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- Herausgeber: Madison & Adams Press
- Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018
"In the following story of those years of my life which were passed on the broad tablelands of western Texas, I have endeavored to set down, plainly and truthfully, events as they actually occurred..." Napoleon Augustus Jennings (1856–1919) was A Texas Ranger and writer, best remembered for his autobiographical account of the career of Leander H. McNelly's Texas Ranger company in the Nueces Strip, A Texas Ranger, published in 1899. In 1874 Jennings moved to Texas, where after some adventures as a cowboy he joined McNelly's Special Force where he served not as a regular member of the company but only as a field clerk.
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A Texas Ranger
Table of Contents
Chapter I
Public Opinion in Texas—Change in Respect for Law and Order—First Visit—Romance vs. Reality—The Baker Hotel at San Antonio—Treatment of Impecunious Guests — "Seeing the Town" — "Flat Broke"—Engagement with a Ranchman—First Mustang Ride—Deserted at Pleasanton.
In the following story of those years of my life which were passed on the broad tablelands of western Texas, I have endeavored to set down, plainly and truthfully, events as they actually occurred. I have always given the correct names of places, but in some instances have thought it proper to change the names of persons. During a recent visit to Texas, for the purpose of going over the scenes of the adventures of earlier days, I found a number of highly respected citizens, living exemplary lives, who had formerly been eagerly hunted by the officers of the law. It would be manifestly unfair to give their real names in this history, and so expose them to the criticism of their fellow citizens at this late day. In other instances, however, where the malefactors are notorious, I have not hesitated to use real names.
In justice to the great state of Texas, I wish to say that the conditions which existed in the period embraced in this narrative have undergone a complete change, and that in no state in the Union is the law more respected than it is in Texas to-day.
It was in September, 1874, that I first visited Texas. I was eighteen years old, and had only a short time before left the famous New Hampshire school where I had been a pupil for a number of years. My father, a Philadelphia merchant, was very indulgent to me, and I had never been obliged to contribute a penny toward my own support. The reading of books of travel and adventure had roused in me a spirit of unrest, and I wanted to see the world.
Some copies of The Texas New Yorker, a paper published in the interests of some of the Southwestern railroads, came into my hands, and my mind was inflamed by the highly colored accounts of life in the Lone Star State. I read every word in the papers, and believed all I read. Since then I have learned that Colonel J. Annoy Knox, later of Texas Siftings, was one of the men who wrote the most lurid articles for The Texas New Yorker. I was a callow youth at the time, however, and had never met the genial Colonel. I should know better now than to take him so seriously, but his humor was all sober fact to me then.
After reading of the wild, free life of the Texas cowboy, I made up my mind that life would not be worth living outside of Texas. In a few years—or was it months?—I had the assurance of Colonel Knox’s paper that, so surely as I went to Texas, I should be a cattle king, the owner of countless herds of beeves and unlimited acres of land. I forget now just how I was going to acquire these without money or experience, but I know the Colonel made it all as plain as daylight to me then. As a “boomer” he was a glorious success.
About the first of September, then, I told my father that I had decided to try life in Texas, if he would give his permission. I said I knew that a fortune awaited me there, and I wanted to go and get it before someone else gobbled it up. To my vast astonishment, my father gave his consent, but said that if I went I must depend on my own exertions for a living. He suggested that my enthusiasm had obtained the upper hand of my judgment, but said that he would not stand in the way of my following my inclination to try a little outdoor life and shifting for myself. He gave me his blessing and $100.
I started for Texas at once, my objective point being San Antonio. From there I intended to go farther west and find the site for my cattle ranch. Of course, this sounds ridiculous, but it seemed quite feasible to me at that time. Many and many a young man has gone out into the West with such ideas in his head; just as many and many an immigrant has come to America with the expectation of finding money lying loose in the streets for him to pick up as he pleased.
At that time the railroad ran only to Austin, the capital of Texas, and about eighty miles from San Antonio. I went from Austin to San Antonio on top of a stagecoach. I had lived well on my journey, and when I came to pay my stage fare I found that my supply of ready money was getting dangerously low. But I had bought a six-shooter and felt that I was a real Texan, which made me happy. When I arrived in San Antonio I had $3.25. I went to the Baker House, a second-class hotel on the main plaza of the quaint old town. I was well dressed, and I had a sole-leather trunk filled with clothing, so, fortunately for me, I was not asked to pay for my board in advance.
