The Rifle Rangers Part 2

I ran up. It was very dark; but the glimmer of a distant lamp enabled me to perceive a man out in the middle of the street, defending himself against four others. He was a man of giant size, and flourished a bright weapon, which I took to be a bowie-knife, while his a.s.sailants struck at him on all sides with sticks and stilettoes. A small boy ran back and forth upon the banquette, calling for help.

Supposing it to be some street quarrel, I endeavoured to separate the parties by remonstrance. I rushed between them, holding out my cane; but a sharp cut across the knuckles, which I had received from one of the small men, together with his evident intention to follow it up, robbed me of all zest for pacific meditation; and, keeping my eye upon the one who had cut me, I drew a pistol (I could not otherwise defend myself), and fired. The man fell dead in his tracks, without a groan.

His comrades, hearing me re-c.o.c.k, took to their heels, and disappeared up a neighbouring alley.

The whole scene did not occupy the time you have spent in reading this relation of it. One minute I was plodding quietly homeward; the next, I stood in the middle of the street; beside me a stranger of gigantic proportions; at my feet a black ma.s.s of dead humanity, half doubled up in the mud as it had fallen; on the banquette, the slight, s.h.i.+vering form of a boy; while above and around were silence and darkness.

I was beginning to fancy the whole thing a dream, when the voice of the man at my side dispelled this illusion.

"Mister," said he, placing his arms akimbo, and facing me, "if ye'll tell me yur name, I ain't a-gwine to forgit it. No, Bob Linkin ain't that sorter."

"What! Bob Lincoln? Bob Lincoln of the Peaks?"

In the voice I had recognised a celebrated mountain trapper, and an old acquaintance, whom I had not met for several years.

"Why, Lord save us from Injuns! it ain't you, Cap'n Haller? May I be dog-goned if it ain't! Whooray!--whoop! I knowed it warn't no store-keeper fired that shot. Haroo! whar are yur, Jack?"

"Here I am," answered the boy, from the pavement.

"k.u.m hyur, then. Ye ain't badly skeert, air yur?"

"No," firmly responded the boy, crossing over.

"I tuk him from a scoundrelly Crow thet I overhauled on a fork of the Yellerstone. He gin me a long pedigree, that is, afore I kilt the skunk. He made out as how his people hed tuk the boy from the Kimanches, who hed brought him from somewhar down the Grande. I know'd it wur all bamboozle. The boy's white--American white. Who ever seed a yeller-hided Mexikin with them eyes and ha'r? Jack, this hyur's Cap'n Haller. If yur kin iver save his life by givin' yur own, yur must do it, de ye hear?"

"I will," said the boy resolutely.

"Come, Lincoln," I interposed, "these conditions are not necessary. You remember I was in your debt."

"Ain't worth mentioning Cap; let bygones be bygones!"

"But what brought you to New Orleans? or, more particularly, how came you into this sc.r.a.pe?"

"Wal, Cap'n, bein' as the last question is the most partickler, I'll gin yur the answer to it fust. I hed jest twelve dollars in my pouch, an' I tuk a idee inter my head thet I mout as well double it. So I stepped into a shanty whar they wur a-playin' c.r.a.ps. After bettin' a good spell, I won somewhar about a hundred dollars. Not likin' the sign I seed about, I tuk Jack and put out. Wal, jest as I was k.u.mmin' roun'

this hyur corner, four fellers--them ye seed--run out and jumped me, like so many catamounts. I tuk them for the same chaps I hed seed parley vooin' at the c.r.a.ps-table; an' tho't they wur only jokin', till one of them gin me a sockdolloger over the head, an' fired a pistol. I then drewed my bowie, an' the skrimmage begun; an' thet's all I know about it, cap'n, more'n yurself.

"Let's see if it's all up with this'n," continued the hunter, stooping.

"I'deed, yes," he drawled out; "dead as a buck. Thunder! ye've gin it him atween the eyes, plum. He _is_ one of the fellers, es my name's Bob Linkin. I kud sw'ar to them mowstaches among a million."

At this moment a patrol of night gendarmes came up; and Lincoln, and Jack, and myself were carried off to the calaboose, where we spent the remainder of the night. In the morning we were brought before the recorder; but I had taken the precaution to send for some friends, who introduced me to his wors.h.i.+p in a proper manner. As my story corroborated Lincoln's, and his mine, and "Jack's" substantiated both; and as the comrades of the dead Creole did not appear, and he himself was identified by the police as a notorious robber, the recorder dismissed the case as one of "justifiable homicide in self-defence"; and the hunter and I were permitted to go our way without further interruption.

Note. c.r.a.ps is a game of dice.

CHAPTER THREE.

A VOLUNTEER RENDEZVOUS.

