A Stray Yankee in Texas

Chapter I. Beak And Snake

Bear Sign — A Queer Rig — Mr. and Mrs. Joe — Feminine Accomplishments — Bear About — The Snakes — The Hatchet Misses Fire — The Hunting Party — The Pack, 17

Chapter II. More Snake Than Bear

Cæsar's Disquisition — The " Timber" — A Fi4-e in the Eear — Repairing Damages — The Bear Treed — Stand from Under — Moore puts his Foot in it — Snake Bitten — Scraps of Early Piety — A Miracle,

Chapter III. More Beef Than Venison

Fire Hunting — Creasing a Horse — Neck or Nothing — The Fire Pa» — The Wrong Customer, 37

Chapter IV. Salutatory

A WILD-GOOSE CHASE AND A MARE'S NEST. An Arrival — Imposing Ceremony — A Judge, but no Lawyer — Lefe Thompson — Reasons for Travelling — -Uncle Billy Prepares for Action — The Enemy's Camp — The Sub Sheriff— More Plague than Profit, . CONTENTS.

Chapter II. Gamblers And Desperadoes

Judge S The " Court" Indicted — Polite Invitation — A Slippery Customer — Unsatisfactory Physiognomy — Murders of Taylor and Floyd — Lem M'Guire — " Coup de Tkedtre," VI CONTENTS. CHAPTER HI. THE NON RESISTANT AND THE RIVER DESPERADO. PAGE The Lecturer Skunked— Schools for Scandal— Travelling Gamblers- Phalanx of Crime, zi>J

Chapter VII. Defeat Of The Gamblers

Dargin " Leads the Column " — The Natchez Affair — A Bad Bargain — Sudden Vengeance, 386 STEAM ON THE WESTERN WATERS. The Levee — Eastern and Western Boats — The Firemen's Refrain — The First Mississippi Steamer — Perilous Voyage — The Earthquake — Snags and Sawyers — The Old Boatmen — Dick Russel — Taking a House in Tow — A Great Joke — Accidents — The " Grave Yard " — The Fat Boy of the Brian Boroihme $ tttstt It is customary for an author, upon launching his " frail bark," to jump up in the bow and make quite a bow-wow about it. My bow shall be hasty and my speech curt. A few of the suc ceeding chapters have already appeared in some of the leading periodicals of the day, but as they were intimately connected with, and indispensably necessary to my story, I was forced to re-write and introduce them here.

Should, therefore, any reader of the " Whig," or the " Democratic Review," or the " Literary World," or the " Spirit of the Times," find among these pages something that may remind him of an old acquaintance, let him not accuse the author of plagiarism, or indeed of any other literary crime, except perhaps that of occasionally picking his own pockets — an excusa ble offence in one who has drunk of the Sabine waters ; for a sin gular but veracious account of whose miraculous effects, please examine the " Introduction." The author trusts that no apology will be necessary for intro ducing the two papers at the close of the volume, as they are perfectly germane to the subject. it t r a 0 w 1 1 i 0 it . During many years Texas was a jest for all nations, except perhaps Mexico, to whom indeed she proved a somewhat unpalatable reality.

It was once the fashion at the north, to name Texas as the inevitable terminus of every moonlight flitting, whether occasioned by that innate modesty which impels a reserved man to save his creditors from interviews, unpleasant and unprofitable upon both sides ; by a too warm admiration of a neighbor's wife ; the desire to sever one's own matrimonial fetters, by " cutting" one's self; or, in fine, any of the thousand and one reasons which so suddenly at times impart to men a fondness for travel, or desire for the society of strangers, and render an immediate change of climate equally necessary and agreeable. In fact, in the years '38 and '39, when the commercial horizon was dark and lowering, and the sun of prosperity almost obscured by the dust from the over thrown Bank, and the smoke of the great fire, it became very unsafe indeed, for the tradesman to doze too long of a morning, for if he did, it was at least an equal chance that upon at last arriving at his shop or store, the three ominous letters G. T. T., done in white chalk by mis chievous urchin or suspicious creditor would stare him full in the face from the closed shutters of his window, or the panel of the door that had been too long upon the lock. 1* X

