 Book 1 Chapter 4 of the Spy Company, A Story of the Mexican War, by Archibald Clavering Gunter. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by John Brandon. Book 1 Chapter 4 The Fight for the Desert Spring In 1846 on an ocean steamer on the Gulf Coast, what was called supper, was nearly always a pleasant meal. This evening the breeze was blowing softly through the open transoms of the city of Mobile. The bright lights of the salon made the cabin cheerful, and the languid splash of the waters outside under the paddles of the boat seemed to be a pleasant lullaby. The menu was excellent, but Miss Godfrey noticed that the captain of the Texan Rangers, who came inconsiderably after she did and said opposite her, said very little, and ate perhaps less. So much so that McGowan who announces that they will be in Corpus Christi early in the morning remarks, Still seasick, eh, Captain Hampton? You have too delicate a stomach for saltwater cooking. You should take a lesson in gastronomy from this young lady at my right hand. She can handle a knife and fork and a gale of wind. This is quite true. Miss Godfrey somehow is in excellent spirits this evening, and is doing full justice to a very good meal. No romance in her appetite continues the skipper cheerily. Turning to his fair protege, he suggests, have another plate of waffles, won't you? Thank you, laughs Estrella. After that can I support your eulogy of my appetite with some of that buffalo tongue in front of you? With pleasure. This evening Hampton will explain to you how they shoot these critters out on the planes. I think I've told you that already responds the Texan glancing across the table, but the bright eyes of his exquisite vis-a-vis make him seek his plate again, though they don't increase his appetite. For some occult reason the more beautiful Miss Godfrey appears to him, the gloomier and more distraught this Captain of Rangers. Acost him to the dangers of partisan warfare with savage enemies, he seems to be almost afraid of gazing on the ethereal loveliness of the lady, which this evening is pronounced enough to conquer more blasé gentleman than the young fellow seated opposite to her. Though extremely cool-headed and facing almost inevitable death, Sharp has grown very warm-blooded in encountering the dashing, light-artillery of Estrella's brown eyes. This evening he thinks Miss Godfrey is beautiful enough to conquer anything that walks. Perhaps judging it as her last opportunity for some little time to wear the delicate garments of fashionable life, this summery evening Estrella is all in white, her perfectly formed shoulders and rounded arms gleaming like ivory beneath the sheer muslins of her corsage. Selma has bound up her hair a la Greek, what artfully destroyed classic severity by permitting two or three ringlets to escape and dangle upon the snowy neck. This is not absolutely attic style, but it suits Captain Hampton down to the ground as he mentally expresses it. Noticing his almost rustic embarrassment, McGowan, who as a popular steamboat captain has witnessed many saltwater flirtations mercilessly remarks, perhaps after dinner you will find something pleasanter than Buffalo to chat about to Miss Godfrey. You know he has had some experience. He continues to the young lady, he is a little seasick now, but upon dry land I am told he is a frontier galant, and you can bet it's true, I never saw a fighter who wasn't a lover. It isn't quite fair, Captain, to jump on a seasick man, returns Hampton, he rises uneasily and mutters, in fact I, I guess this cabin's too hot for me. I'll, I'll go on deck and take a cigar. A slight laugh in which Estrella herself cannot help joining hastens his abrupt exodus from the table. That fellow, chuckles the Captain, is more dangerous than he looks. Little Jack Hayes, who's traveled with me, tells me Hampton dances the fandango so well that the ombres in San Antonio snap their yellow teeth like castanets and the senoritas down on the Rio Grande think he is the prettiest caballero who ever straddled a bucking Mustang. You want to look out for him, Miss Godfrey? Ah, then you should not have placed me in his charge, Captain McGowan, laughs Estrella parrying his suggestion with that woman's tact which is given even to debutants. You must remember that I've only been out one season and I'm not accustomed to meet gentlemen who they say fight like paladins. Oh, odd rescue, it's sharp I'm scared about, answers the Captain. Besides, soon as we get to Corpus Christi that chap who's smoking his cigar on deck will have rivals. The dashing bucks of Taylor's army will be about you like bees around a honey tree. To this the young lady doesn't answer, it reminds her of young Pelham and the souvenir he had taken from her at Saratoga. She knows the lieutenant rides with maize dragoons, that perhaps tomorrow she will see his handsome figure and earnest eyes, but as she steps on deck with McGowan, she puts this from her mind with a careless, ah, he must have forgotten me long ago scouting on the plains. As she and the skipper paste together the port side of the hurricane deck, the Texan strides the starboard side, rather chewing his cigar than smoking it, he's pondering on a subject that disturbs him. Miss Godfrey is the first highly accomplished and delegately bred Anglo-Saxon young lady he's ever met. On cooth they'll comely trapper's daughters he has seen quite often, with the semi-civilized beauties of the coquettish rubozo and floating nagawa that abound on the Mexican border, he has oft footed the cachuca to the disgust of his compatriots, but this eastern bell with a cultivated graces of mind and body is something he has never met before. Though in his short and only visit to New Orleans, from which he is returning, he had looked at the Louisiana beauties, it had only been distantly from a seat in the opera house or theater. Miss Trella's very delicacy and refinement make him extremely diffident, he says to himself grimly, Miss High flyer doubtless thinks me a mixture of uncultured frontier lad and bloodthirsty bravo, but gaze is earnestly across the deck at the delicate beauty that is almost fairy-like in the moonlight. Catching a glance from the girl's bright eyes he recklessly tosses his cigar away and walks straight as the moth to the flame to Miss Godfrey, who has been left by McGowan, seated on a steamer chair under the stern awning. With that curious abruptness common to bashful men, he remarks, I have been thinking about your father, Miss Godfrey. Oh, thank you for coming to talk to me about him, replies the girl eagerly and cordially. Tell me everything you know of him, Captain Hampton. You seemed this morning to rather avoid speaking of him. Her delicate hand and her almost pleading eyes indicate the camp stool beside her. The next second he was seated quite close to her, saying earnestly, only because I hesitated to mention to you a scene in his life that must greatly affect his daughter. As a matter of fact, the only time I ever really was with Jim Godfrey, for more than a passing hour, was just after that extraordinary little Indian-Mexican skirmish from which your father was the only one who escaped alive. Yes, the only one, answers the girl, her voice quivering. Tell me, you could not have been there. He was the only one who lived. Not there at the time, but mighty shortly afterwards, answers the ranger. And if you do not think it will disturb your nerves too much, I will tell you about it as well as I am able. I was only a boy of fifteen then, but there are certain scenes that get branded onto a man's memory. Early in 1836, I, in company with a small band of Texans, was sent to scout on the upper waters of the Guadalupe. There were but few of us, most of those who wore arms were getting ready on the lower San Antonio, and about Golia to meet the expected invasion of Santa Ana from Mexico. For in the previous December, we had answered all Ben Milam's cry and avenged his blood in storming Santa Antonio and sending General Coze hustling across the real grand to tell his master, Santa Ana, that he and fifteen hundred Mexican regulars had been driven out of the chief town in Texas by some three hundred frontiersmen, unaided by artillery, and only armed with rifles, pistols, and Arkansas toothpicks. Almost as soon as Coze was welched, Colonel Travis, who was in command at Santa Antonio, ordered some ten of us to patrol the sources of the Guadalupe. He feared that some Mexican column might sneak in back of us from Chihuahua. And cut us off from the main Texan force, which was all too slowly assembling at Gonzales. For a few days we scouted upon and examined the headwaters of that river, reaching the tag end of those barren planes that in New Mexico are called the Lano Esticado and come down in middle Texas almost to the real grand. Though the country is not quite as barren there as it is further up, springs a mighty few and far between. And upon the sun-dried mesa, getting enough water for man and beast is about as hard as trapping coyotes. Our work had to be done very carefully, for we were upon the borders of the Indian country, and while we were looking for Mexicans might be surprised and jumped on by Comanches. So we all kept our eyes mighty wide open. One morning, just at the border of this bad land, Jake LaTrell and I came on to our astonishment, among the pinion timber, about the base of some outlying buttes, a trail. Though the imprints were those of moccasins we knew that no Indian feet had made them because they turned outward. Tracking this for about an hour we overtook a crazy white man dressed in store clothes. He was raving with delirium from the hot sun. His tongue black as a watermelon seed from black of water. On seeing us he uttered a shriek and fled from us. Being mounted, we rapidly overtook him, seized him, poured water down his throat and gave him the best sucker possible out on the prairie. After drinking our canteens dry, he revived sufficiently to tell us that he and a party of five others had had a brush with a band of Mexican volunteer cavalry, somewhere to the south of us. By this time the balance of the command had overtaken us. Greasers to the south was passed along. We were not a custom to count noses in those days and we didn't ask how many. Taking the man with us, who was still a time so delirious we had to tie him on an extra pack mule, we started off on one of the most terrific joints I have ever ridden. Even in February the vegetation was parched upon that arid plain. Of course we had taken the precaution to fill our canteens when we left the last little creek that trickled down the escarpment to join the Guadalupe. For we guessed water would be all mighty scarce upon the mesa. As