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154
Written for Burke’s Weekly.
THE YOUNG- EXPLORERS;
OR, 80Y-WFK IK TEXAS.
BY JOHN C. DUVAL,
Author of “ Jack Dobell f or, A Boy's Ad
ventures in Texas," “ The Adventures
of Big-Foot JVallace," etc
CHAPTER XVIIT.
Mr. Pitt's Yarn—lHs Race with the Indians —-
Plays a Cute Trick upon them, and Comes
out Winner —Jack Dobell Grows Sentimental
The Calf's Head "ala Comanche"—Once
More on the Road The Sab inal—Willie
Finds a Bear.
” AST winter,” said Mr. Fitt,
“I spent some time at the
house of a friend, who lived
in one of the frontier settlements on
the La Yaca. There was a tract of
land upon a small tributary of the La
Vaca, some six or seven miles from his
house, which I wanted to see ; and one
morning, after breakfast, I mounted my
horse, and started off alone to examine
it. My friend had remonstrated with
me upon my imprudence in venturing
so far out of the settlement alone ; but
1 laughed at his warnings, and told him
that all the Indians in the Comanche
nation couldn’t overtake me on ‘ Git
out,’ as I called a very fine hall breed
horse he had made me a present of,
and which I always rode on my land
and deer-hunting expeditions about the
neighborhood. My friend shook his
head ominously, and told me that if I
depended on running away from Indi
ans, even on ‘Git Out,’ I would find
myself mistaken ; for that their skill in
riding and managing a horse to advan
tage would enable them to overtake me,
although their ponies might be far infe
rior to my horse in fleetness. He said
that he had known several instances,*
since his settlement in the country, in
which men had been run down and
killed by the Indians, although they
were mounted on animals much supe
rior in every way to the Indians’ ponies.
I told him I had no doubt all he said
was true enough, but that I had made
my arrangements to examine a certain
tract of land that day, and should do
so, and put my trust in ‘ Git Out’ once
more as I had done upon many pre
vious occasions. So saying, and in
verification of the truth of the old
adage, that ‘ a willful man maun hae
his way,’ I struck my spurs into the
Hanks of ‘ Git Out,’ and rode off to
wards the prairies. The truth is, my
imprudence in venturing so far out of
the settlement alone, was the result,
not so much of my confidence in the
fleetness of ‘ Git Out,’ as of the fact,
that no Indians had been seen in that
vicinity for several months, and conse
quently I did not think it very probable
I should encounter any of them during
the day’s ride.
“Although it was mid-winter, the
morning was mild and pleasant, and as
BURKE’S WEEKLY FOR BOYS AND GIRLS.
I galloped briskly over the prairies, and
through the beautiful open groves of
timber that dotted them here and there,
I soon forgot that there ever was such
a thing as an Indian known in the
country. In about an hour I reached
the locality of the land I wished to ex
amine, and while I was busily engaged
in trying to trace out one of the lines
of the survey, with the aid of a pocket
compass I had brought along with me,
I came suddenly upon a party of fifteen
or twenty Comanches, who had been
hidden from my view by a small grove
of timber, uniii r three or
four hundred yards of^Sln.
“The moment the Indians saw me,
they gave their terrible war-whoop, and
started towards me at full speed. At
the same instant, I wheeled ‘ Git Out’
in the direction of home, and dug the
spurs into his flanks ; for I was satisfied
the sooner I left that particular locality
the better it would be for me. ‘ Git
Out’ responded beautifully to the call I
made upon him, and led off in regular
race-horse fashion. At first, I evidently
increased the distance between the In
dians and myself; but after a while I
perceived plainly, and to my horror,
that they were gradually gaining on me,
and that if I trusted solely to the racing
qualities of‘Git Out,’ I should inevit
ably be overtaken before I could reach
the settlement. The Indians seemed to
be aware of the fact themselves, that
they were closing up with me, and
evinced their exultation by the most
terrific yells, which almost made my
blood curdle in my veins.
“I had nearly despaired of making
my escape, when a plan for giving them
the ‘ dodge’ suddenly occurred to my
mind. About a mile ahead of me there
was a little stream, very appropriately
called ‘Boggy,’ ■which for several miles
above and below the crossing was im
passable to men on horseback. I thought
it possible the Indians were ignorant of
this, and I determined to make a des
perate push for Boggy, at a point seve
ral hundred yards below the crossing,
and as soon as I should be concealed
from the Indians by a narrow belt of
timber that skirted the western side of
the creek, I would turn up it, cross
over as quickly as possible, and get
back opposite to where they had lost
sight of me by the time they came up,
and thus lead them to suppose I had
crossed the creek at that place. At any
rate, this seemed to be my only chance
of escaping from the bloodhounds who
were yelling behind me. So I put the
whip and spurs unsparingly to ‘ Git
Out,’ and kept him at the top of his
speed until I reached the creek, and
then, under cover of the narrow skirt
of timber bordering it, which hid my
movements from the Indians, I turned
up to the ford, crossed it, and hurried
back down the creek until I was about
opposite the point where I first struck
it. I then started off upon my original
course through the prairie, and before
I had gone two hundred yards the In
dians made their appearance on the op
posite side of the creek.
