasted I cannot say; but probably the strength of the men, however stimulated, must have given way before night, especially as the wind freshened, and the boat was driving further to sea. Had it not been for the accident of the officer of the forenoon watch on board the Endymion being unaware of the captain's intention to tack before dinner, these poor people, most probably, would all have perished.
The women, dripping wet, and scarcely capable of moving hand or foot, were lifted up the side, in a state almost of stupor; for they were confused by the hurry of the scene, and their fortitude had given way the moment all high motive to exertion was over. One of them, on reaching the quarterdeck, slipped through our hands, and falling on her knees, wept violently as she returned thanks for such a wonderful deliverance; but her thoughts were bewildered, and, fancying that her child was lost, she struck her hands together, and leaping again on her feet, screamed out, "Oh! where's my bairn—my wee bairn?"
At this instant a huge quarter-master, whose real name or nickname (I forget which) was Billy Magnus, appeared over the gangway hammocks, holding the missing urchin in his immense paw, where it squealed and twisted itself about, like Gulliver between the finger and thumb of the Brobdingnag farmer. The mother had just strength enough left to snatch her offspring from Billy, when she sank down flat on the deck, completely exhausted.
By means of a fine blazing fire, and plenty of hot tea, toast, and eggs, it was easy to remedy one class of these poor people's wants; but how to rig them out in dry clothes was a puzzle, till the captain bethought him of a resource which answered very well. He sent to several of the officers for their dressing-gowns; and these, together with supplies from his own wardrobe, made capital gowns and petticoats—at least, till the more fitting drapery of the ladies was dried. The children were tumbled into bed in the same compartment, close to the fire; and it would have done any one's heart good to have witnessed the style in which the provisions vanished from the board, while the women wept, prayed, and laughed, by turns.
The rugged seamen, when taken out of the boat, showed none of these symptoms of emotion, but running instinctively to the scuttle-butt, asked eagerly for a drop of water. As the most expeditious method of feeding and dressing them, they were distributed among the different messes, one to each, as far as they went. Thus they were all soon provided with dry clothing, and with as much to eat as they could stow away; for the doctor, when consulted, said they had not fasted so long as to make it dangerous to give them as much food as they were disposed to swallow. With the exception of the ham devoured in the boat, and which, after all, was but a mouthful apiece, they had tasted nothing for more than thirty hours; so that, I suppose, better justice was never done to his Majesty's beef, pork, bread, and other good things, with which our fellows insisted on stuffing the newcomers, till they fairly cried out for mercy and begged to be allowed a little sleep.
Possibly some of us were more disposed to sympathise with the distress of these people when adrift in their open boat on the wide sea, from having ourselves, about a month before, been pretty much in the same predicament. It always adds, as any one knows, greatly to our consideration for the difficulties and dangers of others, to have recently felt some touch of similar distress in our own persons. This maxim, though it is familiar enough, makes so little impression on our ordinary thoughts, that when circumstances occur to fix our attention closely upon it we are apt to arrive as suddenly at the perception of its truth as if it were a new discovery.
By Charles Barnard
It was about nine o'clock in the morning when the ship first appeared. At once there was the greatest excitement in the village. It was a British warship. What would she do? Would she tack about in the bay to pick up stray coasters as prizes, or would she land soldiers to burn the town? In either case there would be trouble enough.
Those were sad days, those old war-times in 1812. The sight of a British warship in Boston Bay was not pleasant. We were poor then, and had no monitors to go out and sink the enemy or drive him off. Our navy was small, and, though we afterwards had the victory and sent the troublesome ships away, never to return, at that time they often came near enough, and the good people in the little village of Scituate Harbor were in great distress over the strange ship that had appeared at the mouth of the harbor.
It was a fishing-place in those days, and the harbor was full of smacks and boats of all kinds. The soldiers could easily enter the harbor and burn up, everything, and no one could prevent them. There were men enough to make a good fight, but they were poorly armed, and had nothing but fowling-pieces and shotguns, while the soldiers had muskets and cannon.
The tide was down during the morning, so that there was no danger for a few hours; and all the people went out on the cliffs and beaches to watch the ship and to see what would happen next.
On the end of the low, sandy spit that makes one side of the harbor, stood the little white tower known as Scituate Light. In the house behind the light lived the keeper's family, consisting of himself, wife, and several boys and girls. At the time the ship appeared, the keeper was away, and there was no one at home save Mrs. Bates, the eldest daughter, Rebecca, about fourteen years old, two of the little boys, and a young girl named Sarah Winsor, who was visiting Rebecca.
Rebecca had been the first to discover the ship, while she was up in the light-house tower polishing the reflector. She at once descended the steep stairs and sent off the boys to the village to give the alarm.
For an hour or two, the ship tacked and stood off to sea, then tacked again, and made for the shore. Men, women and children watched her with anxious interest. Then the tide turned and began to flow into the harbor. The boats aground on the flats floated, and those in deep water swung round at their moorings. Now the soldiers would probably land. If the people meant to save anything it was time to be stirring. Boats were hastily put out from the wharf, and such clothing, nets and other valuables as could be handled were brought ashore, loaded into hay carts, and carried away.
It was of no use to resist. The soldiers, of course, were well armed, and if the people made a stand among the houses, that would not prevent the enemy from destroying the shipping.
As the tide spread out over the sandy flats it filled the harbor so that, instead of a small channel, it became a wide and beautiful bay. The day was fine, and there was a gentle breeze rippling the water and making it sparkle in the sun. What a splendid day for fishing or sailing! Not much use to think of either while that warship crossed and recrossed before the harbor mouth.
About two o'clock the tide reached high water mark, and, to the dismay of the people, the ship let go her anchor, swung her yards round, and lay quiet about half-a-mile from the first cliff. They were going to land to burn the town. With their spy-glass the people could see the boats lowered to take the soldiers ashore.
Ah! then there was confusion and uproar. Every horse in the village was put into some kind of team, and the women and children were hurried off to the woods behind the town. The men would stay and offer as brave a resistance as possible. Their guns were light and poor, but they could use the old fish-houses as a fort, and perhaps make a brave fight of it.