Introduction

. The Texans themselves indulged in a sly chuckle over their somewhat dubious reputation, and it was quite a common joke to ask a man what his name was at home, and what he came to Texas for. The waters of the Sabine river — which stream separates south-eastern Texas from Louisiana — were said to produce peculiar effects upon all who drank, bathed in, or even crossed their yellow cur rent. They were supposed to be a perfect Lethe to all remaining consciousness of the correct distinction between meum and tuum which the immigrant might yet retain, and it is recorded that one individual was so severely affected by the combined consequences of a draught and a bath, that finding nothing else to appropriate, he " adopted" his own under garment, which he had previ ously washed and hung out to dry, and concealed it so carefully from himself, that when its services were needed, they were not to be had upon any terms.

Such, at least, was the tale he told, to account for a very apparent scarcity of linen, and there was thought to be some truth in his story, as it was very evident that he had been drinking something ; although the Sabine water must have been of universal potency, to judge from the aroma that hung around him. An incredulous wight suggested, that as there was a small grocery upon the bank, perhaps the man being very dry, had drunk up his shirt. Did Texas deserve the contumely thus unsparingly heaped upon her ? Quite the reverse. The population of this entire territory, consisting of whites, negroes, and Indians, did not exceed forty thousand at the time of the invasion by Santa Anna. There were a number of desperadoes, of the -most dangerous and abandoned kind, to be found upon and near the Sabine and the Red rivers ; some

INTRODUCTION.

. XI living upon the United States and some upon the Texas side, accordingly as the danger of apprehension from either government appeared more imminent at the time. Leav ing the narrow strip of rascality upon the eastern border — and, by the way, there is, and has been no country, civilized or uncivilized, without a similar one — you found the young republic dotted here and there with small knots of stock-raisers, principally from Louisiana ; a few down easters, seduced from their hard and stony farms, by the milk and honey tales of some empressario's agent ; an occa sional doctor looking for a large crop of disease and death ; or, perhaps, one that had fewer reapers in the field ; a lawyer or two, to make the wills as the doctors finished up the patients, to seek for offices and speculate in wild lands ; a large number of the true pioneers who shot, fished, and trapped for a living, treading closely in the footprints of the retiring Indians ; and certain disappointed men, or those who having lost caste at home went abroad to regain name, and fame, and fortune.

A more honest, careless, and hospitable community than that of interior Texas it would be impossible to conceive of, or to meet with anywhere this side of Utopia. Crime of any kind was not tolerated. Every stranger was wel comed, aided, and respected, if he did but conduct himself with propriety. After 1836 the population was much reduced. Fear, famine, and Mexican slaughter had taken away many of the settlers, driven others from the land, and completely checked immigration. During the general panic of '38, many cotton planters came to the country and brought their " force" of negroes with them. Some of these left their home in a hurry, and it must be confessed that they had pretty fair reasons for

INTRODUCTION.

. so doing. The banks had been flooding the country with their currency, which was lent in large sums to the few who possessed the right kind of influence. Cotton and sugar had commanded large prices, and the planter bor rowed money to purchase new plantations and increase their " force." Suddenly the banks went down in one universal crash ; the planters were left with great quantities of the useless " promises to pay," which they had borrowed upon their own notes or on bond and mortgage ; and these amounts were to be paid, although the borrowed bills were valueless. Euin threatened upon every side ; ruin appa rently caused by the rascality of the very men who now were to profit by it, by becoming the owners of negroes and lands at the tithe of their value. Those who were not involved in debt for more than one fourth of what their estates were intrinsically worth, saw them absolutely thrown away at a sheriff's sale for perhaps half enough to satisfy the execution.