we rode on the burning sun overhead seemed to blister us. It was the hottest winter day I have ever seen in Texas and would have been a broiler even in the middle of summer. Not a breath of air was stirring over the arid table land. And mighty soon our mustangs began to suffer. But stimulated by the hope of wiping out the rancheros we traveled one whole day and part of the next. By this time we were beginning to think not of Mexican cavalry but of water to keep us alive. Already two or three of the pack mules had given up and thrown themselves down upon the baked adobe soil to die. The veteran frontiersman in command of us had a very gloomy look upon his gaunt visage as he rode along chewing some tasejo to get a little saliva in his mouth. In fact those of us who were not chewing jerked beef were chewing bullets to keep our tongues from swelling till they choked us. Just then a little breeze the first that had fanned us sprang up from the west. La Trelle, who was riding beside me, chanting to gaze over the cactus plain, suddenly cried, Golly look at them mules that we've left behind us. Boys, we're saved. But the two mules that had given up and were lying down had staggered to their feet and were loping off towards the west. New life in them. All animals have an instinct for water, but a mule can scent it farther than a buzzard can see a carcass. La Trelle knew this, and he implored our captain to follow them. I've seen him, boys, run seven hours clean off the trail and find water. For God's sake, get after him, he implored to our commander, so we tore Helter's skelter after the mules. The Mexican cavalry might be south of us, but we were so thirsty, we thought only that a spring might be within reach of us. So our horses loped and staggered along for two hours, when the mules ran plump into a spring of living water. I could no more have held my bronco from going into it than I could have held a cannonball from one of those 18 pounder guns down at Corpus Christi. As our mustangs sprang in, we jumped off them, and man and beast drank together like mad. I had scarce filled myself, and I think I took about a gallon when La Trelle clapped me on the shoulder and whispered, sharp, look. See what's about us? Just then several of our men uttered horse cries. I sprang up and saw that we had ridden into the scene of an almighty tough scrimmage, but had been so crazed for water we hadn't noticed it. Dead men lay all about that spring, some in the uniforms of the Mexican lancers, some in the buckskin of the trapper, and one dressed in store clothes, though he wore high boots and leggings. Ready, boys, engines, cried our leader. Indians, I don't see any, I half left. Out on the plain there was no cover save a gully half a mile away, full of mesquite brush and prickly cactus. Engines, sure, said La Trelle. Look, ye little greenhorn, every dead man lying around here, greaser or American, has been scalped. Like a streak, we were in the middle and reconordered that plain mighty carefully, though we kept half a dozen men about the spring, for we knew that would be the vital point in a long fight. The crowd that had water must whip. All our scouts returned in the course of an hour or two and said no Indian signs in sight, except the trail of a big Comanche war party, that had apparently traveled out to the North West probably two days before. So we went to doing the Christian Act by the dead Americans, the greasers we left to their friends, the vultures. Though we examined the ground carefully and even the mesquite chaperral, not a sign of dead Indian could we find about. The four men, there were five Americans in all, were known to some of our command as buffalo hunters. The man in store clothes was utterly unknown to any of us. He was probably some mining prospector or speculator in lands, because the only things we could find in his pockets were two or three lumps of black stuff. The boys allowed must be coal and a surveyor's chain and compass. I suppose the varmints left them. Fear and the instruments were bad medicine. Everything else had been taken from him by the Indians except one of those little golden circles that I've seen on so many dead men's breasts after a fight. The boys don't like to look at them, those who know what they mean never tell, even though old Trell turned his head away when he saw that golden sign on the dead man's body. Is it like this one, asks Miss Godfrey, producing the little circle which nearly two years before in Saratoga had perturbed the great United States Senator. Exactly, returns the Texan after he has examined it by the light coming from the open window of the cabin. Where did you get this? he asked curiously. It was one my mother brought with her from Texas. She said my father wore it when I was a little girl. Yes, many of those who have come to us from the United States have worn them, remarks Hampton. Most people in Texas don't like to talk about them, but I reckon they're a sign of some great secret society, probably only political in its ends, certainly not criminal, for some of the bravest and noblest men who have fallen in battle for Texas have borne that symbol. But to go on with my story, he continues. As we journeyed down the Guadalupe, the man we had found in the Buttes gradually got back his senses. During this, from the broken words he gave to us from time to time, I put up the combat around that rock springs. That's what they call it now, about in this peculiar and weird way. That spring of living water, twenty Mexican lancers scouting from the direction of Eagle Pass, and the Rio Grande had taken possession of. The six Texans, coming from the other way their horses worn out by heat and thirst, themselves made desperate by want of water, had attacked, for apparently the fight had been made by the twenty greasers to keep the six Americans from getting a taste of that spring. The combat had been hand to hand, desperate, bloody. Pistols against lances, rifles against escapitas, and bowie knives against machetes. Our crowd had won, butchered the rancheros to a man, though all of the Americans had been killed, except the crazy fellow we were bringing back with us. But here's the curious part of it. While this combat was going on, fifty Indians in war paint coming over the plane had looked grimly at it until greaser and white man had gone down together, and then had quietly written in and scalp the dead, made ready for their devilment. But by some trick of the frontier, or act of providence, they had missed this one man, who had flown before them and somehow escaped, and got down into the Buttes, where we had found him just in time to save his life. This I figured out from the position of the bodies and accoutrements, and a few wandering horses saddled and bridled that we found grazing near the spring. As we returned down the Guadalupe, gradually the man recovered his senses and became known to us by the papers on him. So we took him back to where he belonged, the great Hacienda of Live Oaks, below San Antonio. Here a new horror put all his brains back into him. For we found the adobe buildings had been gutted by General Coase and his greasers in his retreat, and every head of livestock, and every nigger run off, and every man upon it massacred. There was no more life at the Hacienda of Live Oaks, than there had been life at the lone spring upon the mesa one hundred and fifty miles away, except a dog. The man called Pinto, who came to him and licked his hand. For the crazy, demented fugitive we had picked up in the buttes was Jim Gottfrey, your father. I had guessed this, whispers Estrella sadly, how he must have suffered. Then she continues in anxious tone. You, you're quite sure that his mind was not permanently affected in any way? Certainly, returns the captain decidedly. Your dad's very misfortunes seem to give new life and energy to him. The moment he discovered everyone was dead about the plantation that it had been entirely destroyed, the vigor of a man who will not be crushed seemed to come into him. Even while we rangers stood about the room to Hacienda, your father, with indomitable nerve was already taking measures to build it up again. Without assistance he dug up from a place where it had been concealed in the masonry of the building, a chest containing not only his business papers, but a large quantity of money in the United States gold. For a very little while I think he had an idea of taking this money and leaving the plantation and going back to the States. But that was only for an hour or two. Even when our scouts came in and reported that the Mexicans had run off every nigger and killed every white man on the plantation, and that there was not a living thing within 40 miles of us except wild animals, your father had made up his mind to rebuild. I heard him say to La Trelle, 500,000 acres is the principality. Why shouldn't I stay and hold it? Four years from that time, chanceing to be on a scout at the Atascosa with Hays Rangers, I visited live oaks. I found it rebuilt. A lot of new niggers purchased in Louisiana were at work in the fields, more white settlers brought from the States had joined your father. Determined not to have it destroyed again, Jim Gottfrey had fortified the rancho and armed it. In proof of this today, the Hacienda of Live Oaks is the only inhabited station between San Antonio and Corpus Christi, with the exception of the cabin, of one family of life in your hand trappers who live near Aransas Bay. Your father's great trouble will be to get you to his rancho safely, but probably he has brought enough of his followers with him to make your journey comparatively secure, especially as tailors projected movements to the Rio Grande will occupy all the Mexican forces. Ah, you make me very happy, replies his listener, her eyes beaming. Every word you have uttered has proclaimed my father's devotion to me, even with his great losses and destroyed estate. He within a year afterwards sent sufficient money for my mother's and my comfort in New York, and soon after enough for even my luxury. Very well, then. Let's take the trail to livelier topics, suggests the captain. The darkies are singing some plantation melodies in the steerage. Would you like to hear them? For sounds of the banjo are floating over the soft and quiet waters. With pleasure, remarks the young lady, and under his escort strolls forward to listen to Oh, Susanna, Nelly Gray, and the Arkansas traveler, and see a big darkie roused about from Louisiana do a terrific double shuffle levy dance on the hurricane deck. You like music? She asked the captain. Well, yes, possibly, because I've heard so very little of it. You know, I never listened to an opera until I went into the academy in New