If worse came to worse, they could at least retreat and take to the shelter of the woods.
It was a splendid sight. Five large boats, manned by sailors, and filled with soldiers in gay red coats. How their guns glittered in the sun! The oars all moved together in regular order, and the officers in their fine uniforms stood up to direct the expedition. It was a courageous company come with a warship and cannon to fight helpless fishermen.
So Rebecca Bates and Sarah Winsor thought, as they sat up in the light-house tower looking down on the procession of boats as it went past the point and entered the harbor.
"Oh! If I only were a man!" cried Rebecca.
"What could you do? See what a lot of them; and look at their guns!"
"I don't care. I'd fight. I'd use father's old shotgun—anything.
Think of uncle's new boat and the sloop!"
"Yes; and all the boats."
"It's too bad; isn't it?"
"Yes; and to think we must sit here and see it all and not lift a finger to help."
"Do you think there will be a fight?"
"I don't know. Uncle and father are in the village, and they will do all they can."
"See how still it is in town. There's not a man to be seen."
"Oh, they are hiding till the soldiers get nearer. Then we'll hear the shots and the drum."
"The drum! How can they? It's here. Father brought it home to mend it last night."
"Did he? Oh! then let's—"
"See, the first boat has reached the sloop. Oh! oh! They are going to burn her."
"Isn't it mean?"
"It's too bad!—too—"
"Where is that drum?"
"It's in the kitchen."
"I've got a great mind to go down and beat it."
"What good would that do?"
"Scare 'em."
"They'd see it was only two girls, and they would laugh and go on burning just the same."
"No. We could hide behind the sand hills and the bushes. Come, let's—"
"Oh, look! look! The sloop's afire!"
"Come, I can't stay and see it any more. The cowardly Britishers to burn the boats! Why don't they go up to the town and fight like—"
"Come, let's get the drum. It'll do no harm; and perhaps—"
"Well, let's. There's the fife, too; we might take that with us."
"Yes; and we'll—"
No time for further talk. Down the steep stairs of the tower rushed these two young patriots, bent on doing what they could for their country. They burst into the kitchen like a whirlwind, with rosy cheeks and flying hair. Mrs. Bates sat sorrowfully gazing out of the window at the scene of destruction going on in the harbor, and praying for her country and that the dreadful war might soon he over. She could not help. Son and husband were shouldering their poor old guns in the town, and there was nothing to do but to watch and wait and pray.
Not so the two girls. They meant to do something, and, in a fever of excitement, they got the drum and took the cracked fife from the bureau drawer. Mrs. Bates, intent on the scene outside, did not heed them, and they slipped out by the back door, unnoticed.
They must be careful, or the soldiers would see them. They went round back of the house to the north and towards the outside beach, and then turned and plowed through the deep sand just above high water mark. They must keep out of sight of the boats, and of the ship, also. Luckily, she was anchored to the south of the light; and as the beach curved to the west, they soon left her out of sight. Then they took to the water side, and, with the drum between them, ran as fast as they could towards the mainland. Presently they reached the low heaps of sand that showed where the spit joined the fields and woods.
Panting and excited, they tightened up the drum and tried the fife softly.
"You take the fife, Sarah, and I'll drum."
"All right; but we mustn't stand still. We must march along the shore towards the light."
"Won't they see us?"
"No; we'll walk next the water on the outside beach."
"Oh, yes; and they'll think it's soldiers going down to the Point to head 'em off."
"Just so. Come, begin! One, two,—one, two!"
Drum! drum!! drum!!!
Squeak! squeak!! squeak!!!
"For'ard—march!"
"Ha! ha!"
The fife stopped.
"Don't laugh. You'll spoil everything, and I can't pucker my lips."
Drum! drum!! drum!!!
Squeak! squeak!! squeak!!!
The men in the town heard it and were amazed beyond measure. Had the soldiers arrived from Boston? What did it mean? Who were coming?
Louder and louder on the breeze came the roll of a sturdy drum and the sound of a brave fife. The soldiers in the boats heard the noise and paused in their work of destruction. The officers ordered everybody into the boats in the greatest haste. The people were rising! They were coming down the Point with cannons, to head them off! They would all be captured, and perhaps hung by the dreadful Americans!
How the drum rolled! The fife changed its tune. It played "Yankee Doodle,"—that horrid tune! Hark! The men were cheering in the town! there were thousands of them in the woods along the shore!
In grim silence marched the two girls,—plodding over the sharp stones, splashing through the puddles,—Rebecca beating the old drum with might and main; Sarah blowing the fife with shrill determination.
How the Britishers scrambled into their boats! One of the brave officers was nearly left behind on the burning sloop. Another fell overboard and wet his good clothes, in his haste to escape from the American army marching down the beach—a thousand strong! How the sailors pulled! No fancy rowing now, but desperate haste to get out of the place and escape to the ship.
How the people yelled and cheered on the shore! Fifty men or more jumped into the boats to prepare for the chase. Ringing shots began to crack over the water.
Louder and louder rolled the terrible drum. Sharp and clear rang out the cruel fife.
Nearly exhausted, half dead with fatigue, the girls toiled on,—tearful, laughing, ready to drop on the wet sand, and still beating and blowing with fiery courage.
The boats swept swiftly out of the harbor on the outgoing tide. The fishermen came up with the burning boats. Part stopped to put out the fires, and the rest pursued the flying enemy with such shots as they could get at them. In the midst of it all, the sun went down.
The red-coats did not return a shot. They expected every minute to see a thousand men open on them at short range from the beach, and they reserved their powder.
Out of the harbor they went in confusion and dismay. The ship weighed anchor and ran out her big guns, but did not fire a shot. Darkness fell down on the scene as the boats reached the ship. Then she sent a round shot towards the light. It fell short and threw a great fountain of white water into the air.
The girls saw it, and dropping their drum and fife, sat down on the beach and laughed till they cried.
That night the ship sailed away. The great American army of two had arrived, and she thought it wise to retreat in time!
Rebecca lived until old and feeble in body, but ever brave in spirit and strong in patriotism, she told this story herself to the writer, and it is true.