There were men who deemed that they had a right to rescue themselves and their families from utter ruin ; so shouldering their rifles, and arming the more trustworthy of their negroes, they departed secretly for Texas ; and there is one county nearly settled by them. With this hegira commenced the culture of cotton in the interior, for it had hitherto been confined to the eastern portion. As the population increased, and money became more plen tiful, there came, of course, a proportionate increase of crime. In '42, preparations were made for settling Fisher & Miller's grant with German emigrants ; and for a year previous to the annexation of the star republic with the United States, they came over in great numbers. These

INTRODUCTION.

. XIII men were miserable settlers. They seemed to have left home with the idea that in future they were to live without work, and ha<4 doubtless been amused with very Munchau senish tales of the facility with which game could be obtained, for every one of them could be seen staggering up the muddy streets at Houston with an interminable equipage of pouches and game bags hung around their necks, and a pair, at least, of heavy German "yagers" upon their shoulders. When they reached the colony, they would not work during the first year, but lived upon the provisions pur chased by the company, and amused themselves principally in trotting about the prairies, shooting at small birds and getting themselves shot by the Indians. " What new tribe," said Santa Anna— the Commanche, and not the Mexican chief — to Jack Hays ; " what new tribe have come among us ?

They ride along slowly with their eyes bent upon the ground, smoking great pipes, knowing nothing of what is around them, and they never wake up until we have sent an arrow right through them ?" Such men were of little use in a new country. Stupid by nature, they became more stupid still by free indul gence in coarse gluttony and sottishness, and generally finished themselves off in three or four years. Times and people have changed, but still there remains enough of the old leaven, of the simple-hearted stock raisers and small farmers, to keep the average morality of Texas up to the standard of that of any other State, not excepting even the boasted land of steady habits. The towns in Texas, at the time of the revolution, were few and of small importance ; such as San-Antonio-de-

INTRODUCTION.

. Bexar, with a population thoroughly Mexican, Nacogdo ches and San Augustin in the eastern part, several small villages such as Victoria, Liberty, Harrisburg, Jasper, and a few military posts as Anahuac, &c. The population of these earlier settlements was such as might be expected ; but the arm of the law, even under the somewhat lax administration of the " Alcaldes," was still felt. When " Houston" was founded it became for a time the resort of all the gamblers in the country, until its citizens decided, by a large majority, to turn Congress adrift, and make them seek some other place upon which to inflict their concomitant nuisances. The worst curse that ever fell upon the country came in the form of the disbanded " Murrel gang," who, when their plans had been revealed, and many of their names made known by the courage of Stewart, fled to Texas, thinking there to find a fair field for future operations, but they were very generally checked.

They settled in numbers in a few conve nient places, and established a perfect cordon of posts from Belew's ferry and other points of the eastern frontier, through the entire settled portion of the Republic. They were, however, driven in from the eastern line and forced to scatter in every direction. In presenting the following pages to the public, the only object the author has in view is to give a correct idea of scenes and scenery, men and manners, as they exist in a section of our country of which much has been written, but little is really known. Men steam it down the Mississippi, probably killing the time with whist and euker ; spend a week in New Orleans lounging about the bar-room of a crack hotel, and in extreme cases some will venture as far as Houston • then

INTRODUCTION.

. XV leave again with all possible expedition and with the aid of a " Mississippi and Ohio Pilot" (books), half a dozen Gazet teers, and, perhaps, " Houston and his Republic," or Seats field's " Cabin Book," and a precious production by one Dey — who asserts that Irish potatoes turn to sweet ones in a few years, and a thousand other ridiculous absurdi ties, for the people found him out, and quizzed him to their hearts' content — and having all this vast mass of information on hand, consider themselves perfectly pre pared to write sketches and volumes, converse and make speeches upon subjects with which they are about as well acquainted as they are with the interior of Africa, or the mountains in the moon. If the following chapters can lay claim to no other merit than truth and fidelity of description, the author is deter mined that these at least they shall deserve, and he has no intention of making up a book by drawing upon his own imagination, or quoting from the works of others, whose writings, were the truth known, are too often entirely void of any pretension to authenticity or correctness.

