text:
In The Hands Of His Friends

There was a painting at the World's Fair at Chicago named "The Reply," in which the lines of two contending armies were distinctly outlined. One of these armies had demanded the surrender of the other. The reply was being written by a little fellow, surrounded by grim veterans of war. He was not even a soldier. But in this little fellow's countenance shone a supreme contempt for the enemy's demand. His patriotism beamed out as plainly as did that of the officer dictating to him. Physically he was debarred from being a soldier; still there was a place where he could be useful.

So with Little Jack Martin. He was a cripple and could not ride, but he could cook. If the way to rule men is through the stomach, Jack was a general who never knew defeat. The "J+H" camp, where he presided over the kitchen, was noted for good living. Jack's domestic tastes followed him wherever he went, so that he surrounded himself at this camp with chickens, and a few cows for milk. During the spring months, when the boys were away on the various round-ups, he planted and raised a fine garden. Men returning from a hard month's work would brace themselves against fried chicken, eggs, milk, and fresh vegetables. After drinking alkali water for a month and living out of tin cans, who wouldn't love Jack? In addition to his garden, he always raised a fine patch of watermelons. This camp was an oasis in the desert. Every man was Jack's friend, and an enemy was an unknown personage. The peculiarity about him, aside from his deformity, was his ability to act so much better than he could talk. In fact he could barely express his simplest wants in words.

Cripples are usually cross, irritable, and unpleasant companions. Jack was the reverse. His best qualities shone their brightest when there were a dozen men around to cook for. When they ate heartily he felt he was useful. If a boy was sick, Jack could make a broth, or fix a cup of beef tea like a mother or sister. When he went out with the wagon during beef-shipping season, a pot of coffee simmered over the fire all night for the boys on night herd. Men going or returning on guard liked to eat. The bread and meat left over from the meals of the day were always left convenient for the boys. It was the many little things that he thought of which made him such a general favorite with every one.

Little Jack was middle-aged when the proclamation of the President opening the original Oklahoma was issued. This land was to be thrown open in April. It was not a cow-country then, though it had been once. There was a warning in this that the Strip would be next. The dominion of the cowman was giving way to the homesteader. One day Jack found opportunity to take Miller, our foreman, into his confidence. They had been together five or six years. Jack had coveted a spot in the section which was to be thrown open, and he asked the foreman to help him get it. He had been all over the country when it was part of the range, and had picked out a spot on Big Turkey Creek, ten miles south of the Strip line. It gradually passed from one to another of us what Jack wanted. At first we felt blue about it, but Miller, who could see farther than the rest of us, dispelled the gloom by announcing at dinner, "Jack is going to take a claim if this outfit has a horse in it and a man to ride him. It is only a question of a year or two at the farthest until the rest of us will be guiding a white mule between two corn rows, and glad of the chance. If Jack goes now, he will have just that many years the start of the rest of us."

We nerved ourselves and tried to appear jolly after this talk of the foreman. We entered into quite a discussion as to which horse would be the best to make the ride with. The ranch had several specially good saddle animals. In chasing gray wolves in the winter those qualities of endurance which long races developed in hunting these enemies of cattle, pointed out a certain coyote-colored horse, whose color marks and "Dead Tree" brand indicated that he was of Spanish extraction. Intelligently ridden with a light rider he was First Choice on which to make this run. That was finally agreed to by all. There was no trouble selecting the rider for this horse with the zebra marks. The lightest weight was Billy Edwards. This qualification gave him the preference over us all.

Jack described the spot he desired to claim by an old branding-pen which had been built there when it had been part of the range. Billy had ironed up many a calf in those same pens himself. "Well, Jack," said Billy, "if this outfit don't put you on the best quarter section around that old corral, you'll know that they have throwed off on you."