Orleans. There was a soul in that melody which made my eyes water, and I'm not considered about here by the graces particularly chicken-hearted. Italian music about a troubadour. Ah, like to hear some Italian melodies tonight? From your lips? Oh, I'm not a primadonna, but I think I know some of the songs from Il Travittore. You listened to that evening in New Orleans. Ms. Godfrey steps into the cabin and gives some directions to her maid. A few moments after she and the captain are seated near the stern of the boat, Zelma brings to her mistress a guitar. Then Hampton, as he expresses it to himself, hears the band begin to play, and thinks that Ms. Godfrey's singing sweet Italian love songs in the moonlight beats in the New Orleans primadonna's all to flinter. And all events or melodies make me loony, cogitates the taxon after the young lady has gone away to her cabin, then he abruptly mutters, where in thunder have I seen her features? Lighting a cigar, he paces the dick, turning the thing over in his mind. Finally, he concludes it is so long ago he can't find a way to find a way to find it. Yet, even after he has turned in, as he lies in his birth, Ms. Godfrey's radiant features will come back to him. The face I remember was, of course, not so pretty as hers. Jumping mustangs, nothing could be as pretty as hers. He thinks half-dreamily as he tosses on the pillow. Suddenly, he gives a start, shudders slightly and mutters, snakes and gaiters, have I gone daft? By the eternal, the face that looked like hers had been scalped. End of book one, chapter four, recording by John Brandon. Book two, chapter five, of The Spy Company, a story of the Mexican war by archibald clavoring gutter. This Librivox recording is in the public domain, recording by John Brandon. Book two, Taylor's Camp at Corpus Christi. Chapter five, The March for the Rio Grande. The next morning, Ms. Godfrey wakes to find the steamer anchored in the bay of Corpus Christi. A dozen other vessels are about the city of Mobile, among them two small gun boats and a revenue cutter. To her astonishment, she sees that all have steam up. The bustle of an army getting ready for active service is on the water, as well as on the land. The orderly lines of white tents and log cabins, of 4,000 U.S. regulars, 304 batteries of artillery, the light guns placed in position, the heavy guns parked at the rear, are in full view. As Estrella steps on deck, the revelry sounding from half a dozen fife and drum cores comes faintly over the water. The flag is being hoisted on the headquarters flagstaff. The whole glorious panoply of war is in front of her. She can see the infantry companies forming in the canvas-bordered streets, though there are no signs of the usual morning drill. In contrast to the extreme order of the military encampment outside its lines, on the lower ground, nearer the shore, stands a disreputable shanty town of adobe huts, labored houses, and even dwellings made of mesquite boughs and branches, and conestogal wagons that have become houses on wheels. Its irregular streets filled with the refuse of that shifflis congregation which always clusters about an army in its winter quarters. For Taylor's forces have occupied Corpus Christi for nearly five months, ample time, to gather about his well-ordered command not only those of direct business for the government bringing him supplies, forage, and ammunition, but also the thousand varied sharks and harpies that live upon, prey upon, and plunder Uncle Sam's soldiers. Consequently, in this heterogeneous congregation of buildings are seen Mexican dance halls with painted canvas signs, American gambling houses, and bar rooms where Gardeante, Mescal, and Noya, together with Bad Whiskey that never saw Kentucky, are served in sufficient quantities to make the duties of the provost marshal very arduous after payday. Of course, mingled with the haunts of vice, are the sirens who lure the soldiers into them. The appearance of the shanty town is made somewhat picturesque by the green of the bow-manufactured huts and the varied patched covers of the conestogal wagons, some of which are occupied as homes by wandering camp followers who are ready to hitch up and follow along as soon as the army moves to the front. In the nearer foreground, right on the shore, stand a few very plain sheds of rough lumber and adobe warehouses affirmed doing business with the United States government. Between these and Estrella are the blue waters of Corpus Christi Bay, now busy with marine life. Apparently, some movement is contemplated for the anchored ships and steamers. Already Ms. Godfrey has eaten a hasty breakfast in the cabin and, attended by Zelma, stands eagerly awaiting disembarkation. Gradually her mobile features become shattered by a poignant disappointment. She had hoped that her father, eager as she for a meeting, might come off in a shoreboat to greet her. But no, Jim Godfrey climbs up the side ladder. So she stands her little foot tapping the deck impatiently until nearly all the passengers have disembarked and tries to hide her chagrin, by pretending to be interested, as the mules are swung over the ship's side and made to swim for their lives to the shore, though a tear or two will dim her eyes. About this time, Captain Hampton says quietly, at her shoulder, everything is ready for you, Ms. Godfrey. McGowan has kindly given me one of the cutters. I've got your luggage in it. With your permission, can I assist you down the side ladder? Not until I've said a word to her, cries the skipper. Turning for a moment from his ship's duties, he takes the young girl's hands in his and says cordially, my dear young lady, even if you meet your father, you had better remain on board my ship with him, until he takes you to his rancho. In addition, should your father not be in that rough and tumble shantytown there, my advice is for you to return to the city of Mobile. Then I'll take charge of you, and put you back in New Orleans and Civilization. Thank you, but I shall not come back, Captain. I'm going to see my father, even if he is not here. Even if I have to go to the ranch, she answers determinately, he may have mistaken the time for my coming. Then you have a pretty difficult task upon your hands, young lady, remarks the skipper glumly. Taking Hampton aside, he whispers a few hasty words, and Miss Godfrey catches the reply in a low, quiet voice. Leave her to me, McGowan. I'll see that she gets in her dad's arms. Somehow this gives great confidence to the young lady. She is in such good spirits as she permits herself to be assisted down the side ladder of the ship that she hardly notices that an army boat dashes up to it, and a staff officer in undress uniform hastily passes her at the gangway and goes into consultation with Captain McGowan. That the craft does not carry a Texan planter, who may be her father, is all that concerns her. Zelma has preceded her and is already seated with her mistress' hand luggage and big sunshade on one of the midship's seats of the cutter. As Hampton places himself beside Miss Godfrey in the stern, the mistress notices a curious austerity in his face as he chances to gaze at her octaroon maid. Once when he has occasion to speak to Zelma, his words are curt and the tone of his voice is severe. Wondering at this, Estrella, who has already made up her mind that the gentleman at her side has a kind heart, and furthermore that he also considers himself altogether too great a gun, to pay much attention to the doings of her servant, casts her eyes over Zelma to see if there is anything in her attendance manner or appearance that has caused the Captain's condemnation and discovers not. Upon this journey, her mistress has thought it wise in view of the young woman's attractive personality to keep Zelma, though neatly very plainly dressed. This morning her maid would be unnoticeable where it not impossible to hide the contours of a delicate yet slightly voluptuous Creole figure beneath a plain black short-skirted alpaca frock, and to destroy the effect of her lustrous languid dark eyes by having the glossy dark masses of the girl's hair braided into two big disfiguring pigtails. But even as Miss Godfrey looks, she is concerned to notice that Zelma, under Hampton's glance, droops her eyes in an almost guilty embarrassment, and her attendance manner becomes extraordinarily confused. The boat, having reached a little pile landing place, Hampton springs out and very carefully assists Miss Godfrey upon its rough planking. Zelma with the hand luggage has been passed on shore by the crew. With a sharp command to her attendant, keep close behind your mistress, girl. The Texan leads the young lady through a short street, which has been made a quagmire by the wheels of government wagons through which a band of army pack mules are tramping, splashing the black Texas mud over Estrella's neat traveling dress. Can't help roughing it a little, remarks Hampton. Reassuringly, as he keeps between the delicate girl and some rough teamsters, and escorts her very carefully through a congregation of Mexican packers, for lord by American gold, there were always plenty of noncombatant greasers in the rear of Uncle Sam's army. During this, Estrella cannot help glancing at the cavalier who is taking such very good care of her. A look of astonishment is in his face. Sharp Hampton upon the land is almost a different being to sharp Hampton upon the sea. His air, which had been rather quietly languid on shipboard, has become strikingly alert. His movement seemed quick as a wildcat's. This wonderful flexibility is easily apparent from the costume he wears, which is a mixture of that of the prairies and that of the parade ground. His legs are cased in buckskin britches, tight as if they were his own skin. His feet are in moccasins. A short buckskin hunting shirt clothes him from the waist up. Over it is the loose undress of a volunteer captain, his rank shown by a couple of neat shoulder straps. A Mexican sombrero tops his resolute face, and instead of a sword he wears for sidearms in his belt, a buckhorn-handled bowie knife, and a pair of six-shooting Colt's dragoon pistols, deadly as a rifle at a hundred yards. Though his legs are slightly bowed from constant horse exercise, his pace is so rapid that twice he has to stop and accommodate his steps to those of the pretty feet, which are striving to keep up with him. Under his guidance the party soon stands in front of a little clabbered shanty labeled by a canvas sign. Branch office, Martin Best and Co., New York. This young lady enters with a very eager look upon her face to receive astonishment and afterwards dismay. A clerk who would be dapper were his shirt not covered with whiskey