By M. E. M. Davis
"Those reptiles of Americans, I say to you, Marcel,—mark my words!—that they have it in their heads to betray Louisiana to the Spaniard. They are tr-r-raitors!" Old Galmiche rolled the word viciously on his French tongue.
"Yes," assented his young companion, absently. He quite agreed with Galmiche—the Americans were traitors, oh, of the blackest black! But the sky overhead was so blue, the wind blowing in from the Gulf and lifting the dark curls on his bared forehead was so moist and sweet, the scene under his eyes, although familiar, was so enchanting! He rose, the better to see it all once again.
Grand Terre, the low-lying strip of an island upon which he stood, was at that time—September, 1814—the stronghold of Jean Lafitte, the famous freebooter, or, as he chose rather to call himself, privateer, and his band of smugglers and buccaneers.
The island, which lies across the mouth of Barataria Bay, with a narrow pass at each end opening, into the Gulf of Mexico, had been well fortified. Lafitte's own bungalow-like house was protected on the Gulf side by an enclosing wall surmounted by small cannon. The rich furniture within the house—the pictures, books, Oriental draperies, silver and gold plate and rare crystal—attested equally—so declared his enemies—to the fastidious taste of the Lord of Barataria and to his lawlessness.
The landlocked bay holds in its arms many small islands.
These served Lafitte as places of deposit for smuggled or pirated goods. Water-craft of every description—more than one sloop or lugger decorated with gay lengths of silk or woolen cloth—rode at ease in the secure harbor. In a curve of the mainland a camp had been established for the negroes imported in defiance of United States law, from Africa, to be sold in Louisiana and elsewhere. The buccaneers themselves were quartered on the main island.
Marcel Lefort, the slender, dark-eyed Creole voyageur, drew a deep sigh of delight as he resumed his seat on the grassy sward beside Galmiche. But he sprang again to his feet, for the tranquil morning air was suddenly disturbed by the reverberating boom of a cannon!
Island, bay and mainland were instantly in commotion. Lafitte himself appeared on the east end, of his veranda, spy-glass in hand.
The noted outlaw was a tall, sinewy, graceful man, then a little past thirty, singularly handsome, with clear-cut features, dark hair and fierce gray eyes which could, upon occasion, soften to tenderness. The hands which lifted the spy-glass were white and delicate.
He lowered the glass.
"A British sloop of war in the offing," he remarked to his lieutenant, Dominique You, standing beside him. "She has sent off a pinnace with a flag of truce. I go to meet it. Order an answering salute."
A moment later he had stepped into his four-oared barge and was skimming lightly down the Great Pass toward the Gulf.
When he returned, two officers in the British uniform were seated in the barge with him. The freebooters, a formidable array of French, Italians, Portuguese and West Indians, with here and there a sunburned American, stared with bold and threatening eyes at the intruders as they passed through the whispering chênaié (oak grove) to the house, to unfold their mission to the "Great Chief," and to share his princely hospitality.
Shortly after nightfall of the same day, on one of the little inner islands, Marcel Lefort stood leaning upon his long boat paddle, awaiting orders; his pirogue was drawn up among the reeds hard by. He lifted his head, but hardly had his keen eye caught the shadowy outlines of a boat on the bay before its occupants had landed.
"The lad is too young," objected Dominique You, as the two men drew near.
"His father was a gunner in Kelerec's army at sixteen," returned Lafitte. "You are sure of the route, Marcel?" he continued, touching the voyageur on the shoulder.
"Yes, my captain. As the bird is of his flight through the air. This is not the first time," he added proudly, "that I have brought secret despatches from New Orleans to Barataria."
"True. Now listen. You will set out at once with this." He handed the lad a small packet wrapped in oil silk, which Marcel thrust into his bosom. "You will make all speed to the city," he continued. "There you will find Monsieur Pierre Lafitte, my brother—whether he be in prison, at the smithy, or at the Cafe Turpin—"
"Yes, my captain."
"And give the packet into his own hand—"
"Yes, my captain."
"None but his, you understand. In case the packet should be lost or stolen by the way, you will all the same seek monsieur, my brother, and say to him that the British have this day offered to me, Jean Lafitte, Lord of Barataria, the sum of thirty thousand dollars, the rank of captain in the British navy, and a free pardon for my men, if I will assist them in their invasion of Louisiana. I am sure that monsieur, my brother, will not need to be told that Jean Lafitte spurns this insulting proposition. But you will say to him that the governor must be warned at once. The British officers will be—detained—here until you are well on your way."
"Yes, my captain."
"You quite understand, Marcel? And you quite understand also that if you risk your life, it is for Louisiana?"
"For Louisiana!" echoed Marcel, solemnly. He touched his cap in the darkness, stepped warily into the pirogue, pushed off, and dropped his paddle into the water.
The needle-like boat threaded its way in and out among the islands, and leaped into the mouth of a sluggish gulfward-stealing bayou. Here a few strokes of the paddle swept pirogue and paddler into a strange and lonely world. The tall cypress-trees on each bank, draped with funeral moss, cast impenetrable shadows on the water; the deathlike silence was broken only by the occasional ominous hoot of an owl or the wheezy snort of an alligator; the clammy air breathed poison. But the stars overhead were bright, and Marcel's heart throbbed exultant.
"For Louisiana!" he murmured. "He might have chosen Galmiche, or Jose, or Nez Coupe; but it is I, Marcel Lefort, whom the Great Chief has sent with the warning. For Louisiana! For Louisiana!" His muscular arms thrilled to the finger-tips with the rhythmic sweep of his paddle to the words.
Turn after turn of the sinuous, ever-narrowing bayou slipped behind him as the night advanced. He kept a wary eye upon the black masses of foliage to right and left, knowing that a runaway negro, a mutineer from Barataria, or a murderous Choctaw might lurk there in wait for the passing boatman; or an American spy,—he quickened his strokes at the thought!—to wrest from him the precious despatch.
"Those vipers of Americans!" he breathed. "The Governor Claiborne, since the Great Chief trusts him, must have become a Creole at his heart. But the rest have the heart of a cockatrice. And these British, as Galmiche says, are surely Americans in disguise."