It was two weeks before the opening day. The coyote horse was given special care from this time forward. He feasted on corn, while others had to be content with grass. In spite of all the bravado that was being thrown into these preparations, there was noticeable a deep undercurrent of regret. Jack was going from us. Every one wanted him to go, still these dissolving ties moved the simple men to acts of boyish kindness. Each tried to outdo the others, in the matter of a parting present to Jack. He could have robbed us then. It was as bad as a funeral. Once before we felt similarly when one of the boys died at camp. It was like an only sister leaving the family circle.

Miller seemed to enjoy the discomfiture of the rest of us. This creedless old Christian had fine strata in his make-up. He and Jack planned continually for the future. In fact they didn't live in the present like the rest of us. Two days before the opening, we loaded up a wagon with Jack's effects. Every man but the newly installed cook went along. It was too early in the spring for work to commence. We all dubbed Jack a boomer from this time forward. The horse so much depended on was led behind the wagon.

On the border we found a motley crowd of people. Soldiers had gathered them into camps along the line to prevent "sooners" from entering before the appointed time. We stopped in a camp directly north of the claim our little boomer wanted. One thing was certain, it would take a better horse than ours to win the claim away from us. No sooner could take it. That and other things were what all of us were going along for.

The next day when the word was given that made the land public domain, Billy was in line on the coyote. He held his place to the front with the best of them. After the first few miles, the others followed the valley of Turkey Creek, but he maintained his course like wild fowl, skirting the timber which covered the first range of hills back from the creek. Jack followed with the wagon, while the rest of us rode leisurely, after the first mile or so. When we saw Edwards bear straight ahead from the others, we argued that a sooner only could beat us for the claim. If he tried to out-hold us, it would be six to one, as we noticed the leaders closely when we slacked up. By not following the valley, Billy would cut off two miles. Any man who could ride twelve miles to the coyote's ten with Billy Edwards in the saddle was welcome to the earth. That was the way we felt. We rode together, expecting to make the claim three quarters of an hour behind our man. When near enough to sight it, we could see Billy and another horseman apparently protesting with one another. A loud yell from one of us attracted our man's attention. He mounted his horse and rode out and met us. "Well, fellows, it's the expected that's happened this time," said he. "Yes, there's a sooner on it, and he puts up a fine bluff of having ridden from the line; but he's a liar by the watch, for there isn't a wet hair on his horse, while the sweat was dripping from the fetlocks of this one."

"If you are satisfied that he is a sooner," said Miller, "he has to go."

"Well, he is a lying sooner," said Edwards.

We reined in our horses and held a short parley. After a brief discussion of the situation, Miller said to us: "You boys go down to him,—don't hurt him or get hurt, but make out that you're going to hang him. Put plenty of reality into it, and I'll come in in time to save him and give him a chance to run for his life."

We all rode down towards him, Miller bearing off towards the right of the old corral,—rode out over the claim noticing the rich soil thrown up by the mole-hills. When we came up to our sooner, all of us dismounted. Edwards confronted him and said, "Do you contest my right to this claim?"

"I certainly do," was the reply.

"Well, you won't do so long," said Edwards. Quick as a flash Mouse prodded the cold steel muzzle of a six-shooter against his ear. As the sooner turned his head and looked into Mouse's stern countenance, one of the boys relieved him of an ugly gun and knife that dangled from his belt. "Get on your horse," said Mouse, emphasizing his demand with an oath, while the muzzle of a forty-five in his ear made the order undebatable. Edwards took the horse by the bits and started for a large black-jack tree which stood near by. Reaching it, Edwards said, "Better use Coon's rope; it's manilla and stronger. Can any of you boys tie a hangman's knot?" he inquired when the rope was handed him.

"Yes, let me," responded several.

"Which limb will be best?" inquired Mouse.

"Take this horse by the bits," said Edwards to one of the boys, "till I look." He coiled the rope sailor fashion, and made an ineffectual attempt to throw it over a large limb which hung out like a yard-arm, but the small branches intervening defeated his throw. While he was coiling the rope to make a second throw, some one said, "Mebby so he'd like to pray."