My first week in San Antonio was one of real misery. I knew that I could not pay my hotel bill when it should fall due, but farther than that I did not know. For the first time I wondered how I was going to get out on the plains to start my cattle ranch. How was I to get away? How could I pay my bill without money? ‘What was I to do? What would become of me?
I was in my first serious predicament, and as unhappy a youth as could well be imagined. I thought with longing of the safety of my father’s house in Philadelphia, and heartily wished myself back there again.
My mind was not a bit relieved by an incident which occurred at the hotel, three or four days after my arrival.
I was sitting in the hotel office, wondering what I should do to get out of my trouble, when the proprietor, Baker—a big, heavy, broad-shouldered man, with a long, gray beard, which gave him a patriarchal appearance—walked in. He was greatly excited. He walked straight up to a young man who was sitting near me and caught him roughly by the collar.
“Here, you rascal!” he exclaimed, “I’ve found you out. You thought you could beat me, did you? Take that!”
Old Baker emphasized his words by hitting the young man over the head with a heavy cane. The blood ran clown the man’s face, and he struggled to get away. He finally succeeded in escaping from Baker and ran out of the hotel.
“I guess he won’t try to beat a hotel out o’ board and lodging in a hurry again,” said old Baker, looking after him, with a grin.
Naturally, this assault made a deep impression upon me. I looked upon Baker with distrust every time he came near me, and felt like throwing up my arm to ward off a blow whenever he greeted me.
The end of my first week came all too soon, and the clerk handed me my bill; it amounted to $10.25. The extra quarter was for bringing my trunk from the stage office to the hotel. I had seventy-five cents in my pocket when I received the bill. I thought it well over, and then made up my mind to go to Baker and make a clean breast of the whole matter to him. It was not without many misgivings that I decided to take this course, but it turned out to be the best thing I could have done. Mr. Baker listened with patience to my rather lame explanation of why I could not pay the bill. I was so nervous that I was almost crying with mortification.
“Well, my boy,” said the old man, kindly, when I had finished, “we must find something for you to do. How would you like to work on a ranch?”
I told him that I had come to Texas to work on a ranch. I was willing to do so for a short time, I said, until I learned something about the business, then I proposed to start a ranch of my own. He asked me if I had any capital in prospect, and I told him I had not. I was very young indeed in those days.
The upshot of our conversation was that he introduced me to one of his guests, a cattleman named Reynolds, who owned a ranch in Atascosa County, south of San Antonio. Reynolds asked me if I had ever worked in Texas before, and when I told him I had not, he hesitated about employing me. I assured him that, although I had not worked in
Texas, I was not a bit afraid of any kind of work, and only longed for the chance to show what I could do. This did not seem to impress him greatly, but he finally said he would give me a trial.
Mr. Baker said I could leave my trunk at his hotel until I was able to pay him what I owed. I thought this was very kind in him. My trunk, by the way, with its contents, was worth about ten times the amount of his bill.
I was so elated over my good fortune that I started out that evening to “see the town,” a thing 1 had not attempted before. The first place I went to was a Mexican gambling room. There were several games of monte in progress. I had never seen monte played, nor any gambling for that matter, and I became greatly interested. At last I grew so fascinated that I ventured to bet seventy-five cents—my fortune—on the turn of a card. I regret to say, I won. I bet again and again, until I had won over twenty dollars. I kept on playing, with the inevitable result that I left the place penniless. For the first time in my life I was “flat broke.”
Early the next morning I started with Reynolds for his ranch. He brought two little Texas ponies around to the front of the hotel, about sunrise, and told me I was to ride one of them. I was delighted. I had ridden a horse perhaps a dozen times in my life, and I thought I was an expert rider. But I had never ridden very far at a time, and when Reynolds said we should have to go thirty-five miles that day I had some misgivings as to how I was going to stand it. But I kept them to myself, and we started. Reynolds set the pace at that easy “lope” which the tough, wiry little Texas ponies can keep up hour after hour without showing fatigue. The motion was as easy as that of a rocking chair, and I thought I should never tire of it. I did, though.