The young Creole's ideas were not strange, his upbringing considered. He had stood in 1803, a boy of eight, beside his father on the Place d'Armes of New Orleans and watched the French flag descend slowly from the tall staff, and the Stars and Stripes ascend proudly in its place. He had seen the impotent tears and heard the impotent groans of the French Creoles when the new American governor, standing on the balcony of the cabildo, took possession, in the name of the United States, of the French province of Louisiana.
Daily since then, almost hourly, he had heard his father and his father's friends denounce the Americans as double-dyed traitors, who had bought Louisiana from France that they might hand it over to the still more detested Spaniards.
"Vipers of Americans!" he repeated, humming under his breath a refrain much in vogue:
"Americam coquin,
'Bille en nanquin,
Voleur du pain."
("American rogue, dressed in nankeen, bread-stealer.")
"It will soon be morning." He glanced up at the open sky, for he was breasting the surface of a small lake. "Good!" The pirogue slipped into another bayou at the upper end of the lagoon. The shadows here seemed thicker than ever after the starlit lake.
"Ugh!" ejaculated Marcel. An unseen log had lurched against the pirogue, upsetting it and throwing its occupant into the water. He sank, but rose in a flash and reached out, swimming, after pirogue and paddle.
But the log lurched forward again, snapping viciously, and before he could draw back, a huge alligator had seized his left forearm between his great jaws. The conical teeth sank deep in the flesh.
Marcel tugged under water at the knife in his belt. It seemed an eternity before he could draw it. A swift vision of the Great Chief's brooding eyes darted through his brain.
"For Louisiana!" The words burst involuntarily from his lips as the keen blade buried itself under the knotty scales deep in the monster's throat. The mighty jaws relaxed and dropped the limp and bloody arm.
Half an hour later the messenger stepped again into his recovered boat. A groan forced its way between his clenched teeth as he set his paddle to the dark waters of the bayou, but its rhythmic sweep did not slacken.
In the gray dawnlight of the second morning Lafitte's messenger came up from the Mississippi River at New Orleans, and walked swiftly across the Place d'Armes into Conde Street.
The nineteen-year-old lad looked twice his age; his lips were parched, his eyes were bloodshot, a red spot glowed in each livid cheek. One arm, wrapped in a bloody sleeve of his hunting-shirt, hung limply at his side. He paid no heed to the wondering questions of the few people he met, but sped like one in a dream to his goal.
In the great smithy of the Lafitte brothers, which served as a blind for their smuggling operations, the forges were already aglow, the army of black slaves at work, and Pierre Lafitte, who, although outlawed like his brother, knew himself secure in this citadel, was giving orders. At sight of Marcel he leaped forward. "Why, Marcel!" he cried. "Why, my poor lad, what—"
But Marcel had thrust the packet into his hand, and dropped as one dead at his feet.
"Those Americans, they are traitors, oh, of the blackest black!"
The familiar phrase in his father's well-known voice fell upon
Marcel's returning consciousness. He listened with closed eyes.
"And that General An-drrew Jack-son, look you, Coulon, he has
the liver of a Spaniard. He will betray Louisiana. That sees itself!"
"That sees itself," echoed old Coulon.
Marcel opened his eyes. "Who is General Andrew Jackson?" he demanded, surprised at the stiffness of his own tongue. And those hands, pale and inert, lying on the coverlet before him, could they be his own? And why should he, Marcel, be in his bed in broad daylight? Suddenly he remembered that yesterday he had fetched a despatch to Monsieur Pierre from the Great Chief—
"Did M'sieu' Pierre—" he began, eagerly, trying to rise on his elbow.
"Thank God!" ejaculated old Lefort, commonly called "Piff-Paff," springing to the bedside. "The boy is himself once more. But not so fast, my little Marcel, not so fast!"
Many weeks, it appeared, had passed since Marcel had been borne in the strong arms of Pierre Lafitte to Lefort's cottage near the smithy. Fever and delirium had set in before the worn figure was laid on the couch.
"But now," tears were streaming down the weather-beaten face of the old gunner, "now, by God's help, we shall get on our feet!"
"But who is General Andrew Jackson?" persisted Marcel, querulously.
"General An-drrew Jack-son," replied Coulon, seeing that the father's throat was choked with sobs, "General An-drrew Jack-son is an American. He arrives from day to day at New Orleans. He is in league with those British who are Americans in disguise. He comes to betray Louisiana to the Spaniard."
"The monster!" said Marcel, drowsily.
His recovery thenceforth was rapid. Old Lefort's private forge was in his own court-yard. Here, among the rustling bananas and the flowering pomegranates, where he had played, a motherless infant, the slim, emaciated lad sat or walked about in the November sunshine. And while Marcel hung about, the smith, hammering out the delicate Lefort wrought-iron work so prized in New Orleans to-day, anathematized indiscriminately General Jackson, the Spaniards, the British and the Americans.
Meanwhile strange sounds filtered into the courtyard from without—the beat of drums, the shrill concord of fifes, the measured tread of marching feet.
Marcel heard and wondered. He was not permitted to walk abroad, but what he saw from his window under the roof quickened his blood.
"Is it that Governor Claiborne has heeded the Great Chief's warning?" he asked of his father.
"The governor is an American," said Piff-Paff. "All Americans are perfidious. But the traitor of traitors is General An-drrew Jack-son. Be quiet, my son. Do you wish to die of fever?"
"When I do get out," Marcel was saying to himself one sunny day early in December, "I will slay the traitor with my own hand."
A steady tread came echoing down the corridor, and the Great Chief stepped into the court-yard.
"M'sieu' Jean!" cried Piff-Paff, running to meet him.
Lafitte pressed the old man's hands in his, and turned to Marcel.
"Aha, my little game-cock, there you are!" he said, catching the boy in his arms. "My faith, but you paddled well for Louisiana that time we know of! And the arm? Is it all there?" A winning tenderness softened the fierce eyes. "But I am pressed for time, my friends," he continued, stepping back.