Nothing but a familiar acquaintance with the country and its inhabitants, that can only be obtained by a residence of years, not in the cities alone, but among the genuine pioneers of the sorest — the backwoodsmen as they are termed — will entitle any man to lay a just claim to a proper knowledge of either. If these pages often treat subjects in an amusing rather than a serious manner, it is out of the author's power to help it, being by nature a disciple of Democritus, and dia metrically opposed to the school of his rival. The records of the rights, adventures, and experience of ten years could scarcely be comprised entire in one small volume ; and so

INTRODUCTION.

. the writer has described what he thought best worth describing, and described it too as best pleased himself. If some of the characters appear to have been cast in a rough mould, so were their prototypes ; if their language occasionally varies from the strict rules of Lindley Mur ray, so did that of their originals ; and if their humor be of the rudest, such as it truly is and was, has been given. Names, both of persons and places, have been sometimes changed in order to avoid personality ; but the incidents detailed are facts, and the descriptions are as faithful as it has been in the author's power to make them. A STRAY YANKEE IN TEXAS.

Chapter I. Bear And Snake

It was in the first youth of one of the last born sisters of our Union, who, after a mes-alliance with a Mexican, that greatly annoyed and distressed her friends, terminated the affair by scratching his eyes out ; taking forcible possession of all the property, both personal and real, upon which she could lay her hands ; kicking her would-be lord and master unceremoniously and incontinently out of doors ; and then, like a good child, coming home again, and getting her friends to fight out her battles for her ; as I before said, it was in the younger days of one of our youngest states that the adventure, or rather series of adventures, occurred which I am about to relate. In consequence of a certain roving disposition, desirous — as Cicero hath it — of novelties, I found myself located and domiciled in the bosom of the family of one Joe Hough, a regular backwoodsman, a capital hunter, and a decided character, with nothing in particular to do except to amuse myself as best I might.

Having thus premised, let us plunge at once in medias res. " Dog on my cat ! ef thar hain't been bar about, ye can take my hat !" " How do you know, Joe ?" " Know ! Just you sight that muscadine vine, whar one of the varmint's been a lappin', and look at the sign on that tree, and on the ground." I looked, and, as Joe said, there was sign enough. The bark of the tree that supported the grape vine was marked with the bear's claws ; and, as for the vine itself, it had been subjected to the very ingenious operation that bears are wont to perform when they wish a dessert of the fruit, and which is effected by climbing well up the tree, then crawling out upon a limb, and slipping off, legs extended, spread-eagle fashion, bringing vine, grapes, and all with him in the facilis descensus. Bruin's plan to strip the grapes from the vine is simple, but effective.

He twists his tongue — as long, as rough, and as potent as that of a maiden-shrew — around a por tion of the vine, and drawing it down, grapes, leaves, bugs, and worms, at one fell swoop, enter his capacious maw. But stop one moment. Let us give the reader an inkling of who we were, and what we were about. Joe Hough and the reader's humble servant made up the party ; and a party that would have attracted rather more attention had they appeared in Broadway, accoutred as they were, than, perhaps, might have been agreeable to them. Joe was in full Texas rig : a bronzed face, that would not have disgraced Captain Cook when his first MR. AND MRS. JOE. 19 voyage round the world was ended, beamed forth from beneath the overshadowing of a home-made palmetto hat, whose style and general appearance gave proof that Genin had not been about in that region lately ; a pair of cot tonade pants, — that owed their existence entirely to Joe's industrious wife, who had spun the cotton, woven the yarn in fine, done everything that had been done to call them into being, with the sole exception of making the buttons, and they evidently came from the four quarters of the globe — fastened round the waist with a rusty leather belt, and terminating somewhere near, but not quite effect ing a junction with, a couple of particularly greasy moccasins.