Long before we had covered the thirty-five miles I began to suffer. I had often heard the common expression about every bone in one’s body aching; I had probably used it, carelessly, myself; but before I finished that ride I knew of a verity what it meant. Not only did every bone ache, but every muscle, and joint, and nerve in my body, from the crown of my head to the ends of my toes, was giving me excruciating pain. Every mile we covered added to my sufferings.
We stopped at noon to rest and eat and let the horses graze. When, after about two hours, Reynolds said it was time for us to be going on, it took real courage for me to get on that little mustang again. It was after dark when we at last reached Reynold’s ranch. I tumbled from the pony’s back more dead than alive, and I then and there resolved never again to ride a horse. I was far too tired and in too much pain to sleep, and all night I suffered intensely.
Before I left Texas, I practically lived on a horse for three years. I have ridden for three weeks at a time in pouring rain, and have slept every night during that period on wet ground, covered with a wet blanket. I have ridden “bucking broncos,” and horses that trotted with the gait of an animated pile driver. I have raced for my life in front of a herd of stampeded cattle. I have been chased forty miles at night by desperadoes, anxious to make a sieve of my body with bullets. But never have I experienced anything like that first Texas ride.
Long before daylight the next morning I was called by Reynolds, who said that he wanted me to go to Pleasanton with him to a “stock meeting.” I didn’t know what a “stock meeting” was, but I was quite sure I didn’t want to go to that one. I simply wanted to lie quiet and die, but pride came to my aid and, stiff and sore as I was, I struggled to my feet, ate a breakfast of black coffee and cornbread, and again mounted my mustang. We started just as the first faint streak of dawn showed in the sky and reached Pleasanton about an hour after the sun had risen. Reynolds probably came to the conclusion that I was too much of a “tenderfoot” or “shorthorn” for his use, for he deserted me in Pleasanton, and left me there to shift for myself. He calmly told me he had changed his mind about employing me, and went away and left me, taking with him the horse I had so painfully ridden.
Chapter II
Cattle-men and Their Cheery Customs—"Mavericks" —My First Job, Watering Horses—Engaged by John Ross—Removed to Laredo—My First "Norther"—Christopher Criss's Story—Howling Coyotes— The Town of Laredo—A Mexican Fiesta—Mexicans at Monte—Rescued by a Compatriot.
I had been in a sad predicament in San Antonio, but now my situation was indeed desperate. I was not only penniless, but hungry and friendless. The town was full of cattlemen and cowboys, who had come to it to attend the stock meeting. They were a good-natured, jolly set of fellows, but through my inexperienced young Eastern eyes I saw in them only a lot of rough, loud talking, swearing ruffians.
At that time Texas had but few fences in it, and cattle roamed at will all over the state. The only way a cattle owner had of keeping his property was by branding the calves and cutting their ears in some fanciful way. These brands and earmarks were duly registered in the county clerk’s office and determined the ownership of the cattle. All unbranded cattle were known as “mavericks.” They belonged to nobody in particular, but if a cattleman came across one, he would rope it, throw it down, and brand it.
The principal market for Texas cattle was in Kansas, and the cattlemen would gather great herds and drive them up through the Indian Territory to Kansas, where they would sell them. The cattlemen did not necessarily confine themselves to driving their own cattle, but would take those belonging to others as well. They were supposed to keep a careful record of all such cattle they had taken up and sold, and to make a settlement at a “stock meeting” every three months. As a rule, the cattlemen were not any too honest in keeping their records, and the stock meetings were in the nature of a farce. Very little money ever changed hands. The owner of a brand would meet the owner of another and say to him:
“Jim, I took up twenty-one o’ your cows an’ sold ‘em. I’ll give ye an order to take up twenty-five o’ mine if ye ain’t took up any lately.”
“Well, I did round up sixteen o’ your ‘B T’ brand,” the other would reply, “so I reckon we can fix up the difference all right.”