As he spoke he unbuckled his belt, to which hung a short sword with jeweled cross-hilt. "Keep this lad, in memory of Lafitte—and the alligator," he laughed, handing sword and belt to Marcel, who stood open-mouthed, unable for sheer ecstasy to utter a word.
"And look you, Marcel," his tones became grave, "I charge you henceforth to forget the road to Barataria. It leads to riches, yes, but it is a crooked and dishonest road. I would I had never myself set foot in such ways!" He paused a moment, his eyes bent on the ground." Learn your father's honest trade. Live by it, an honest man and a good citizen."
"Yes, my captain," stammered Marcel.
"Swear!" said Lafitte, imperiously.
"I swear!" breathed Marcel, his hand on the cross-hilt of the sword.
"By God's help!"
"Amen!" said Lafitte, reverently. He turned away.
"But where are you going, M'sieu' Jean?" cried Piff-Paff. "Do you not know that a reward of five hundred dollars is offered for your arrest?"
"I know." Lafitte shrugged his shoulders disdainfully. "I go to offer my services to General Jackson."
"Gen-e-ral Jackson!" echoed Piff-Paff. His jaws dropped. He stood like one suddenly turned to stone while the chief's retreating footsteps rang down the alleyway. "General Jack-son!" he repeated, mechanically. "But he shall not!"
With a roar of rage he leaped for the saber—his old saber which hung by the forge. "Myself, I will slay the traitor Jack-son before M'sieu' Jean dishonors himself! I, Blaise Lefort, will save him."
He dashed out. Marcel followed, buckling on his cross-hilted sword as he ran.
"Nevertheless it is I who will destroy the traitor!" he muttered.
"I have already said it."
The narrow streets of the old town presented a unique spectacle.
The tall dormer-window houses with their latticed balconies looked
down upon hurrying crowds almost as motley as those of the carnival.
But the faces of these men and women were earnest, grimly determined.
And soldiers, soldiers everywhere! United States soldiers in trim uniforms; Coffee's Tennesseeans in brown shirts and slouched hats; Planche's gaily clad Creole infantry; D'Aquin's freemen of color; Indians in blankets and leggings—all carrying guns, all stepping briskly to drumbeat and fife-call.
Pennons, guidons and banners tossed about in the orderly confusion;
American and French flags waved together from balconies and windows.
"But, look!" exclaimed Marcel in pained astonishment, "our Creoles are drilling with the Americans!"
"They are mad!" growled Piff-Paff. "This General Jack-son has poisoned their hearts."
In truth, the threatened attack on New Orleans by the British had united Creoles and Americans. A few only of the former held aloof—like old Lefort himself; these, honest in their convictions, were uncompromising.
Marcel set his teeth, gripping his sword. At the entrance to General Jackson's headquarters in Royal Street they were questioned by a sentry, who looked from the swarthy old man to the pale lad, and let them pass.
They hurried down the long, dim corridor, which opened upon a sunny courtyard hung with blossoming rose vines. Huge water-jars were ranged against the wall. A fountain played in the center, and round the pool beneath, some soldiers in uniform were lounging and gossiping. Marcel glanced curiously at these as he followed his father up the winding stair. The arched hall above, with its Spanish windows, opened into an anteroom.
Father and son paused instinctively here among the shadows. The large room beyond the folding doors, which were thrown open, was filled with the afternoon sunshine; a table strewn with maps and papers was placed near one of the long windows. Beyond it, in an armchair, was seated a man in an attitude of rigid attention. Several staff-officers were gathered about him.
The Great Chief stood directly in front of the seated figure. He had doubtless been speaking for some minutes. Now, holding out his sword, he concluded:
"And I offer my services and those of my Baratarians in this hour of my country's peril to General Jackson."
He spoke in English. Marcel, who was acquainted with the forbidden tongue, glanced sidewise at his father. He saw that the old man had also understood. Both father arid son, as if moved by the same spring, made a step forward.
But both paused. General Jackson had risen from his seat. The light fell full upon his face as he reached out without a word and grasped Lafitte's hand.
At sight of the tall, martial figure, erect and commanding in the simple uniform of the United States army, the compelling face, with its crown of bristling silvered hair, the eyes that shone with a curious, soft fire, the firm mouth and masterful chin, Marcel Lefort's soul seemed drawn from his bosom as by an invisible hand. A mist gathered before his eyes, his throat clicked, a mysterious longing suddenly swept over him from head to foot.
Before he knew what he was about he had traversed the antechamber and entered the larger room, his footfalls on the bare polished floor disturbing the dramatic silence.
"My captain!" he cried, stopping short and lifting his eager, boyish face to the Great Chief. "My general!" He turned with outstretched sword to the greater chief beyond. He wished to say more, but the throbbing of his heart was too loud in his ears.
Suddenly Marcel heard a footstep sound behind him. His father! He had quite forgotten his father.
"He will slay me where I stand!" he groaned inwardly.
A hand whose touch thrilled him was slipped under his arm. He felt himself drawn to his father's side.
"General An-drrew Jack-son,"—the old gunner jpoke with great dignity and feeling although his English was queer,—"we haf come, my son an' me, to hoffer ou' swo'de to dose United State'. Yes, my general. If dose United State' will make us the honah to haccep'."
"By the Eternal," cried General Jackson, surprised into his favorite oath, "with such a spirit in the air, I would storm all the powers of the world!"
In less than a month the memorable Battle of New Orleans was fought—January 8, 1815. The Baratarians, under command of Jean Lafitte, rendered distinguished service in the short but bloody and decisive engagement. The two batteries directed by Beluche and Dominique You were especially commended in the general's official reports. Piff-Paff and his son served side by side in Dominique You's battery.
When the battle was over, Marcel stood with his fellow gunners on the parapet of Rodriguez Canal and looked out across the field—smoke-hung under the cloudless morning sky. The British dead, in their scarlet uniforms, were lying row on row, one behind the other, like grain cut down by the mower's scythe. The boy's heart sickened. But a prolonged cheer came ringing along the parapet.