"What! him pray?" said Edwards. "Any prayer that he might offer couldn't get a hearing amongst men, let alone above, where liars are forbidden."

"Try that other limb," said Coon to Edwards; "there's not so much brush in the way; we want to get this job done sometime to-day." As Edwards made a successful throw, he said, "Bring that horse directly underneath." At this moment Miller dashed up and demanded, "What in hell are you trying to do?"

"This sheep-thief of a sooner contests my right to this claim," snapped Edwards, "and he has played his last cards on this earth. Lead that horse under here."

"Just one moment," said Miller. "I think I know this man—think he worked for me once in New Mexico." The sooner looked at Miller appealingly, his face blanched to whiteness. Miller took the bridle reins out of the hands of the boy who was holding the horse, and whispering something to the sooner said to us, "Are you all ready?"

"Just waiting on you," said Edwards. The sooner gathered up the reins. Miller turned the horse halfway round as though he was going to lead him under the tree, gave him a slap in the flank with his hand, and the sooner, throwing the rowels of his spurs into the horse, shot out from us like a startled deer. We called to him to halt, as half a dozen six-shooters encouraged him to go by opening a fusillade on the fleeing horseman, who only hit the high places while going. Nor did we let up fogging him until we emptied our guns and he entered the timber. There was plenty of zeal in this latter part, as the lead must have zipped and cried near enough to give it reality. Our object was to shoot as near as possible without hitting.

Other horsemen put in an appearance as we were unsaddling and preparing to camp, for we had come to stay a week if necessary. In about an hour Jack joined us, speechless as usual, his face wreathed in smiles. The first step toward a home he could call his own had been taken. We told him about the trouble we had had with the sooner, a story which he seemed to question, until Miller confirmed it. We put up a tent among the black-jacks, as the nights were cool, and were soon at peace with all the world.

At supper that evening Edwards said: "When the old settlers hold their reunions in the next generation, they'll say, 'Thirty years ago Uncle Jack Martin settled over there on Big Turkey,' and point him out to their children as one of the pioneer fathers."

No one found trouble in getting to sleep that night, and the next day arts long forgotten by most of us were revived. Some plowed up the old branding-pen for a garden. Others cut logs for a cabin. Every one did two ordinary days' work. The getting of the logs together was the hardest. We sawed and chopped and hewed for dear life. The first few days Jack and one of the boys planted a fine big garden. On the fourth day we gave up the tent, as the smoke curled upward from our own chimney, in the way that it does in well-told stories. The last night we spent with Jack was one long to be remembered. A bright fire snapped and crackled in the ample fireplace. Every one told stories. Several of the boys could sing "The Lone Star Cow-trail," while "Sam Bass" and "Bonnie Black Bess" were given with a vim.

The next morning we were to leave for camp. One of the boys who would work for us that summer, but whose name was not on the pay-roll until the round-up, stayed with Jack. We all went home feeling fine, and leaving Jack happy as a bird in his new possession. As we were saddling up to leave, Miller said to Jack, "Now if you're any good, you'll delude some girl to keep house for you 'twixt now and fall. Remember what the Holy Book says about it being hard luck for man to be alone. You notice all your boomer neighbors have wives. That's a hint to you to do likewise."

We were on the point of mounting, when the coyote horse began to act up in great shape. Some one said to Edwards, "Loosen your cinches!" "Oh, it's nothing but the corn he's been eating and a few days' rest," said Miller. "He's just running a little bluff on Billy." As Edwards went to put his foot in the stirrup a second time, the coyote reared like a circus horse. "Now look here, colty," said Billy, speaking to the horse, "my daddy rode with Old John Morgan, the Confederate cavalry raider, and he'd be ashamed of any boy he ever raised that couldn't ride a bad horse like you. You're plum foolish to act this way. Do you think I'll walk and lead you home?" He led him out a few rods from the others and mounted him without any trouble. "He just wants to show Jack how it affects a cow-horse to graze a few days on a boomer's claim,—that's all," said Edwards, when he joined us.