The chances were that both men were lying outrageously as to the number of cattle each had sold belonging to the other, but as all were doing the same thing, it was pretty thoroughly understood that the smartest man in gathering stock was the one to come out ahead.
Under no circumstances would a cattleman ever kill any of his own stock for beef. He invariably hunted up for that purpose some brand which did not belong to him, and it was an unwritten law that cattle killed for beef should not be accounted for at the stock meetings. Some of the large cattle owners actually advertised in the little county newspapers the brands which they wished other ranchmen to use for beef.
I am riot exaggerating when I say that at that time in Texas ten times more cattle were stolen every year than were bought and sold. A man would acquire possession of a few cattle of a certain brand and would forthwith gather all cows and steers of all brands he could round up, drive them to Kansas, and sell them. Very often there were fights about the cattle and, as every man carried a six-shooter in that country, “killings” were of somewhat frequent occurrence. Still, there was a difference between a regular cattleman and a common cattle thief. The former always was the legal owner of at least one brand; the latter owned none at all.
My predicament at being thrown on my own resources among these rough-and-ready frontiersmen was, as may be imagined, a serious one. I was desperate. I hung around the stable where a good many of the stockmen put up their horses, and asked one after the other if he did not wish to employ me. I was not the sort they wanted, however, and I met with no success. I had about given up hope when the proprietor of the stable came to me and asked me if I didn’t want to go out into the yard and draw water from the well for the horses. He said he would give me a dollar if I would draw water for two hours.
I had never done any hard work in my life, but I jumped at the opportunity that time. The yard was filled with horses, and close to the well was a trough for their use. They crowded around the trough and fought to get the water I drew from the well in buckets and poured into it. My position was dangerous and I fully realized it; in fact, I probably magnified it, for I was unused to being with horses.
I worked hard, however, and to such good purpose that in half an hour I had exhausted the well. The stable-man acted handsomely. He paid me the dollar, although I had worked but half an hour. Later in the clay I worked again for him, and that night he let me sleep in his hayloft.
For two weeks I worked around the stable and at other odd jobs in the little town, chopping wood and doing anything I could get to do, and I managed to make a bare living, but no more.
Then it was that I first met John Ross. He was a big-hearted, bluff Scotchman, with a bright red beard and the broadest of Scotch accents. He had come to Texas from Glasgow and had married a young San Antonio girl of good family, the granddaughter of Jose Antonio Navarro, one of the heroes of the Texas revolution. To this day, I look back with feelings of deepest affection and gratitude to these good people, for they were father and mother to me when, as a youth, I was alone in Texas and friendless.
Ross entered into conversation with me in Pleasanton and said he would take me to his ranch on the Atascosa Creek, about eighteen miles from Pleasanton, and give me work. He said he could not afford to pay much at first, but would give me board and lodging and enough to keep me in tobacco. He took me to the ranch in his wagon.
The first day he set me to work digging post holes for a new fence he was building; but he was not a hard master, and when he saw I was getting tired he sent me to the creek to catch some catfish, a form of labor which was much more to my taste.
I helped Ross on his farm for three months, and gradually became used to harder work than I had ever supposed I could stand. It even became easy for me to get up before daylight and to go to bed with the chickens. My muscles hardened, and I learned how to use them to the best advantage, not easy knowledge to acquire when one is city bred and has lived an idle life.
At the end of three months Ross told me he had decided to go to Laredo, a town on the Rio Grande about one hundred and twenty miles south of his ranch. He said that he was going to cultivate a market-garden there, and that if I could raise about three hundred dollars he would take me in as a partner. I wrote to my father that I had a fine chance to go into business, and he kindly sent me the three hundred dollars by return mail, together with a letter filled with loving advice. I fear I did not appreciate the advice nearly so much then as I do now, looking back from the standpoint of a man of experience. This is a veracious tale, however, and I am in duty bound to tell exactly what became of that money.
We started for Laredo early one morning in January 1875. In the big covered farm wagon were Mrs. Ross and “Tommy,” the baby, the same who lately won distinction in a Texas Ranger company by hunting down desperate characters near Corpus Christi. Will Ross, John’s brother, rode on horseback, as did I. I had about all the money in the outfit. We were fairly well armed, for the country was not free from Indians at that time and their raids from Mexico were quite frequent.