General Jackson was walking slowly down the line, stopping in front of each command to salute the men and to praise their coolness and courage. As he came up, the Baratarians broke into wild shouts. The great commander shook hands with Lafitte and his brother, who stood a little apart.
"Well done, Baratarians!" he said, stepping into the midst of the powder-grimed crew. His swift glance fell upon a lad whose luminous eyes were fixed upon him.
"Well done, my little creole!" he added, a rare smile flashing across his worn face.
"My general," said Marcel, saluting proudly, "me, I am an American!"
By George C. Towle
Few boys have ever led a happier, busier, or more varied existence than did Humphry Davy. He was the son of a poor wood-carver, who lived in the pretty seaside town of Penzance, in England, where Humphry was born in 1778. Lowly, however, as was his birth, in his earliest years Humphry gave many proofs that nature had endowed him with rare talents.
Some of the stories told of his childish brightness are hard to believe. They relate, for instance, that before he was two years old he could talk almost as plainly and clearly as a grown person; that he could repeat many passages of "Pilgrim's Progress," from having heard them, before he could read; and that at five years old he could read very rapidly, and remembered almost everything he read.
His father, the wood-carver, had died while Humphry was still very young, and had left his family poor. But by good-fortune a kind neighbor and friend, a Mr. Tonkine, took care of the widow and her children, and obtained a place for Humphry as an apprentice with an apothecary of the town. Humphry proved, indeed, a rather troublesome inmate of the apothecary's house. He set up a chemical laboratory in his little room upstairs, and there devoted himself to all sorts of experiments. Every now and then an explosion would be heard, which made the members of the apothecary's household quake with terror.
Humphry began to dream ambitious dreams. Not for him, he thought, was the drudgery of an apothecary store. He felt that he had in himself the making of a famous man, and he resolved that he would leave no science unexplored. He set to work with a will. His quick mind soon grasped the sciences not only of mathematics and chemistry, but of botany, anatomy, geology, and metaphysics. His means for the experiments he desired to make were very limited, but he did not allow any obstacle to prevent him from pursuing them.
He was especially fond of wandering along the seashore, and observing and examining the many curious and mysterious objects which he found on the crags and in the sand. One day his eye was struck with the bladders of seaweed, which he found full of air. The question was, how did the air get into them? This puzzled him, and he could find no answer to it, because he had no instruments to experiment with.
But on another day, soon after, as he strolled on the beach, what was his surprise and delight to find a case of surgical instruments, which had been flung up from some wreck on the coast! Armed with this, he hastened home, and managed to turn each one of the instruments to some useful account. He constructed an air-pump out of a surgeon's syringe, and made a great many experiments with it.
Fortunately for Humphry, he formed a friendship with a youth who could not only sympathize with him, but was of a great deal of use to him. This was Gregory Watt, a son of the great James Watt, the inventor of the steam-engine. Gregory Watt had gone to Penzance for his health, and had there fallen in with the ambitious son of the wood-carver. This new friend was able to give Humphry many new and valuable hints and encouraged him with hopeful words to go on with his studies and experiments.
Already Humphry was getting to be known as a scientific genius beyond the quiet neighborhood of Penzance. He had proposed a theory on heat and light which had attracted the attention of learned men; and at twenty-one he had discovered the peculiar properties of nitrous oxide—what we now call "laughing-gas"—though he nearly killed himself by inhaling too much of it. He had also made many experiments in galvanism, and had found silicious earth in the skin of reeds and grass.
So famous indeed had he already become, that at the age of twenty-two—when most young men are only just leaving college—he was chosen lecturer on science at the great Royal Institution in London. There he amazed men by the eloquence and clearness with which he revealed the mysteries of science. He was so bright and attractive a young man, moreover, that the best London society gladly welcomed him to its drawing-rooms, and praises of him were in every mouth. His lecture-room was crowded whenever he spoke.
But he was not a bit spoiled by all this flattery and homage. He worked all the harder; resolved to achieve yet greater triumphs in science than he had yet done. An opportunity soon arose to turn his knowledge and inventive powers to account in a very important way. For a long time the English public had every now and then been horrified by the terrible explosions which took place in the coal mines. These explosions resulted often in an appalling loss of human life. Their cause was the filling of the mine by a deadly gas, called "fire-damp," which, when ignited by a lighted candle or lamp, exploded with fearful violence. One day an explosion of fire-damp occurred which killed over one hundred miners on the spot.
This event called universal attention to the subject, and Humphry Davy was besought to try and find some means of preventing, or at least lessening, similar calamities. He promptly undertook the task, and set about it with all his wonted energy. The problem before him was how to provide light in the mines in such a way that the miners might see to work by it, and at the same time be safe from the danger of fire-damp explosion. Many attempts had been made to achieve this, but they had all failed,
Davy began his experiments. He soon made several valuable discoveries. One was that explosions of inflammable gases could not pass through long narrow metallic tubes. Another was that when he held a piece of wire gauze over a lighted candle, the flame would not pass through it. As a result of his long and patient toil Davy was able at last to construct his now famous Safety-Lamp, which has undoubtedly saved the lives of thousands during the period which has elapsed since it was invented. He presented a model of his new lamp to the Royal Society, in whose rooms in London it is to be seen to this day.
It is a simple affair, being merely a lamp screwed on to a wire gauze cylinder, and fitted to it by a tight ring. His idea was to admit the fire-damp into the lamp gradually by narrow tubes, so that it would be consumed by combustion. The Safety-Lamp was in truth the greatest triumph of Humphry Davy's useful life.
"I value it," he said, "more than anything I ever did."
Honors of all kinds were showered upon him. Many medals were awarded to him, and the grateful miners subscribed from their scant wages enough to present him with a magnificent service of silver worth $12,000. His discovery was hailed from every part of Europe. The Czar Alexander of Russia sent him a beautiful vase, and he was chosen a member of the historic Institute of France; while his own government conferred upon him the coveted title of baronet.
Sir Humphry Davy, as he was now called, died in the prime of life and in the fulness of honor and fame. Fond of travel, and continuing to the last his scientific studies, he went to the continent, and took up his abode at Geneva, on the borders of one of the loveliest of Swiss lakes. There he had a laboratory, where he could work at will, and could also indulge his passion for fishing and hunting.