stains, and his sleeves not rolled up to his elbows, looks carelessly up from some bills of lading, seeing this goddess of beauty and fashion, takes off a battered straw hat and ejaculates under his breath. Gee cracky! As she mentions her name, he bows effusively and says differentially, I am mighty sorry, Ms. Godfrey, but there's been a terrific mistake up to our Galveston office. We sent a letter there that your father had got word to us that he would be up the coast at Metagorda to meet you, not Corpus Christi. As soon as we got it we forwarded his instructions on the Paduca. Oh mercy, the Paduca broke her shaft. We passed her outside of Galveston harbor. That letter reached there after I left. What am I to do? Well, your father's at Metagorda. Can I get transportation to Metagorda? No, I'm sorry to tell you all the steamboats go back direct to Galveston, replies the clerk. Then what am I to do? I must see my father. Her escort, who has not intruded himself upon this interview, is standing outside the door, looking meditatively at a subtler's boy trying to conquer a wayward bronco. She steps out to him and hastily explaining the matter, says, consternation in her voice, Captain Hampton, I am in a fearful dilemma. What am I to do? You want very much to see your father? Oh, so much. Think I haven't looked on him ever in my life to know him. Well, the most sensible thing would be for you to stay here until you can get carried back to Galveston. Some vessel in a few days must be returning up the coast. From there send word to your father and let him visit you in that place. I don't think he can come. He's too busy. He has a large number of government contracts. He furnishes horses for the volunteer regiments they expect to raise in Texas, also the mounted rifles. Yes, I know that. Then after a moment's consideration, Hampton adds, I think your father made up his mind it would not be possible to get through to Corpus Christi with his scalp. That's the reason he didn't come here. But I must go to him. I understand your ideas on that point, believe me. You shall see him, though. I may have to make arrangements that you go by schooner to Matagorda. At all events, for the present the best place for you is on board of McGowan steamboat. Her trunks are being carried into the office of Martin, best and co by some Negro roustabouts. To them, he says, leave these here for the present. To the young lady, he suggests, let your maid carry your hand luggage and I will trot you down to the shore again and get you on board at once. Then the tears of disappointment in her beautiful eyes draw from him. Only take the word of sharp Hampton that in some way or other you shall see your father. As they pass through the clustering roustabouts and government teamsters near the shore of the bay a buzz of commotion and excitement seems to pervade the shantytown. Hampton apparently doesn't heed this. Though when he gets to the landing place a short sharp gun from one of the warships calls from him a sudden exclamation. He says, shading his eyes and looking over the waters of the bay, great thunder, look every vessel in the harbor is going out of it. Even the city of Mobile whispers this trella, dismaying her voice. My gully, if the whole flock of them ain't tooting down to pint Isabella, to wait dear, till degreaser's is licked out. Gaffa's a half-clothed negro subtler's boy who's looking at the picture with two or three equally undressed companions. What does it mean? asks the girl faintly, feeling that this nautical movement affects her destiny. As she speaks the soft notes of the bugles float through the quiet air from the distant camp. Mean? cries the young Texan. The fire of battle is making his eyes flash and bringing the blood into his cheeks. Those transports all order down the coast, those bugles from the army lines sounding boots and saddles. By the Lord it means at last Taylor is marching on the Rio Grande. My heaven, I've got to get back like blazes to San Antonio and bring the boys on quick. The bugles from the distant camp sound again and Miss Godfrey looking up dismayed notices that the veins on her escort's forehead stand out and his eyes are turned eagerly southward. Captain Hampton, I'm afraid your care of me will keep you from your military duties, says Estrella, falteringly. Leave me at the office of Martin Best and Cole. That clerk is a gentleman. He will do all he can for the daughter of Jim Godfrey, one of their most valuable customers. Leave you here, the army going from it? In this disreputable teamster, camp follower gambling hole? He glasses over the rough town. Then couldn't you get some Mexicans to escort me to my father's ranch? Greasers to keep you from Comanches? Half-jeers, half-shutters, Hampton? Don't doubt those red devils know the men of Texas are going to the front and are already trailing down over the plains to jump each unprotected ranch house. Come with me. I've got to go up to Taylor's camp anyway. There may be some wives of officers left who can take care of you for the moment. As he speaks, the Texan is striding hurriedly along the muddy street of this perluse of the army, two minutes after he is at what proudly calls itself a livery stable, and is assisting the boys to hitch a couple of mustangs into a second-hand army ambulance, buckling strap and throwing on harness himself. Upon the front seat of this vehicle, he seats Zalma, tossing in her mistress's light baggage after her. With much more care, he assists the backseat, Ms. Godfrey. Springing beside her, he says sharply to a nigger boy who has jumped in front and is handling the reins, drive lively to Taylor's headquarters, Sambo. So they dash up the muddy street, splattering the black mold upon several half-breed camp women who are out looking for victims. One or two white-shirted gamblers who are strolling towards the Marshal Music and Monty Juan, a Mexican card-sharper, who would mutter a carajo as they pass him by. Did he not recognize and remember Captain Sharpe Hampton of his rangers? As they drive up to headquarters, Marshal Music breaks out upon the sunny air. See, the advance is beginning, whispers Hampton. His eyes glinting as he points towards the parade ground, where the regiments are now drawn up, their tents already struck, have been put into the baggage wagons, which are clustering to follow them. Already the movement is in progress. Taylor and his staff are reviewing the advance column of his army that he is projecting on the Rio Grande. That streamed the approach to which the Mexican government has said means war. A squadron of Thornton's dragoons trotting with clattering sabers forms the advance guard. Immediately after rides the leader of the column. Colonel Twiggs, followed by his staff, heart-writing, dashing young officers of fine bearing, addressed in fatigue uniforms and rigged out for service, not display. Then, with slashing root step, come three regiments of infantry, their bands playing, their men cheering. After them roll the light batteries, their gallon commander, that superb artilleryman, Ringgold, riding ahead of his guns, his eyes vivid with the anticipation of battle and victory, gallon's eyes that two months hence shall close in death on the blood-stained field of Palo Alto. All through the ranks are faces radiant with hope of successful war and many with thoughts of happy return, honored with victory to their loved ones in the far north states. But this morning their eyes are turned southward, not to face about until they have borne the American colors proudly over the cordilleras and planted them victorious on the capital of Mexico. Many of them will never turn north again. Boys who have kissed their sweethearts for the last time. Husbands who shall look no more in this world upon wives' faces. Men whose mothers shall wait for them by the home fireside in vain. Yet all go cheering buoyantly along as if they were striding to feet, not battle. For five months waiting in this kennel of Corpus Christi has made Uncle Sam's war dogs very eager, now that the leash has been taken from them to spring at Mexican throats. The column disappears in the distance, the dust of their foot tracks drifts away, but the United States with the footsteps of this marching column has begun one of its greatest territorial advances. Before those battle flags are furled, Uncle Sam will absorb Texas, California, and all that great territory that now permits him to span the continent with half a dozen lines of steel, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and so on to the commerce of the Far East, a national development without which the great Yankee nation's destiny would have been inefficient, incomplete, absurd. As usual, quite a congregation of onlookers has inspected the departing troops. One of them, a smooth-tongued, timid-looking hospital clerk, remarks, Gee, when they hear the news up in the States, won't they give poor old rough-and-ready Taylor hell for this? Yes, the presidency answers a long-headed, cool government commissariat contractor, spitting some tobacco juice in the dust, with the hospital clerk guessed right, as well as the contractor. National expansion, as usual, was opposed by a certain number of the American people who cried out conquest, blood, and imperialism, and not satisfied with attacking the government at Washington, inaugurated an assault upon the army of this country from the rear, doing more damage to it than the foes in front of it. For American soldiers have usually been very successful in meeting open opponents, steel to steel and gun to gun. Though their officers have sometimes suffered woefully from cowardly assassins of their characters who have assailed them in the rear, and who even, in the halls of Congress, have cried out with a simplicity that would be ludicrous were it not horrible. Great heavens, our cruel soldiers are defending their lives and killing somebody. But the American nation, despite their puny protests, still marches ever on, as it did in 1846 in the days of Winfield Scott, Zachary Taylor, and the Mexican War. End of Book Two, Chapter Five, Recording by John Brandon The Goliad House During this, Miss Guthrie's eyes have rested much oftener upon the face of the Texan sitting next to her than upon the military panorama that has passed before her. As regiment after regiment has passed him and battery after battery of light artillery has rumbled on, she has seen a flush of shame mingled with the light of battle coming into the clean-cut Roman features beside her. She has observed that his clenched hands indicate some absorbing emotion, and that his thin lips which utter no words grow thinner in compression. A sinking dread comes into the girl's heart as she notices