Never shall I forget that trip to Laredo, for I suffered much on it, physically and mentally. The weather was very trying for one so new to the country as I. The days were extremely warm and the nights uncomfortably cool. During the day the sun blazed in the heavens and his rays beat down on our heads with tropical force, but no sooner did the shades of night come on than the air grew icy cold, and before morning it was freezing. Two hours after the sun arose the next day, the terrible heat began again. To add to the discomfort of these extreme changes in temperature, water was very scarce and rattlesnakes extremely plentiful.
It was on this journey that I first experienced a Texas “norther.” It came upon us early one afternoon. Will Ross and I were riding about a mile ahead of the wagon. We were coatless, and our shirts were open at the throats, for the heat was stifling. Suddenly, without the slightest warning, an icy wind swept across the prairie from the north. It chilled us, through and through, in a few seconds.
“Hello! a norther’s coming,” said Will Ross. “We’d better go back and get our coats.”
We turned back to the wagon, but when we attempted to ride in the teeth of that terribly cold wind, we suffered so that we gave up the attempt. We dismounted and stood in the lee of our horses until the wagon came lumbering up. Then we bundled into our coats and overcoats and rode on to a creek, a mile or so ahead. There, under the shelter of one of the banks, we built a great fire and went into camp, to remain until the norther should blow itself out. This, Ross knew from experience, would be in two days.
A norther invariably blows from the north for twenty-four hours. Then it comes back, almost as cold, from the south for twenty-four hours more. The third day there is no wind, but the cold continues, gradually abating until, on the fourth day, the temperature is what it was before the norther came. I have been in New Hampshire when the thermometer marked forty degrees below zero; I have passed a night, lost in a snowstorm, in the Rocky Mountains in Colorado; but never have I suffered so from the cold as I have in a Texas norther. One’s blood gets thin in a warm climate, arid it is not so easy to resist cold as in Northern latitudes. Not infrequently thousands of cattle will die, frozen to death, in a Texas norther. During the winter months the northers sweep over Texas about once in every two or three weeks.
Lawrence Christopher Criss, an old Texas guide and buffalo hunter, is responsible for the following tale of a norther. Criss vouched for the absolute truth of it, and even offered to take me to the spot where it happened and show me the ashes of the campfire to prove it.
“It was along in the winter of ‘69 that I was out huntin’ buffalo with a little hunch-back we called Twisted Charley,” said Criss, telling me the yarn one night, sitting by a campfire near El Paso, Texas. “We were up in the Panhandle, and dead oodles of buffalo grazed around us. We had run across a herd in the afternoon, and killed nineteen between us. Twisted Charley and I were skinnin’ them, and were takin’ off the hides of four or five when the worst norther I ever remember struck us.
“We piled all the wood we could find on the fire, but we couldn’t begin to keep warm, and when night come on it got colder, and colder, and colder, till the coffee, boffin’ in the coffee pot on the fire, had a skim of ice on it that we had to break before we could pour the coffee out.
“Well, a bright idea struck me, and I took one of the green buffalo hides and wrapped myself up in it, and in a minute I was as warm and comfortable as a man could wish to be anywhere. You know there’s nothin’ warmer than a buffalo hide, and this one was extra thick. Charley saw what I had done, and he went and got a hide, too, and wrapped himself up in it. We were not long in fallin’ asleep after that, and I was peacefully dreamin’ about skinnin’ Jacarilla Apache buck Injuns to make moccasins out of, when, all of a sudden, I was woke up by the most awful howlin’ I ever heard.
“I was sure the Injuns were down on us, and I jumped up and grabbed my rifle in a hurry. Then I saw that it was Twisted Charley who was doing the yellin’. I went over to where he lay, wrapped up in the green buffalo hide, and I gave him a kick to wake him up, for I thought, of course, he had a nightmare.
“Help me out, help me out!” he yelled.
“What’s the matter with you?” I asked.
“Don’t you see I’m froze up in this hide and can’t get out?” he howled.