These, with a very coarse article, which Mrs. Trol lope insists upon it is known among our ladies as '.' a pillow case," completed the outer man. The other party's dress bore a striking resemblance to that of the former, except that it had, perhaps, a shade more of pretension, and that a red sash, in lieu of the leather belt, girded the waist. Speaking of Joe's wife, reminds me very naturally of the female herself; and as the lady had some peculiar accomplishments of her own, I may as well, en passant, say a word or two of them. A sallow face, with no very striking features, save a pair of small but brilliant black eyes, and lips as expressive of firmness as those of the elder Brutus ; a head of sunburnt hair, whose original hue it would have been extremely difficult to discover, so weather-beaten and discolored had the capillary covering become ; a neck neither long nor short, adorned by a string of golden beads ; a very plain dress, — coat, as she termed it, — innocent of any attempt at ornament, made, Heaven knows in what fashion, and only remarkable for economy in material, both in quantity and quality — the groundwork of the structure being of her own manufac ture ; a pair of hands, evidently ignorant of idleness ; the same number of feet, tanned by exposure, and, except upon occasions of unusual moment, guiltless of any covering, save that which nature had given, and sun and soil impressed ; were the external characteristics of the woman.

Her gift of speech was limited ; her words blunt, but to the point ; her only mission evidently being to milk the kine, and to prepare the meals and the clothing of her husband and children. Whether she exhibited any signs of woman's nature when in company with her own sex, I know not ; but, in her own home, I never knew her to smile, to attempt a jest, to tell a tale, or even ask a question, unless it were a matter of absolute and imperative necessity ; yet she went through her daily round of duties cheerfully, and bore the life of hardship, danger, and exposure, which all pioneers must bear, without a mur mur. She had never known any other. In accomplish ments, she could ride a horse admirably, shoot a rifle even more truly than Joe, smoke a pipe, masticate the weed, and, at a pinch, manage a little snuff if it were offered her.

One day Joe and I, on returning from one of our expeditions, found her sitting on the door-sill very quietly smoking her pipe. " All right ?" asked Joe, as we approached the door. The lady drew the pipe from her mouth, and pointed to something dimly visible in the interior of the cabin, which, upon examination, proved to be the skin of a huge pan ther, shot and skinned by her own ready hands. Upon inquiry, she informed us, with more than Spartan bre- BEAR ABOUT. 21 vity, that " the boys see the varmint nigh the house. She called the dogs and tuk the gun ; he tuk a tree, and she fetched him." This was her second exploit in panther-killing during the four years of their present residence. Now for a countermarch. Joe and I, at the time of the commencement of my tale, were upon the banks of a bayou, in a very dense thicket, and intent upon discovering a cypress brake or grove of white oak, near enough the river to admit of certain staves, shingles, etc., yet to be made, to be drawn to and rafted down it ; and in the pursuance of our quest we have fallen upon the hereinbefore-men tioned "bear-sign."

There could be no more timber-hunting that day ; fresh bear-sign, and that so near home, proved too much for Joe's newly-born spirit of industry, and fat bear meat got the better of staves and shingles without much of a strug gle. " Joe," said I, " consider, man : here we are, not a mile from home, and to turn back because you think that a bear has been about here lately ! Why, man, bear are almost as plenty as ' 'possums' in this confounded thicket." " Bar been about 1" replied Joe, " you may swar to that ; and he's about yet, lappin' somewhar less nor sixty rod off, an' as for it's bein' nigh the settlement, and most on the edge of the prairie, that's what I'm goin' back for. The varmint knows the way out, and I'll just bet a hogshead of niggers he was one of the chaps that smashed up my corn crap.

I'm bound to have him." Now, as Joe was obstinate as a mule, and exceedingly energetic, industrious, and persevering when anything except pure work was to be done, I made a merit of necessity, resigning myself to the chances and mischances of a bear-hunt, with as good a grace as might be expected under the circumstances. The trail by which we had entered the forest was very tortuous, but Joe insisted that he knew where he was exactly, and could take a straight route home. So, drawing his hack-knife from its sheath, he plunged into a dense cane-brake that adorned the bayou's bank, and commenced cutting and carving a path in true backwoods style. I followed after him in Indian file, aiding and abetting his rude attempts at road-making whenever a mass of bull brier or bamboo-vines, crossing and recrossing the cane, forming a natural fence impossible for animals and but barely practicable to man, called for action on the part of self and hatchet.