the berserker spirit rising in the only man to whom she can turn for protection in her extremity. For as she has ridden through the narrow byways of the settler's town, she has seen sights that make her frightened to be left alone in it. Deeply ruged Mexican pobritas sitting in the easy dishevel of the tropics in front of their houses, smoking their cigarettes and waving their fans at passers-by, low bar rooms out of which have strolled the scum of the army following gamblers, three-card motty men, and sharpers. In addition, several painted Anglo-Saxon courtesans have made her shudder. Finally, as the tramp of the departing column dies away, as the last glimmer of arms is lost in the surrounding forest, a mighty emotion seems to shake this man, and Estrella knows that he, for the moment, has forgotten her in the excitement of coming battle. For sharp Hampton half-rises in the ambulance his face red as blood with shame. The veins in his forehead swollen almost to bursting and mutters in a based voice by the god of my fathers, not one Texan in the whole dirt outfit. Then, speaking to himself, he breaks out rapidly, I must go on to San Antonio at once. The boys must be here before the first battle, or it would disgrace our state forever. Oh, don't let me detain you, says the girl proudly, though her heart is heavy. Apparently awakening from a dream, the light of battle leaves his eyes, which were tender. To her, he replies, you won't detain me from my duty. And why not? Because my duty is like that of any other soldier, to see that everything is all right in the rear before he charges to the front. With this, Hampton looks eagerly over the parade ground which is now a scene of busy activity. The general has gone back to staff business in his log cabin headquarters. Another column leaves the next morning. Preparations are now being hastily made for this. Commissary officers are busy with equipment and ordnance stores, age the camp or writing about and giving orders. But the ranger's eyes are not upon this military bustle. After a hasty glance over the heterogeneous mob, which crowd along the lines of the parade ground, he scans intently the log cabins of the officers' quarters. And seeing no ladies face except the anxious one that is beside him, he mutters, there doesn't seem to be a single officer's wife about. Then continues rapidly to miss Godfrey, you're perfectly safe here. Remains still while I go to headquarters. The general will probably have something to say to me about bringing on the Texan troops. While there, I'll see what can be done for your accommodation and your return to Galveston. As he springs out of the ambulance, his eye catches a group of their fellow passengers of the city of Mobile, and he says sharply to Selma, girl, take good care of your mistress and don't dare to leave her side. Noting his tone, Estrella asks anxiously of her attendant, Selma, what is the reason Captain Hampton is so displeased with you? Ah, I don't know, madam, stammers the young woman, though her eyes are turned from those of her mistress. You're quite certain? says Miss Godfrey. Despite herself, her voice is rather cold as she steps from the wagon and directs her maid. Please jump out, Selma, and brush some of this frightful dust from me. In the ambulance, Miss Godfrey had been scarcely noticed, but as she steps upon the parade ground, the only lady on it, her graceful figure and stylish costume produce a quick sensation, even among the older faces about Taylor's headquarters. Among the younger officers, a hundred bright eyes are placed directly upon her, and half a hundred mustachios are suddenly curled to make their effect upon beauty. With this, a dashing lieutenant in Dragoon uniform rapidly wheels his horse, gallops to her and doffing his fatigue cap, says, is it possible? Can it be? And she replies, it is, adding perhaps with a tinge of coquetry in her tone. I'm glad to see that I haven't changed so much since Saratsoga that you've forgotten me, Mr. Pelham. The young man venting over his saddle-bowl whispers, forget you, never. Then he breaks out, why in God's name have you come to this place now? Every lady by order was sent north a week ago on the Paducah, and springs off his charger to hold consultation with this beautiful derelict from civilization in the camp of an army that is now practically inactive campaign. As he walks by her side, Miss Godfrey gives the young man an epitome of the circumstances that have brought her to Corpus Christi, closing it by murmuring rather roguishly, I am very sorry you think it unfortunate. Unfortunate? At any other time I should say it was more than good luck, answers tell them enthusiastically. His eyes lingering on the beauties of the girl that he thought enchanting in Saratsoga, but which have been made overpowering by the development of the last two years. Only a week ago I could have done so much for you here, he says earnestly, but disconcertedly. My mother who had come down to see me only left on the Paducah. You wouldn't have made this mistake if you had, he looks at her earnestly, ever, ever cared to write to me. But now I don't know what I'm going to do for you. My squadron, maize dragoons, are here acting as provost guard, and in general attendants at headquarters. But even we take route tomorrow morning, when the army ceases to patrol that wretched cattle thief gambler, riff-rap, shanty town down there. I don't know what will happen in it, remarks the lieutenant, apprehension running over his face, as he looks upon the delicate waif from civilization. You say Captain Sharp Hampton of the Texas Rangers has you in his charge? He continues. From what we've heard of him, since we've been in southern Texas, I should think providence has picked out for you about the best man in these regions to see you very safe. This conference is interrupted by the return of Hampton. The handsome young dragoon strolling by the side of his charge has perhaps quickened the Texan's steps. Captain Hampton, says his trella, in answer to his inquiring glance, let me present Lieutenant Pelham of maize dragoons. The young man greet each other cordially, sharp remarking, from the reputation of your commander, Mr. Pelham, I'm inclined to think your squadrons will be heard from as soon as the campaign begins. To this, after a moment's consideration he adds, you've been located here some little time. Will you excuse a few hasty questions? I am told that the officer's wives have all been sent from this camp, which will be practically deserted tomorrow. Do you know of any proper place in which I can leave Miss Godfrey, until I can make some arrangements for her safe transportation to Matagorda? At this, the Lieutenant, after looking helpless for a moment, says, I expect the only place you can get lodging for Miss Godfrey, and that's bad enough, is in the Goliath House. He points down the narrow, dirty street, leading from the camp towards the Embarcadero. It's a godforsaken hole with a ferro bank in one corner of it every night on the lower level, but it's the only place. He is just given this information when an orderly rides up, and saluting delivers a hurried order. Receiving this, the young officer remarks, his face twitching with disappointment. I'm ordered to immediately escort a wagon of medical supplies that have been left behind and deliver them to the Chief Surgeon of Twig's Column. I'd hoped Miss Godfrey to ride down to the town with you and do my best to make you comfortable, but the order is immediate. Goodbye for the moment. As soon as I've delivered Colonel Twig's Quineine and Calamel, I'll come to the Goliath House to see you. That's where you're going to take her, Captain Hampton? Yes, replies the Texan. I suppose it's the only thing I can do now, all the officer's ladies have gone north. Then this little note from the Assistant Provost Marshall here, who is your humble servant, to him, Jones, who is proprietor of the House, I think will succeed in getting you anything that's in it, remarks the Lieutenant. He's stilly penciling a few lines in his memorandum book. He tears the page out and hands it to Hampton. Thank you. I'll deliver it, remarks the Texan, as he turns to the wagon. Good-bye, Miss Godfrey, whispers Pelham, more in his voice than in his words. I'll be back and see you this evening, certainly. He squeezes the little fingers held out for his salute, springs on his horse, and gallops away. As the Dragoon has been bidding the young lady goodbye, the Ranger's been giving some orders to their Negro driver. And the minute Estrella and her maid are seated in the carriage, he rides with them into the town. During this, he is speaking rapidly. At headquarters I received a note that had been sent me there from the city of Mobile. McGowan is very much concerned that his vessel was ordered down to point Isabella immediately so that he could not offer you the hospitality of his ship. The extra equipment for Hayes' regiment that I bought in New Orleans, he writes me, has been put hastily on shore in a lighter. Landing and storing this will probably delay me here, the balance of this day. During it I'm going to try and find a craft of some kind that will take you up to Matagorda, or you must absolutely leave here by water. What makes you think that's so very important? asks Estrella. Well, from what I picked up at Taylor's headquarters, that Mexican scoundrel, Karabajol, has had the impudence to come up here, even during his last day or two, and sound the old general as to whether he would use United States troops to support him in organizing a revolution in the northern Mexican states, replies Hampton earnestly. Of course, it didn't take long for Ol Ruffin ready to have the Mexican bandit hustled out of this camp. But if Karabajol has been here, it doesn't take two guesses to be very sure that his master, Canales, isn't very far off over that prairie. He points to the west with a band of rancheros. Now, Taylor having commenced his march, Canales will move north to harass the Texan settlements. It would be but a toss-up as to whether you had better fall into this bandit's clutches or commensary hands. Therefore, I must make arrangements for you to depart by water. While I do this, I've got to leave you with him, Jones, of the Goliad House. This note from the Lieutenant, I imagine, will fix it all right. But if Him Jones is the Him Jones I used to know in Goliad, a word from me will make you very safe with him. Him Jones won't hesitate to run a farrow bank, but he'll run it square every deal. By this time they have drawn up in front of a clabbert hotel two low stories. The canvas sign overtopping its roof bears the words Goliad House. Its ground floor is devoted to a bar and billiard