“I took hold of the hide and tried to unroll it, but it was froze ‘round him as hard as boiler-iron. He was warm enough, for he had wrapped himself in it with the hairy side next to him, but he wanted to get out bad.
“I can’t unwrap that hide any way,” I said, after I’d made a trial at it.
“Cut it open,” said Twisted Charley.
“I took my skinning-knife and tried to cut it, but the hide was so hard it turned the knife-edge.
“I’ll have to give it up,” I said, at last.
“What?” yelled Charley. “Man, I can’t stay in this hide forever.”
“You won’t have to,” I says; “This norther’ll blow itself out in three days, and then you’ll thaw out naturally.”
“Thaw me out at the fire,” said Charley,
“That seemed reasonable, and I rolled him over by the fire and began toastin’ first one side and then the other. I thought I’d never get him out; but after awhile, when the hide was actually roasted, I managed to unroll it enough for him to get out. He sat up by the fire the rest of the night, swearin’. He was a beautiful swearer, and the air moderated a whole lot while he was sitiin’ there inventin’ new oaths and lettin’ ‘em out.”
There was one other thing which I did not particularly fancy on that trip to Laredo, and that was the howling of the coyote wolves around our camp at night. Any Texan will tell you that a coyote is the most cowardly and harmless of animals, but his howl is bloodthirsty and horrible at night. It is a shrill, wild, piercing yelp, tapering off to a long, dismal howl. There is something very human in it, and yet it is weird and uncanny and creepy, especially when the one listening to it is a young and inexperienced man, fresh from the quiet of Philadelphia streets. Even when one becomes quite used to it, the howling is anything but soothing to the nerves.
Many a night on that trip I was kept awake for hours by the little wolves around the camp, for I could but believe they would attack us, there seemed such a menace in their howling. The others in the camp, including Mrs. Ross and her baby, paid no attention to the coyotes.
We arrived in Laredo, at night, about ten days after we had started, and found the little town in gala attire. The annual fiesta, or fair, was in progress in Nuevo Laredo, just across the Rio Grande, in Mexico. The Mexicans of both towns had given themselves up to the enjoyment of the holiday season, and only monte, mescal, fandangos, bullfights, and general hilarity were in order. Mescal, by the way, is a liquor made from the century plant, and is about as strong as “moonshine corn whiskey. It has a smoky taste which, to the American palate, is not very agreeable.
When we entered the town that night, the inhabitants were all out of doors and enjoying life to the utmost. At that time Laredo—now an important railroad terminus of twelve or fifteen thousand inhabitants—had about three thousand Mexicans and about forty Americans for its population. Of course, it was “run” by Mexicans. It was on American soil, but in its make-up and system of government there was little or no difference between it and the lesser town of Nuevo Laredo, on the Mexican side of the river. We arrived in town about seven o’clock in the evening and, after a supper of chili con carne and tamales, we crossed the Rio Grande to see what we could of the fiesta.
The market plaza in the Mexican town was given up to the fair. It was filled with booths, and there were enough games of chance and wheels of fortune in operation to stock a dozen county fair race tracks in this country. In a big adobe building on one side of the plaza a great game of monte was in progress. On a long table extending down the middle of the main room in this building were many stacks of Mexican silver dollars. Smaller heaps of half-dollars and quarters were scattered here and there on the table. There were about five thousand silver dollars on the table, and I was told the bank was good for any amount up to fifty thousand dollars.
The dealers sat at intervals around the table, and between them were the players, who crowded around three or four deep. The players wore gayly striped blankets thrown gracefully over their left shoulders. Nearly all wore enormous sombreros, wide of brim and with high peaked crowns, and covered, in many instances, with a wealth of silver or gold lace and embroidery.
Every man in the room was smoking a cornhusk cigarito. I was impressed by the cold-blooded way in which they played the game. Win or lose, they displayed absolutely no emotion. They watched the dealer closely with their keen black eves from under their wide hat brims, as he turned up the cards upon which so much depended; but, no matter whether they became richer or poorer by the turn, they gave no sign of excitement.