But he was worn out before his time. He was attacked by palsy, and passed away at Geneva in 1829, in the fifty-first year of his age. There he was buried. A simple monument reveals where he lies in the foreign churchyard; while a tablet in Westminster Abbey keeps alive his memory in the hearts of his countrymen.
By Emerson Hough
"How much farther, François?" asked the leader of a little mountain cavalcade which wound its way down a broad river valley in the heart of the Rocky Mountains. "See, it is now noon, and the encampment is not yet in sight. Shall we not stop and rest?"
The speaker was a tall, thin man, whose face, browned by the sun of the plains and mountains, none the less bore a refinement almost approaching austerity. The man accosted was leaner and browner than himself, and wore the full costume of the Western engage of the fur trade.
"M'sieu' Parker," he replied, "halways you hask how far to ze hencampment. I do not know. In the mountain we do no hask how far. We push on ze horse. Thass all."
"But the rendezvous—are you sure it is in this valley of the
Green?"
"It is establish for ze month of August in ze valley of ze Green. Those man of the mountain, he do not disappoint. This rendezvous of ze year 1835, it may be ze last one for ze trappaire. But me, François Verrier, say to you that you shall see ze rendezvous, also ze trappaire, and ze trader, and ze Injin—hundreds of heem. My faith! Zay shall see for ze first time ze missionaire to ze Injin! M'sieu' Parker, you are not ze good father? Eh bien, you shall make some little priere for those sauvages."
The thin face of Samuel Parker brightened. This land before his view, majestic, beautiful, was as fabled and unknown as the continent of lost Atlantis. It was a wild world, a new one. He, first to answer that strange appeal from the wild Northwest,—that appeal carried by the four Nez Perces Indians, who travelled in ignorance and hope across half a continent to ask that the Book might be sent out to them by the white man,—felt now exaltation swell within his soul.
What a meeting must be this, which he had pushed forward so eagerly to discover! It was a gathering, as he had been well advised, not in the name of religion or of politics, of art or science—hardly even in the cause of commerce, although here the wild trappers and hunters, absent from one year's end to the other in the mountains, annually met, at some appointed spot in the Rockies, those bold merchants who brought out to them stores of goods to trade for furs. The trappers' rendezvous! He had heard of it a thousand tales distorted and unreal. Truly there was work ahead. He caught up the reins upon his horse's neck, forgot his weariness, and resumed his way.
His followers, a score or more of horsemen and pack-train drivers, among whom rode a short sturdy young man, the future martyr-missionary, Marcus Whitman, moved on, browned, gaunt, dust-begrimed, yet cheerful.
They had travelled for perhaps a mile or so down the valley when the guide, riding abreast of his employer, suddenly pulled up his horse and signed for his companion to pause.
"M'sieu'," said he, "you think I know little of zis land. Behol'!
We are harrive' zis hour."
He pointed. There, against the sky-line, on a projecting range of the mountainside which sloped down to the edge of the valley, was the figure of a mountain man, motionless, and evidently on guard.
"En avant!" cried François, setting heels to his horse. "V'la! It is ze guard of ze encampment. Ride quick, mes camarades!"
The train, packhorses and all, pushed forward at a gallop, which soon broke into a wild run—the proper gait in trapper custom for all who arrived at the mountain rendezvous.
As they rounded the spur of rocks which had made the watch-tower of the sentinel, the full scene burst upon their eyes. There was a wide, sweet space in the valley, made as if for the very purpose of the great rendezvous. A flat of green cottonwoods adjoined the river-bank. "Benches," or natural terraces, of sweet grass rose along the hillside a half-mile away. Hundreds of horses, picketed or hobbled, grazed here and there. Others, favorite steeds of their masters, stood tied at the doors of lodges, in front of which rose long, tufted spears, in the heraldry of that land insignia of their owner's rank. Teepees, a hundred and twoscore, skin tents of the savage tribes and homes also of the whites, were grouped irregularly over a space of more than half a mile. At the doors of many of these, silent Indians sat and smoked. In the wide interspaces of the village were many men, some of them dressed in brown buckskins, others clad more gaudily. These passed to and fro, some on foot, others riding furiously. Animation was in all the air.
Shouts, cries, a tumult formed of many factors filled the air. Babel of speech rose from Frenchmen, Spaniards, Canadians, English, Scotch, Irish, and American backwoodsmen, and Indians of half a dozen tribes. Horses, dogs, black-haired and blanketed women, and children of divers colors moved about continually. The gathering was heterogeneous, conglomerate, picturesque, savage.
Samuel Parker, missionary to the Oregon tribes, and now come hither to the mountain market of 1835 as knight-errant of the Gospel, pulled up his horse at the edge of the encampment and gazed in sheer amazement. His party—except Whitman, who reined in his horse at his friend's side—passed on and joined the shouting throng. Apparently they conveyed certain news as they rode; for now out of the circling ranks of wild horsemen there swept toward the strangers a group of yelling riders.
Long ribbons and waving eagle feathers streamed from the manes and tails of their ponies. Some riders, even of the white men, wore the great war-bonnets of the northern tribes, the long crests of feathers sweeping back upon the croups of the rough-coated steeds they rode. Weapons were in the hands of all. Loud speech and many oaths were on their lips. They might well have disturbed bolder hearts than that of a peaceful missionary.
The leader of the approaching band was a man of gigantic stature, more than six inches above the six-feet mark. He was dark of hair and eye; a wide mustache swept back across his face, and his heavy, untrimmed beard, matted and sunburned at the edges, gave him an expression savage and forbidding.
Clad in the buckskin of a mountain trapper, none the less this personage affected a certain finery. A brilliant sash encircled his waist, his hat bore a wide plume. At his belt hung pistols, and in his hand was a long rifle. He pulled up his horse squatting, its nose high in air.
"How, friend!" he cried. "Or be you friend, who come thus without word to Bill Shunan's camp?"
"Sir," replied the missionary, "my name is Parker—Samuel Parker.