"Now, Jack," said Miller, as a final parting, "if you want a cow, I'll send one down, or if you need anything, let us know and we'll come a-running. It's a bad example you've set us to go booming this way, but we want to make a howling success out of you, so we can visit you next winter. And mind what I told you about getting married," he called back as he rode away.

We reached camp by late noon. Miller kept up his talk about what a fine move Jack had made; said that we must get him a stray beef for his next winter's meat; kept figuring constantly what else he could do for Jack. "You come around in a few years and you'll find him as cosy as a coon, and better off than any of us," said Miller, when we were talking about his farming. "I've slept under wet blankets with him, and watched him kindle a fire in the snow, too often not to know what he's made of. There's good stuff in that little rascal."

About the ranch it seemed lonesome without Jack. It was like coming home from school when we were kids and finding mother gone to the neighbor's. We always liked to find her at home. We busied ourselves repairing fences, putting in flood-gates on the river, doing anything to keep away from camp. Miller himself went back to see Jack within ten days, remaining a week. None of us stayed at the home ranch any more than we could help. We visited other camps on hatched excuses, until the home round-ups began. When any one else asked us about Jack, we would blow about what a fine claim he had, and what a boost we had given him. When we buckled down to the summer's work the gloom gradually left us. There were men to be sent on the eastern, western, and middle divisions of the general round-up of the Strip. Two men were sent south into the Cheyenne country to catch anything that had winter-drifted. Our range lay in the middle division. Miller and one man looked after it on the general round-up.

It was a busy year with us. Our range was full stocked, and by early fall was rich with fat cattle. We lived with the wagon after the shipping season commenced. Then we missed Jack, although the new cook did the best he knew how. Train after train went out of our pasture, yet the cattle were never missed. We never went to camp now; only the wagon went in after supplies, though we often came within sight of the stabling and corrals in our work.

One day, late in the season, we were getting out a train load of "Barb Wire" cattle, when who should come toddling along on a plow nag but Jack himself. Busy as we were, he held quite a levee, though he didn't give down much news, nor have anything to say about himself or the crops. That night at camp, while the rest of us were arranging the guards for the night, Miller and Jack prowled off in an opposite direction from the beef herd, possibly half a mile, and afoot, too. We could all see that something was working. Some trouble was bothering Jack, and he had come to a friend in need, so we thought. They did not come back to camp until the moon was up and the second guard had gone out to relieve the first. When they came back not a word was spoken. They unrolled Miller's bed and slept together.

The next morning as Jack was leaving us to return to his claim, we overheard him say to Miller, "I'll write you." As he faded from our sight, Miller smiled to himself, as though he was tickled about something. Finally Billy Edwards brought things to a head by asking bluntly, "What's up with Jack? We want to know."

"Oh, it's too good," said Miller. "If that little game-legged rooster hasn't gone and deluded some girl back in the State into marrying him, I'm a horse-thief. You fellows are all in the play, too. Came here special to see when we could best get away. Wants every one of us to come. He's built another end to his house, double log style, floored both rooms and the middle. Says he will have two fiddlers, and promises us the hog killingest time of our lives. I've accepted the invitation on behalf of the 'J+H's' without consulting any one."

"But supposing we are busy when it takes place," said Mouse, "then what?"

"But we won't be," answered Miller. "It isn't every day that we have a chance at a wedding in our little family, and when we get the word, this outfit quits then and there. Ordinary callings in life, like cattle matters, must go to the rear until important things are attended to. Every man is expected to don his best togs, and dance to the centre on the word. If it takes a week to turn the trick properly, good enough. Jack and his bride must have a blow-out right. This outfit must do themselves proud. It will be our night to howl, and every man will be a wooly wolf."