room, though a flight of rough steps outside the building leads to its second story which has a balcony in front of it. Just wait in the wagon until I see the proprietor, Direct Hampton, springing out. A minute later, he comes back to her, assists her carefully from the wagon, and telling the maid to bring her mistress's belongings with her leads Miskotfree up this rickety stairway to this second story. At the door of this they are welcomed by a hawk-nosed alligator-jawed man in shirt sleeves who, in response to Hampton's remark, Jones, this is the young lady you are to take mighty good care of in my absence. Pulls his forelock and says, Captain, she'll be ace high all the time in this house. Then the girl finds herself led through a narrow and uncarpeted hallway and ushered into two back rooms, both having cot beds in them and some cheap pine furniture. They're not very scrumptuous remarks, Mr. Jones, but there ain't as much noise in them as the front domiciles. And in them, barring skeeters, you can be as lonely as if you were in the state prison. That's what I want, says the young lady. Thank you, Mr. Jones. I shall be very comfortable here. She looks out on the enlivening prospect of Mr. Jones' backyard, where a couple of razor back hogs are rubbing themselves against the poles that support the building. And two or three more are rooting in the swill that has been chucked out of the pleasant kitchen of the Goliad house by a fat negro woman who acts as its chef de cuisine. Some odor of coming meal, catching Hampton's nostrils, he glances at his watch and says, while I'm away, him, you see the young lady has dinner. Yes, sirree, prairie chicken fixence, and while turkey notions, replies him, eager to offer frontier hospitality. She'd better have it served in her room, or maid can bring it up to her, suggests the ranger. Now, Miss Godfrey, I'll see what I can do to get some kind of a boat to take you up the coast again. With this he leaves the room, catching a glance of his eye, him Jones follows him. Out of ear shot in the front of the hotel, Hampton says a few hasty words to the end keeper. What, that bang up twenty five hundred dollars slick as camp meat and piece of feminine flesh and blood? mutters him sternly. This is a pretty good place to run niggers off, and I'll keep an eye on the wench. As the Texan ranger strides down the street, the hotel keeper emits a contemplative whistle and says to himself, great alligators, who'd have thought that French china doll who wears silk stockings and high heel slippers would need a cutting up. Then even him Jones' hard features become perturbed, as he ejaculates, cracky. I wouldn't be in that octa rune's hide if her master Jim Godfrey ever knows of her gallivant. He's the tightest man with niggers this side of Louisiana, and that's saying a good deal. With this the Boniface strolls back into his house where he lives up to his word, taking up with his own hands the best kind of a frontier dinner of hot corn dodgers, broiled prairie chicken, and roast wild turkey to the young lady in the upper rooms. This Godfrey being nervous does but scan justice to the meal. Then the time being heavy on her hands, she strolls to the front of the hotel, gazes out through a few panes of glass inserted in the door that opens on the veranda, and finds herself surrounded by the semi-frontier, semi-Mexican demoralization that has gathered about an army in winter quarters. Across the street from her is the big dance hall bearing the sign Bella Union. Upon its front door is placarded Un Fandango Grande, and beneath this last big dance for Taylor's boys. Mexican orchestra and lots of hurdy-gurdy girls. Carmelita will dance. Come one, come all. Admission free. On either flank of this building are ordinary saloons. In front of one out on the muddy sidewalk sit a few of the diamond-pin gentry of her voyage. Mr. Yazoo Sam in white flannel suit and Panama hat quite conspicuous among them. His feet cocked up on a live oak tree. On the same side as Ms. Godfrey's hotel are two or three more drinking shops, a general merchandise store, and a shooting gallery from which the occasional crack of a rifle indicates some army teamsters are trying to win the pipes and cigars that are offered for prizes. According to Spanish custom, most of the ladies of the town are enjoying a siesta, and the day being hot, but few men tramp its streets, though there are plenty busy handling freight down at the Embarcadero, from which now and then an army wagon rolls past her. Its teamster cracking his whip and cursing his mules as they go through the adobe mud. The aspect of the place is depressing to the young lady. She shudders slightly. It seems as if she were in a new and uncouth world. Her dejection increases when Hampton returns and brings a shock with him. He says glumly, I have been down to the office of Martin Best and Co. and had that clerk running around all over the harbor to see if he could find transportation for you to Metagorta. There ain't so much as a skiff that could be got, let alone a sloop or a schooner, which is the smallest thing that dare go out on the open ocean. Now it's getting the season for northers. Then what am I to do? asked the girl, half of herself, half of him. What am I to do? I know your duty compels you to leave here tomorrow at the latest to bring down Hayes' regiment. I cannot ask you to sacrifice your duty as a soldier for me. Then she shudders. God help me. Alone in this terrible place. After a second she adds, Mr. Pelham would do everything in his power for me, but is compelled by his duty to leave here tomorrow. And another would do everything for you, remarks Hampton. Another, Miss Godfrey, don't forget me. Let me think over the thing. As he looks upon this girl, made even more beautiful by the anxiety in her eyes, something comes into the frontiersman's mind that tells him what he decides within the next few moments will be vital to his life. He says, slowly, let me consider this when I am away from you. Your trouble keeps me from judging just straight. Facing the little veranda, a curious look is in his cold, blue eyes. They flicker and grow dim. For the first time in his life, sharp Hampton is really frightened. With himself he communes. Best keep away from her. I know when I'm licked. A few days more under the glances of her sweet eyes and I'll go into my next fight scared that I'll die before I've won something. I've got to win before I go under. And yet it's despair anyway. A rough, hard fighting frontiersman must look like a galoot to a girl who's been brought up as finicky as she. But I couldn't look man nor woman in the face if I deserted her here, helpless and alone, even under the plea of military necessity. Then the spirit that had changed feet into victory in so many desperate contests surges up in him. He says recklessly to himself, down at Meyer, I drew a white bean by the soul of old Ben Milam. I'll see if her pretty fingers will give me a black one. Even if handsome West Point Ragoons hustle with me for her favor, he quietly steps back to the young lady. His eyes are distraught with anxiety and her hands twitching nervously. In his soul, one great question. Will she do it? The two stand facing each other, a problem in each of their minds. The bronzed features of the Texan grow slightly pale. His hands almost tremble a little. He says slowly, Miss Godfrey, I've got to get to my regiment up at San Antonio. Your father's Hacienda is in much of a ride out of my way. If you'll trust yourself with me alone on the prairies for days and nights dodging bandits and eluding Indians, I'll put you safely in your dad's arms if the thing is to be done. Trust you? I know you'll get me there, cries the girl impulsively. Thank heavens. Everything's fixed all right. In proof of this, she extends eagerly her delicate patrician hand. Then you're, you're not frightened of me, he mutters? His face glows red and her slight fingers are seized in the grip of steel, yet held most tenderly and respectfully. Estrella looks at him earnestly for a moment. The color that is in his face seems to call the blushes to her cheeks also. The eyes of the young captain of rangers have something more in them than the request of confidence. She says falteringly, no, not frightened, but, but her glances that have been full upon him seek the floor. She is frightened of something. Intangible but vivid, it makes her heart beat very fast. She hastily withdraws her fingers from the electric clasp of the bowie knife scarred hand. Now I've got a good many arrangements to make to get you off tomorrow morning, remarks the captain and turns toward the door almost as if to fly. What are you going to do? asks the girl. First I'm going to store your trunks in Martin Best and Co's with directions that they be forwarded as soon as possible to Matagorda. From there they can go up by wagon to meet you at your ranch house. To get through with me you've got to travel flying light on horseback. Oh, I can ride. I have a riding habit, cries Estrella confidently. Not one of those civilized things. Asks the ranger glumly, like the girls use on the shell road around the lake drive in New Orleans. The same if they're in the very latest fashion, answers Miss Godfrey eerily. Fashion? You won't ride fashionable. You've got to wear something that you can walk in, run in and ride boy fashion in. That Jim Crack riding habit of yours will be torn half off you in the first mesquite thicket that you're Mustang prance through. Besides part of a journey may have to be made on foot. You don't know what's ahead of you. I don't care what's ahead of me as long as it takes me to my father. I don't believe you do, answers Hampton noting the buoyant yet determined brilliancy of her eyes. So I'll get the right kind of rigging for you. Leaving her astonished, he strides off to the general merchandise store, but on the way there he pauses abruptly and communes with himself in dismayed tones. Thunder. I see the giraffe ahead of me. End of Book Two, Chapter Six, Recording by John Brandon Book Two, Chapter Seven of the Spy Company A Story of the Mexican War by Archibald Clevering Gunter This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by John Brandon Book Two, Chapter Seven, The Dancing Girl of Matamoros The embarrassment brought about by this compact is perhaps greater in the lady than the gentleman. Ms. Godfrey is blushing vividly as she calls her maid into her from the next room and hastily tells her of the arrangement, directing her to make every preparation for them to leave in the morning. So much reply to this is disheartening, she says doggedly. Then I fear you'll have to leave me here, my mistress. I cannot ride. What? And be all alone