- “As soon as they caught sight of me
again, they yelled more fiercely than
ever, and charged down the bank in a
direct line towards me, supposing, of
course, that I had crossed the creek at
that place. I halted for a moment, and
turned to see the success of my ruse.
They plunged helter skelter into the
creek, and in an instant horses and
riders were floundering helplessly in
the treacherous quicksands, which at
that place, as the frontiersmen would
say, would have ‘ bogged a blanket.’ I
did not think I was under any obliga
tion to turn back and help the gentle
men out of the mire, although I was
the cause of their getting into it; so I
wheeled ‘ Git Out,’ and started again
for home at an easy gallop, knowing
full well I should have so much the
start of the Indians by the time they
could extricate themselves and horses
from the bog, and then trail me up to
the Crossing, that it would be impossible
for them to overtake me. And so it
turned out, for I saw nothing more of
them, and in half an hour I reached
the settlement safely, but considerably
beat out with the long chase they had
given me. When my friend saw me
gallopping up on ‘Git Out,’ who was
all in a lather of foam, he suspected
what had occurred, and laughingly re
peated that old border rhyme :
“’Twas airly, in the inornin’, in the spring
time of the year,
That me and (liueral Harding went out to
kill a deer;
But the Ingines corned upon us, and gin us
sich a scare.
That we retur-ned homo agin, and did not
kill that deer.”
“ However, I was so well pleased to
get back with my scalp still safely grow
ing on the top of my head, that I did
not take my friend’s joke much to heart;
but from that time on, and as long as
I remained in the vicinity, I never
ventured off so far by myself, even
when mounted on the redoubtable ‘ Git
Out.’ ”
“ Well, boys,” said Uncle Seth, when
Mr. Pitt had finished his yarn, and
pointing to the full moon, which by this
time was almost directly over our heads,
“I think it is gitting too late for honest
folks to be out’n their beds;” and so
saying the old man picked out a soft
place near the fire, and rolling his blan
kets around him was soon sound asleep.
The rest (except myself, who was on
guard) soon followed suit, and in a lit
tle while not a sound was audible save
the incessant “champ, champ” of the
horses, as they cropped the luxuriant
grass, and the snoring of Uncle Seth
and Cudjo, who were carrying on a sort
of nasal duet.
I am afraid there is but little romance
or sentiment in my “making up,” and
yet when alone at night, upon the bound
less prairies, or within the depths of
some pathless forest, I have experienced
something very nearly akin to sentiment,
as I have watched the stars slowly mov
ing along their distant orbits, and lis
tened to the strange and melancholy
sounds wafted to my ears from the far
off wilderness by the passing breeze —
itself the most weird-like of all, as it
“soughs” through the withered grass,
or the tops of overhanging trees. It
seems to me, too, that at such times
one realizes more vividly the fact of
existence than we do in cities or the
crowded haunts of civilization, for the
reason, I suppose, that one’s identity
there is, as it were, lost in the multi
plicity of numbers; but alone in the
forest or upon the wide prairies, wrn feel
somehow as if we were an appreciable
portion of the mighty universe around
us.
In a couple of hours Lawrence came
out and relieved me, and returning to
the camp, I rolled my blankets around
me, and stretching myself upon the
sward, I slept like a log, till
Cudjo roused me up the next morning
for breakfast.
Everybody was up and stirring about.
Uncle Seth was busy preparing the
yearling’s head for breakfast, which he
had unearthed, and which he said was
done to a turn. After divesting it care
fully of the skin, he scraped off all the
fat and fleshy parts into a tin pan, and
then breaking the skull with a hatchet,
he scooped out the brains with his
butcher knife, and mixed them up
thoroughly with the meat. Then he
salted and peppered it to his taste, and
warmed up the whole mess in a large
frying pan with a little bacon gravy.
“Now, boys,” said he, when it was
done, and he had helped all our platters
to a liberal portion, “jest tackle that,
will you; and then, when you hear
folks talkin’ about chicken fixins, bull
frog’s legs, or strawberries and cream,
you kin tell ’em they'll never know
what good eatiu’ is until they tries a
calf’s head sexed up in this way.”
Upon trial, we found it indeed to be
a most appetizing dish, and were all
enthusiastic in its praise. Cudjo, after
devouring about three pounds, gave it
as his deliberate opinion, that “ Mass
Seth’s ‘fixing’ were better’ll possum
fat and sweet mertaters; ” and after
such a compliment, of course nothing
further could be said.
As soon as breakfast was over, we
packed up our goods and chattels, sad
dled our horses, and set out once more
on our course over the “pathless prai
ries.” Nothing unusual occurred on the
route, and about an hour before sun
down we came to the Sabinal Creek,
several miles below where it bursts
through the rugged hills that hem in
the Canon de Uvalde. We had steered,
as we thought, for the “pass” direct,
and intended pitching our camp that
night within the Canon ; but we had
mistaken in some way our precise
course, and, as I have said, fell several
miles below it, and as night was so near