I am from far New England, and am bound upon my way to Oregon.
I have come aside from the Sublette Cutoff trail to be present at
this rendezvous. Yourself I do not know."
"What! Not know Bill Shunan, the bully of the Rockies, and the owner of this camp? Hark ye, stranger, ye're treading on dangerous ground. I've whipped half a dozen men to-day, and driven every fighter of the rendezvous back into his lodge. They know Bill Shunan, and they show him respect, as you shall yourself."
Samuel Parker made no reply, and found no way to move forward, even had he been sure that friends awaited him in the village. The giant went on:
"Now, what's your business, man? Ye look like no trapper nor good mountain man. As for more Yankee traders, we've enough of them now, and more than enough. Look ye at their packs, laid out there, half of them not opened! The traders are robbing us mountain men at this market. Two skins they ask for a pint of sugar, if one would please his squaw. As much goes for a knife; and three skins for coffee as much as you could put in a pint cup. Powder they hold as high as gold-dust, and a blanket is worth a pair of horses. It's robbery, and I'll have no more of it. If Jim Bridger and Bill Williams, and their half-black Beckwourth, and Gervais, and Fraeb, and their other offscourings of old Ashley, will not rebel against such doings, then, for one, Bill Shunan is not afraid. My people were French back in old Canada. It is the French who found the Rockies, and who ought to own them! These Americans—I whip them with switches! And so I'll whip you if ye come here as a trader and give us no better measure than these others! Now, I say, who are ye?"
The dark eye of the missionary lighted again with its hidden fire.
"I am a missionary," said he, "a man of the church, a minister of the Gospel, as I would have said to you. I have come to this encampment to hold divine services among you. Red men or white, we are brethren, and we are sinners in common." The close-shut mouth, the dull flush visible beneath the tan, the flash of the eye, all bespoke him a man not devoid of courage. Yet his speech brought only rage to the other.
"Minister!" he cried. "By all the saints, no unfrocked priest shall speak words in this camp of mine! Not even a good father of the French has been present at a rendezvous of the bully boys of the mountains; and who are you, to come intruding at the frolic of the trappers? I'll have no sniveling Protestant here. So get ye gone at once!"
"Sir," said the minister, "I have ridden far, and I am not of a mind to go back." He crowded his horse forward, the more so as he saw approaching another band of men from the encampment. He could only hope that they might be of a class not quite the same as this desperado. A moment later these riders joined the group of parleyers.
"How now, what is this?" cried out the tall man who led these newcomers. "Who's the stranger? Does he carry news from the States?"
"Back with ye, Bill Williams!" cried Shunan. "'Tis but a sniveling preacher from the East, and I have told him he shall bring no psalms here."
The freshly arrived horsemen made small reply to Shunan's speech, but bent a curious gaze upon the stranger. The latter saw at a glance that these were no allies of the bully. Therefore he glanced toward them as if in appeal.
Without a word a half-score of them urged their horses round him, and separated him from Shunan's party.
"What!" cried Shunan. "You dispute me? I tell ye he will never see the sun again if he pushes himself into this camp. What do ye mean, you puny Yankees? Do ye want me to put ye on your death-beds, as I have a couple of ye before to-day? Back with ye! For I say this man shall not come into camp!"
"Shunan," broke in a quiet voice, "who gives you right to issue orders here?"
The speaker was a young man, still in his twenties; and so far from equaling in stature the giant whom he addressed, he was slight and small, not over five feet six inches in height, although of good shoulders and great depth of chest.
He sat a dark-brown horse, fully caparisoned in the Spanish fashion.
His garb was of buckskin, but plain and devoid of ornamentation.
A wide hat swept over his well-tanned face, and from beneath its
brim there shone the steely glance of gray-blue eyes.
Shunan, dumfounded, whirled his horse toward the speaker.
"Shunan," repeated this man, in turn urging his own horse forward, "you've made trouble enough in the encampment. You shall no longer act the bully here. The stranger comes in peace, and he shall be heard here if he likes. What!" and the blue eyes flashed. "Would you issue orders at a meeting of the free men of the mountains—the very place in all the world where every man who comes in friendship is made welcome? This is our country. This is our encampment. The law of what is right shall govern here; and I take it upon myself to say this to you!"
Silence fell upon all who heard these words. The last speaker raised his hand as Parker would have spoken. The friends of the young man now pressed closer about him. He did not give back, but urged his mount still forward, until it breasted the cream-colored horse which Shunan rode. The bully, half-sobered from his potations by this stern situation, did not himself give back.
"Who are you?" he cried. "By what right do ye question Bill Shunan? Would ye be the next to be whipped with switches? There is but one end to this, boy! Are ye ready for it?"
"Have I ever been found unready?" asked the young man, quietly. "I say again, this land is free. The stranger shall have meat and robes at my lodge, and if he will speak, he shall have his say."
In a rage Shunan spurred forward, his hand uplifted; yet the brown horse and its rider receded not an inch. The issue was joined. There must now be combat!
"Not here!" cried old Bill Williams, suddenly. "Wait! Back to the camp with ye all, and there let it be decided proper!"
This speech met with sudden approval upon both sides. An instant later the missionary's horse was swept forward in a rush which carried both parties, intermingled, deep into the center of the tented village.
Well toward the middle of the encampment there was a large and irregular space left unoccupied, a sort of plaza, devoted to common use, and employed as meeting-ground in the trading operations of the market, or the jollifications, which occupied far more of the time. As the riders came into this open space Shunan and his party drew off to the right. His antagonist sought out his lodge upon the opposite side. He was followed here by several of his warmer friends, Williams, Bridger, Fraeb, other men of the mountains at one time known throughout the length and breadth of the West.
"Sir," said the young man, turning toward Samuel Parker, "get you down, and come within my house. Perhaps by this time you are used to such. We bid you welcome. I shall return to you soon, after I have settled this matter which has come up between me and yonder ruffian."
"I beseech you!" cried the missionary, reaching out an imploring hand. "What is it you would do? Surely you do not mean—you would not engage in combat with this man—you do not mean bloodshed? This—on my account—no, no! Let me go."