One old fellow I watched losing steadily for fully half an hour. He calmly smoked his cigaritos as he continued to stack up his silver dollars, fifty at a time, and he seemed to regard the outcome with utter indifference. He had a well-filled wallet, and time after time he took bills from it, and had them changed by an attendant into silver to bet on the game. Only silver was allowed on the table. After a time, this old man began to win as rapidly as he had lost, but there was no change in his demeanor. He seemed devoid of nerves. He was an ideal gambler, but he was only a type of all the others.
From the fascination of watching others to the excitement of playing was a very little step and I took it. I came out of the room about fifty dollars poorer than I entered it. I had become separated from the Ross brothers, and I started around the plaza to hunt them up. I had not gone far before I found myself surrounded by a crowd of half-drunken Mexicans. They were drinking mescal from a bottle. I attempt to pass on, but one of them caught me by the coatsleeve and detained me. I have no doubt whatever now that he merely wanted hospitably to invite me to take a drink from the bottle, but at that time I did not understand the language, and the blanketed Mexicans looked so villainous that I feared I was about to he assaulted and robbed.
I still had over $200 of the $300 which I had intended to put into the vegetable gardening business with Ross, and when that Mexican caught hold of me and held me, I was frightened. I was so frightened, indeed, that I did a very foolish thing. I roughly broke away from him. He reached to catch me again, and I turned and hit him in the face. Then I ran.
How I escaped from that crowd and away from the plaza has always been a puzzle to me, but I know that I found myself running as fast as I could go down the long street which led to the little ferryboat which was punted across the river between the two republics. Behind me, I knew there was a crowd of irate Mexicans, bent on capturing me, and wreaking vengeance for the insult I had put upon their companion and countryman. I flew on the wings of fear, for I doubted not that my fate would be sealed if they caught me. Suddenly, to my great horror, I felt myself caught around one arm by such a powerful hand that my progress was instantly arrested, and I was swung about as though I were on a pivot. Before I realized what had happened I heard a drawling voice say:
“You seem to be in a hurry, friend; where are you bound for?”
My captor was a superb looking fellow. He was over six feet in height, and built like an athlete. His handsome, manly face was smiling good-naturedly. His mouth was hidden by an enormous drooping light mustache, but his blue eyes twinkled in evident enjoyment of my discomfiture.
He wore a big, wide-brimmed white felt hat and a richly embroidered buckskin Mexican jacket, and he was puffing a cigarito.
“Let me go! Let me go!” I cried. “A crowd of Mexicans are after me, and if they catch me, they’ll kill me.”
“What do they want you for?” he asked, in his drawling amused tone.
“I hit one of them; and—”
“Oh, well, I reckon we can stand ‘em off,” he said. “Here take this gun, an’ use it.”
As he spoke he handed me a six-shooter. By this time the advance runners of my pursuers had nearly reached the spot where we stood, under the flaring lamp in front of a saloon. My new friend whipped out the mate to the revolver he had given me, and fired straight at the rapidly approaching men. They turned, instantly, and ran the other way. I think they went a little faster than they had come. Then the big man, who had so strangely come to my rescue, smiled again in his quiet way, and, putting up his six-shooters, said:
“Come in and have a drink; it’ll do you good.”
“Hadn’t I better get over to Texas?” I inquired, anxiously; “those Mexicans may come back here at any moment.”
“Oh, I guess they ain’t in any hurry to come back, yet awhile,” he answered. “If they do, we can have some more fun with ‘em.”
So I went into the saloon with him and took a drink of the vilest whiskey that ever passed my lips. I got away as soon as I could, and reached the ferry and the Texas side of the river without further adventure. Not, however, until I reached Ross’ wagon, which he had put in a wagon yard, did I feel quite safe.
The name of my friend in need was Thompson—Bill Thompson. He was a brother of the notorious Ben Thompson, the desperado marshal of Austin, Texas, who, with King Fisher, another desperado, was killed in San Antonio one night by William H. Simms, whom they attacked. But I shall tell their story further on. Bill Thompson, at the time he helped me, was a fugitive from justice, charged with killing a man in Kansas. There was a reward on his head of $500. In another place I shall also tell how, as a Texas Ranger, I was able to repay Bill Thompson for what he did for me that night.