in the wilderness? With no one with us? Breaks out Estrella, growing red to the roots of her hair. You're not riding is all nonsense. My mother told me, as a pick and any, you used to straddle an old mule in Louisiana. It seems to me you want to be left behind. She looks at her maid astoundedly. This kalala qui is interrupted by the return of Hampton. In his hand are two buckskin frocks that have apparently been made for Indian or backwoods maidens. One of these, though it is of the finest fawn skin, and decked with some rather gaudy beads, brings consternation to Ms. Godfrey. The other or heavier pearl to somewhat coarser in its making. I brought these for you to wear on the journey, remarks the frontiersman briefly. Oh good heavens, they've, they've got leggings, gasps Estrella. For those with the days before modern bicycle exercise had in your young ladies to generous athletic personal display. Yes, and you'll have to wear them too. Half laughs the Texan. You'll look very well in the wild engine act, though I reckon these moccasins will be rather large for your feet. Have your girl make the duds over to fit you this afternoon. This other frock is for her. He places on the table a somewhat planer buckskin tunic. But, but Zelma says she cannot ride, rejoins Ms. Godfrey, inspecting the costume differently. She'll have to, answers the Texan, straddle fashion. It won't be so difficult. Straddle fashion? I'm to ride that way too? Stammers, Estrella. Certainly, when there isn't a lady saddle within 200 miles of us. Besides, I don't think any bronco can be broken in a few hours to carry you lopsided. I'm going to make everything as comfortable and convenient as possible for you. But there are certain things beyond me, and this is one of them. Do you stand by your platform? Will you go? Of course I will. I'll ride in any fashion to see my father. Then give your directions to your girl, directs the Texan. After that I'll take you down to Martin Best and Co., where you can rummage through your trunks and get what is absolutely indispensable in the way of clothing and feminine knick-knacks. I've even decided to risk a pack mule, though we oughtn't to take it with us. Certainly, I'll do anything you say, answers Ms. Godfrey. And she takes Zelma into the other room with her. After a few minutes' stress-making consultation, she returns to the gentleman who is impatiently pacing the veranda. I've put Zelma to work on... on the garments. She says, as Hampton leads her down to the ambulance that is in front of the Goliath house waiting for her. A short drive through streets in which Texas mud is changing into the hot Sons of Texas dust, and they're at the shipping office once more. Leaving Estrella in charge of the clerk, the captain of the Rangers, goes down to the Embarcadero to look after the unloading of the equipment for the Texas Regiment and its storage with the government quartermaster. Rejoining from this in about an hour, he is pleased to find that his pupil, in frontier travel, has exercised considerable self-denial as well as discretion in the selection of her wardrobe and has a very small bundle made up. Only one dress, she laughs. That's not very much for a lady who yesterday felt a good deal about her personal appearance. These trunks will be forwarded on the first vessel that goes up the coast, remarks the Ranger. You'll get him finally at Live Oaks by wagon train from Matagorda. We will put your immediate necessities in the ambulance and tote them up to the hotel. With her bundle in his hand, he leads the young lady out after repeating his instructions to the clerk. Apparently, he's been making some other purchases for her. The ambulance takes them to a corral on the outskirts of the place near the shore of the bay. This is occupied by a Bronco dealer. A band of some twenty or thirty Mustangs, most of them half-wild, are running about it. A clean-limbed, black, graceful-looking mare already saddled and bridled is brought up to Estrella by Enigra Boy. I selected this one for you to ride tomorrow, remarks Hampton. Now I'll teach her not to be skittish with the lady's skirts hanging over her flanks. When she's learned to stand this, she'll probably be easy enough. Tying a big, fluffing Mexican blanket about his waist, he springs on the Mustang mare, and Miss Godfrey sees an exhibition of horsemanship such as she had never seen before. Real rough and tumble article of the plains and prairies. Unfeeling the unusual accoutrement, the mare utters a shrill piercing, neighing yell and rears up as if she would fall over backwards. Her hand goes bucking all over the corral until, as if despairing of getting rid of these whisking, clinging things that's wishing about, either flanked dry for mad with fear, the frantic creature clears the high stockade with its tremendous bound and dashes madly forth, disappearing in the stunted forest that surrounds the corral. Upon this struggle between man and beast, Miss Godfrey had looked in breathless silence. Now she half screams at the horse dealer. Go after him. He's killed. He's dying in the forest there. Reckon not, remarks the man with a contemplative ejection of tobacco juice from his mouth. The cap rides like a Comanche engine. In proof of this, the black mare soon afterwards comes inside her ears down. As she lopes, demurely back, Hampton says, I reckon she'll be all right tomorrow morning. He springs off and directs the darky boy. Make a girl of yourself with that blanket-pump. Mount the filly and ride her a couple of hours more to get her accustomed to this harness. You don't think she'll do me up, Masa? says the negro doubtfully. Oh, not a bit. She wasn't vicious. She was only frightened. Otherwise I wouldn't trust you on her back, he adds to Miss Godfrey. This little Mexican saddle with its top of daros to save your feet from brambles when you go through timber will be just the thing for you. Oh, how much trouble you're taking for me, says the girl, thanking him also with her eyes. Well, as I'm in command, I've got to see everything straight, and a good horse is most important on the prairie. The speed and bottom of that mare, who I reckon is about as smart a Mustang as there is in southern Texas, may mean your life. The manner of this man of combat is quite tender as he continues. I don't want to take you out on the prairie uneducated, so I'll teach you to use a couple of little frontier trinkets I've secured for you. To the young ladies this May, he produces a pair of quite handsome but very serviceable five-shooting Colts pistols. Dragoon ones would be a little too heavy for your small hand, he suggests, and you'll be able to kill Maggie dead with these. Kill with these? I, I am to use them, Chief Alters, if necessary. Now I'll show you how. This place is all right for a little instruction. I could have taken you up to that shooting gallery in town, but the lights there are not the lights of the prairie, and I want you to learn this thing practically out in the open. With this, the captain explains the weapon to her, shows her how to load its chambers and begins a two-hour target practice that impresses Estrella, instructing her in the trick of snap shooting. During this, Miss Godfrey, chancing to make a bullseye, becomes elated and gets to laughing over it, crying, this is fun. But is rather disconcerted to be told quite sternly, this is business, and the grimace business in the world. People who talk about fun with revolvers haven't seen the awful things the weapon can do when properly handled. Look there. A rooster some twenty yards away on a neighboring fence is stretching its neck in full cockadoodle. To the crack of the rangerous pistol, the handsome bird, stricken in its triumph, falls dead with his head half carried off his body. Now we will go at it seriously again. Commands her preceptor, and keeps his pretty pupil pulling trigger till the lengthening shadows of the trees begin to show the approach of evening. Reckon you'll do for the present, he says. You've got nerve enough. Only be careful if you want to make a very sure shot to hold your breath as you touch the trigger and never pull until you see something in front of your sights. You can't kill anything by blazing away at the universe. As he assists her into the ambulance to drive back to the hotel, he remarks, just as well take these and keep them with you, and puts the pistols into her hands. Always convenient to have such things ready in this part of the world, he suggests. Handle them and get acquainted with them. Someday you may find them the best friends you have on this earth. Use them on your enemies, but keep one last shot for yourself. For I say to you, as I do to all women on this frontier, as you love yourself, don't let the Comanches take you alive. That would be my advice to my sister, or my wife, or my mother. As he speaks, the captain's face for a moment frightens his listener. She can see by the light of the setting sun his clean-cut features twitch with an agony of retrospection, and his eyes glint with the same peculiar expression that Ms. Godfrey had seen in them when he spoke to the gambler, only more cruelly deadly. Then this fades away into a look of unutterable sadness. You are thinking of something that makes you suffer. Whispers, Estrella, sympathetically. Something I mustn't let my mind dwell on, mutters the texan. With an effort he apparently puts from him some heartbreaking recollection, and goes to chatting with the young lady on her preparations for their journey of the morrow, so they ride up the main street of the town. Looking at him, she cannot help wondering what can have been the former life of this man into whose hands she is about to place herself, so absolutely, so unguardedly. She remembers he has never mentioned his family, or his previous experiences, save in the line of a ranger's duty, but gazing at his clean-cut features, and his direct, brilliantly frank eyes, and remembering that he always looks everybody very straight in the face except her. As their ambulance stops in front of the Goliad house, Ms. Godfrey places her little hand fearlessly, in his, and steps out quite confident, that she has made no mistake in trusting the Texas captain. The frontier town has sprung into greater activity with the approach of evening. The oil lamps in the bar rooms are commencing to twinkle merrily. The big canvas sign over the Bella Union is illuminated by candles stuck behind it. In front of this dance house are gathered quite a crowd of cattlemen, their pockets full of Uncle Sam's money from the sail to the government commissary of Beves, looted from Mexican rancheros on the Rio Grande, a sprinkling of gamblers, and a few troopers wearing the American uniform, subtler's