"Now, Cap," said Lincoln, as we seated ourselves at the table of a cafe, "I'll answer t'other question yur put last night. I wur up on the head of Arkansaw, an' hearin' they wur raisin' volunteers down hyur, I kim down ter jine. It ain't often I trouble the settlements; but I've a mighty _puncheon_, as the Frenchmen says, to hev a crack at them yeller-bellies. I hain't forgot a mean trick they sarved me two yeern ago, up thar by Santer Fe."

"And so you have joined the volunteers?"

"That's sartin. But why ain't you a-gwine to Mexico? That 'ere's a wonder to me, cap, why you ain't. Thur's a mighty grist o' venturin', I heern; beats Injun fightin' all holler, an' yur jest the beaver I'd 'spect to find in that 'ar dam. Why don't you go?"

"So I purposed long since, and wrote on to Was.h.i.+ngton for a commission; but the government seems to have forgotten me."

"Dod rot the government! git a commission for yourself."

"How?" I asked.

"Jine us, an' be illected--thet's how."

This had crossed my mind before; but, believing myself a stranger among these volunteers, I had given up the idea. Once joined, he who failed in being elected an officer was fated to shoulder a firelock. It was neck or nothing then. Lincoln set things in a new light. They were strangers to each other, he affirmed, and my chances of being elected would therefore be as good as any man's.

"I'll tell yur what it is," said he; "yur kin turn with me ter the rendevooz, an' see for yurself; but if ye'll only jine, an' licker freely, I'll lay a pack o' beaver agin the skin of a mink that they'll illect ye captain of the company."

"Even a lieutenancy," I interposed.

"Ne'er a bit of it, cap. Go the big figger. 'Tain't more nor yur ent.i.tled to. I kin git yur a good heist among some hunters thet's thur; but thar's a buffalo drove o' them parleyvoos, an' a feller among 'em, one of these hyur creeholes, that's been a-showin' off and fencin' with a pair of skewers from mornin' till night. I'd be dog-gone glad to see the starch taken out o' that feller."

I took my resolution. In half an hour after I was standing in a large hall or armoury. It was the rendezvous of the volunteers, nearly all of whom were present; and perhaps a more variegated a.s.semblage was never grouped together. Every nationality seemed to have its representative; and for variety of language the company might have rivalled the masons of Babel.

Near the head of the room was a table, upon which lay a large parchment, covered with signatures. I added mine to the list. In the act I had staked my liberty. It was an oath.

"These are my rivals--the candidates for office," thought I, looking at a group who stood near the table. They were men of better appearance than the _hoi polloi_. Some of them already affected a half-undress uniform, and most wore forage-caps with glazed covers, and army b.u.t.tons over the ears.

"Ha! Clayley!" said I, recognising an old acquaintance. This was a young cotton-planter--a free, das.h.i.+ng spirit,--who had sacrificed a fortune at the shrines of Momus and Bacchus.

"Why, Haller, old fellow! glad to see you. How have you been? Think of going with us?"

"Yes, I have signed. Who is that man?"

"He's a Creole; his name is Dubrosc."

It was a face purely Norman, and one that would halt the wandering eye in any collection. Of oval outline, framed by a profusion of black hair, wavy and perfumed. A round black eye, spanned by brows arching and glossy. Whiskers that belonged rather to the chin, leaving bare the jawbone, expressive of firmness and resolve. Firm thin lips, handsomely moustached; when parted, displaying teeth well set and of dazzling whiteness. A face that might be called beautiful; and yet its beauty was of that negative order which we admire in the serpent and the pard.

The smile was cynical; the eye cold, yet bright; but the brightness was altogether _animal_--more the light of instinct than intellect. A face that presented in its expression a strange admixture of the lovely and the hideous--physically fair, morally dark--beautiful, yet brutal!

From some undefinable cause, I at once conceived for this man a strange feeling of dislike. It was he of whom Lincoln had spoken, and who was likely to be my rival for the captaincy. Was it this that rendered him repulsive? No. There was a cause beyond. In him I recognised one of those abandoned natures who shrink from all honest labour, and live upon the sacrificial fondness of some weak being who has been enslaved by their personal attractions. There are many such. I have met them in the _jardins_ of Paris; in the _casinos_ of London; in the cafes of Havanna, and the "quadroon" b.a.l.l.s of New Orleans--everywhere in the crowded haunts of the world. I have met them with an instinct of loathing--an instinct of antagonism.

"The fellow is likely to be our captain," whispered Clayley, noticing that I observed the man with more than ordinary attention. "By the way," continued he, "I don't half like it. I believe he's an infernal scoundrel."

"Such are my impressions. But if that be his character, how can he be elected?"

"Oh! no one here knows another; and this fellow is a splendid swordsman, like all the Creoles, you know. He has used the trick to advantage, and has created an impression. By the by, now I recollect, you are no slouch at that yourself. What are you up for?"

"Captain," I replied.