Fifteen minutes' hard work brought us to the edge of the open forest, and we were pushing on at a great pace, when Joe suddenly came to a halt, motioning me with his hand to imitate his example. Joe's keen eye certainly had seen something, and, after peering at it a moment or so, he beckoned me to his side. Following the direction of his finger, I soon beheld, at the foot of a gigantic oak, a pair of those most hideous of all abominable reptiles — moccasin snakes. These were of unusual size, and appeared quite wide awake, which, for one of the species, is very uncommon. They usually seem to be stupified by their own venom, and never interfere with travellers' rights unless a person should approach sufficiently near for them to give him a snap, and then, coward-like, slink away into the under brush.

Our snakes, however, were of different metal ; and, THE HATCHET MISSES FIRE. judging from their great size and unusual alacrity, pro bably the war chiefs of the tribe. With their heads and part of their bodies erect, their demoniac eyes glaring fury, and their bifurcated tongues darting in and out, they evidently meditated an attack. Stepping past Joe, I raised my hatchet, took deliberate aim, and blazed away. My shot was perfectly innocuous, for, ducking their heads, the hatchet passed over them, and then, as if animated by a common impulse, they dashed at us. I beat an immediate retreat, being deprived of my only weapon, offensive or defensive ; and moreover having always had implicit faith in the old proverb touch ing " fighting and running away," in the hope of " living to fight another day."

Joe stood his ground like a man, and as the first snake approached, struck at the head with his knife. I saw the motion, and immediately after heard him give one of those singular whistles or blows, like the sudden puff of a locomotive, which seem to belong to the African vernacular, and to imply astonishment, wonder, and perhaps alarm. Joe immediately put his thumb in his mouth and jumped, evidently thinking himself snake-bitten. Having found a club ready for my purpose, and dispatched our enemies in a hurry, I turned to condole and assist poor Joe ; but as I turned, beheld quite a stream of a very valorous and pug nacious variety of the hornet issuing from the ground where Joe had made his late stand against the snakes. Having no desire to complete the achievements of the morning by a Quixotic attack upon the hornets, I made off for Joe, leaving them in full, if not quiet, possession of the field.

Joe stood sucking his thumb, occasionally stamping with pain and anger, like a boy in the sullens, and it was some time before I could persuade him that he was the victim to no greater calamity than a hornet sting ; but when convinced of it, he gave vent to a profusion of strange backwoods oaths, which involved in one common anathema all sorts of reptiles and insects — musquitoes, fleas, and horn toads, being included in the general ruin. It seemed that while sucking and examining his thumb, he, for once in life, had his latter end brought clearly in view ; and this circumstance, acting as a curb to his anger, bottled up a vast amount of impiety, which escaped like the notes from Munchausen's horn, when the said wholesome fear was removed. After my irate friend had somewhat cooled down, he turned his attention to the results which would indubitably follow our morning's adventure.

" It was bad luck, sure" he said, " to have a snake attack you, and we should see more snakes than bears that day" (which I thought very likely), " and maybe some of us would get snake-bit for sartin." As if to strengthen Joe's prediction, we killed on our homeward route, two ground and one large prairie rattlesnake, the death of each one eliciting from Joe the remark, " Dog on my cat, I'd a swore it." Arrived at the settlement, disappointment awaited us. Joe's brother-in-law, Sam Ming, had gone out turkey-hunting, and taken with him all the curs, which alone are use ful in turkey or bear-hunting — all that is required in either being their noisy bark — and moreover, good dogs are very seldom trusted to encounter with Bruin, their courage usually proving fatal to them in such combats. Noon arrived, and with it the usual allowance of boiled jerked beef, corn bread and coffee.