boys and mule packers. In addition, are the usual Mexican offscouring of a border town, leperos, poblamos, and the like. From this concourse comes boisterous uncouth applause mixed with the sounds of guitar and mandolin, and the merry jingle of tambourine. A bright flexible girlish voice is singing with so bright archness that pretty Mexican melody, las niñas de dorango. There is a vivacious abandon and frequency in the sweet tones that attracts Estrella. She glances across the street but cannot distinguish the performer. The crowd is so close about her. Though a bright swish of brilliant color now and again under the big oil lamp in front of the Bella Union indicates there is dancing as well as singing. Further inspection is interrupted by a wild yell from the outskirts of the crowd. Hoopla, hyay-kay-ay. Hoopla, why if it ain't sharp Hampton. A long blank slashing frontiersman dressed in the buckskins and coon cap of the hunter with a dark mustache and sparkling jet eyes comes loping across the street and cries again, cap Hampton. Oh, this will make the greasers feel real good. They've been waiting for you here. Why this is luck, says a escort holding out a welcoming hand. Harry Love, wild Harry. Then in answer to Miss Gottfried's questioning face he explains, Harry Love has ridden beside me and pulled trigger with me since we first met on the Meyer expedition. Hy-kay. War, we both drew white beans together and lived on rattlesnake and cactus dressing. While we were getting out from the greasers, returns the frontiersman, who apparently is a slapdash nervous and at times seems almost a flighty man. Then he chuckles suddenly, but I don't know you're, why not? Why, you're not smoking tobacco. I reformed the habit. Oh, Captain, is that the reason you've been chewing straws all day, laughs the girl? You didn't think, smoke was pleasing to me? Oh-ho, quaffaws the Texan ranger putting his eyes on Miss Gottfried. You've got him in training, have you, Mrs. Hampton? I've heard, Cap, that you've just come down from New Orleans. But great Taylor, I didn't think you'd got anything as pretty as that. She must have been raised in Tennessee. That's the only place they hatched such gals. My sakes, if she ain't as bashful as a young lady possum. For at this astounding outburst, Estrella's face has grown rosy as the setting sun. Not, Mrs. Hampton, remarks the captain, getting very red himself. You always were half crazy, Harry, anyway. This is Miss Gottfried, Jim Gottfried's daughter, whom I'm going to take up to her father's ranch, Live Oaks, upon the Atiscosa Creek. You may have heard of the place. Heard of the place? Hoopla, hi-ee, I war raised the hour. At this astonishing statement, Estrella's eyes grow big and she half gasps. You, you were raised there? From the time our knee-high rejoins love quite earnestly, then you're the man I want, says Hampton eagerly. You will help me take this young lady there. Not if I can help it, answers Harry, his face growing gloomy. I have no notion of looking on that air ranch again, he mutters doggedly. You see, I haven't put my eyes on the place since I wore a boy of twelve. The night it were wiped out by the Comanches. Why, I thought it was Mexicans, cries Estrella. Well, it weren't. Though the Mexicans were so proud of getting the credit of that air butchering, they never denied it. But what's the difference, whether it were red devils or yellow devils? My poor old mummy and my old man were rubbed out thar, though I escaped somehow. As they were burning the place and found myself out of my head, upon a bareback Mustang way up toward Gonzales when I hit my senses, loves bright eyes have a look of haunting horror in them. But after a moment he continues more calmly. I guess I'm the only one alive from that air massacre. And so you knew my father, says Ms. Godfrey, a tender tone in her voice. Knew him? Does a pup know the bus-dog of the pack? It were only a piece of luck that old Jim Godfrey wore out prospecting and locating land when the Redskins jumped us. Or he'd gone up with his outfit also. The frontiersman looks at the young lady again and goes on. Ah, I reckon I likewise know ye if you're a little strella. Don't you remember Wild Harry? The boy as used to catch birds and cottontail rabbits and red squirrels for ye to play with. No, answers Ms. Godfrey looking at him intently and passing her white hand over her brow. Though I'm strella. No recollection, reckon you are too young. Why Lord bless ye. I wore round when your little sister will run off by the Mexicans or Indians in 1830 or thereabouts. Ye've heard of her, I calculate. Yes, I've heard of Sybil, remembers the girl in subdued voice. Then she queries eagerly, You've seen my father since his ranch was destroyed? Nary a time, since that cursed Meyer expedition where me and the cap and all of us were nearly rubbed out. I've been most of the time down on the lower Rio Grande picking up cattle and making things even with the yellow bellies. Answers love. I've got Uncle Sammy's gold in my buckskins now for a lot of steers I drove in today. Every head of them lifted from our friends the greasers. This last in the righteous tone of duty well performed. Anyway, you've got to go with me as far as Godfrey's rancho rejoins Hampton earnestly. You've got to do it Harry. It's a duty you owe to Jim Godfrey's daughter. And I'll do my duty to Jim Godfrey's daughter, not only for her pretty face, off which she can't keep your eyes, sharp Hampton, but because her dad were a mighty square man with my dad, when I were a little boy, and her mammy God bless her, or very kind to my poor old mummy. Very well, meet me here at the Goliath house this evening, whispers the captain, who sees that Estrella is quite moved at encountering one who had known her father and her mother when she was a little child. Right ye are, count on me until I'm rubbed out. Thank you, Harry, remarks Hampton quietly and knows if he has secured an erratic half-crazy man that he has also obtained a very sure shot, and a very true spirit to back him up in his journey across the prairies. This conversation held in the open street has been quite private. The music of the guitar and mandolin and the song of the girl opposite have kept observation from them. But now there seems to be a commotion, almost a struggle in the little crowd. The tambourine girl is crying. I will speak to him, Caspita, why not? If you're afraid of the Texan captain, my patron, I'm not, even if he has got his war paint on. And the dancing girl in the easy Disha bill of Mexico, made more pronounced by the costume of her profession, comes running across the street and holds out a tambourine crying in fairly good English and almost without accent. Un peso, senor, for a song and dance. A snowy Shema set drapes the upper portion of her rounded and yet lively graceful figure, which is that of a young girl. Though its scant cut and the careless manner of its fastening permit glimpses of a nymph-like bosom perfect in its development. Her waist is girdled with a bright red sash from which floats a short nagua, brilliant colors, scarce reaching to the knees, its flaying legs graceful as the fawns, and browned by the sun, for they are stockingless, which taper into little blue dancing slippers. Her face is wrapped coquettishly by the rubozo tapato, or floating scarf, with which the Mexican ladies conceal their faces. As Hampton gays this carelessly at her, she says almost droopingly, Don't you remember the dancing girl to whom two years ago in Metamorris you tossed a golden doubloon as she danced on the plaza, turned away and forgot her? Don't you remember? She is drawing away actually the rubozo. Don't you remember? She tosses off the scarf and exhibits deep brown eyes flashing in coquettish vivacity. As she puts them on Hampton, these become languishing, as if almost beseeching his recognition. My jove, Carmelita, says the Texan suddenly. Ah, you remember me, Dios mio, you remember. Carmelita is happy, and she breaks out into a laughing Spanish song, then suddenly changes it to the sweetest of all Spanish melodies. Cuando me ilamen bonita, el corazón me palpita. And curtsying gracefully before the Texan ranger holds out again her tambourine, into it Hampton with ranger prodigigality tossed us a gold piece. See, yellow, I've got the mate of it, the one you gave me at Metamorris. I took a few beatings to keep it, but I've got it still. Miss Guthrie is placing another gold piece in the tambourine, but the girl turns from her and says petulantly, no, not from you. Why not, little one? I only take money from gentlemen. I don't rob ladies. What I get is from the cattle thieves, the Monty Men and the gringo soldier boys. Like to hear their boss tune? She raises up her voice and begins to sing, Molly is the gal for me. With such enthusiasm and abandon, such winks and grimaces that a few of Uncle Sam's soldiers, who are lounging about, join in the chorus and go into an impromptu dance in high cavalry boots as the crowd throw money to her. When Estrella again would add her dossier, she declines half angrily. None from you, none from ladies, only from Caballeros, then jeers. If my patron over there sees me refuse gold, how he is cursing for Camerlita. Here, noting the expression on Miss Godfrey's face, she breaks out almost savagely. Don't you dare to pity me, senorita Hidalga. And why not, asks Estrella, looking at the slight, graceful willowy wave of the frontier before her, whose eyes have in them a kind of pathetic anguish. Why not, cramba, because I'm too proud and too tough. Besides, I don't care for the sympathy of women. The good sisters up in Chihuahua try to make me a nun, but los hombres por me. Running to Hampton, who is still in consultation with love, she cries, come to the fandango tonight, capitano mio. There you'll see me dance the habanero, and the cachuca civilized, wearing silk stockings and dressed Paris fashion. She puts her lips to his ear and whispers, come, a pleading intensity in her voice, come. She won't miss you for a little time. Before Hampton can reply, the girl is again dancing through the crowd, singing, molly is the gal for me, with even more roguish abandon than before. At its close, she throws her admirers a mocking kiss or two and cries, adios, caballeros. Don't forget Carmelita dances tonight at the Bella Union. She takes one quick glance at Miss Godfrey, who stands the exponent of civilization in light semi-tropical traveling dress, looking daintily nonchalant, despite heat and dust and snarls, diablo. Wouldn't I like to pull you off your high horse? Donna Hidalgo. Even as she jingles her tambourine and skips into the dancing hall, there are tears in the eyes of the frontier sobrette.