We loaded the beeves out the next day, going back after two trains of "Turkey Track" cattle. While we were getting these out, Miller cut out two strays and a cow or two, and sent them to the horse pasture at the home camp. It was getting late in the fall, and we figured that a few more shipments would end it. Miller told the owners to load out what they wanted while the weather was fit, as our saddle horses were getting worn out fast. As we were loading out the last shipment of mixed cattle of our own, the letter came to Miller. Jack would return with his bride on a date only two days off, and the festivities were set for one day later. We pulled into headquarters that night, the first time in six weeks, and turned everything loose. The next morning we overhauled our Sunday bests, and worried around trying to pick out something for a wedding present.

Miller gave the happy pair a little "Flower Pot" cow, which he had rustled in the Cheyenne country on the round-up a few years before. Edwards presented him with a log chain that a bone-picker had lost in our pasture. Mouse gave Jack a four-tined fork which the hay outfit had forgotten when they left. Coon Floyd's compliments went with five cow-bells, which we always thought he rustled from a boomer's wagon that broke down over on the Reno trail. It bothered some of us to rustle something for a present, for you know we couldn't buy anything. We managed to get some deer's antlers, a gray wolf's skin for the bride's tootsies, and several colored sheepskins, which we had bought from a Mexican horse herd going up the trail that spring. We killed a nice fat little beef, the evening before we started, hanging it out over night to harden. None of the boys knew the brand; in fact, it's bad taste to remember the brand on anything you've beefed. No one troubles himself to notice it carefully. That night a messenger brought a letter to Miller, ordering him to ship out the remnant of "Diamond Tail" cattle as soon as possible. They belonged to a northwest Texas outfit, and we were maturing them. The messenger stayed all night, and in the morning asked, "Shall I order cars for you?"

"No, I have a few other things to attend to first," answered Miller.

We took the wagon with us to carry our bedding and the other plunder, driving along with us a cow and a calf of Jack's, the little "Flower Pot" cow, and a beef. Our outfit reached Jack's house by the middle of the afternoon. The first thing was to be introduced to the bride. Jack did the honors himself, presenting each one of us, and seemed just as proud as a little boy with new boots. Then we were given introductions to several good-looking neighbor girls. We began to feel our own inferiority.

While we were hanging up the quarters of beef on some pegs on the north side of the cabin, Edwards said, whispering, "Jack must have pictured this claim mighty hifalutin to that gal, for she's a way up good-looker. Another thing, watch me build to the one inside with the black eyes. I claimed her first, remember. As soon as we get this beef hung up I'm going in and sidle up to her."

"We won't differ with you on that point," remarked Mouse, "but if she takes any special shine to a runt like you, when there's boys like the rest of us standing around, all I've got to say is, her tastes must be a heap sight sorry and depraved. I expect to dance with the bride—in the head set—a whirl or two myself."

"If I'd only thought," chimed in Coon, "I'd sent up to the State and got me a white shirt and a standing collar and a red necktie. You galoots out-hold me on togs. But where I was raised, back down in Palo Pinto County, Texas, I was some punkins as a ladies' man myself—you hear me."

"Oh, you look all right," said Edwards. "You would look all right with only a cotton string around your neck."

After tending to our horses, we all went into the house. There sat Miller talking to the bride just as if he had known her always, with Jack standing with his back to the fire, grinning like a cat eating paste. The neighbor girls fell to getting supper, and our cook turned to and helped. We managed to get fairly well acquainted with the company by the time the meal was over. The fiddlers came early, in fact, dined with us. Jack said if there were enough girls, we could run three sets, and he thought there would be, as he had asked every one both sides of the creek for five miles. The beds were taken down and stowed away, as there would be no use for them that night.

The company came early. Most of the young fellows brought their best girls seated behind them on saddle horses. This manner gave the girl a chance to show her trustful, clinging nature. A horse that would carry double was a prize animal. In settling up a new country, primitive methods crop out as a matter of necessity.

Ben Thorn, an old-timer in the Strip, called off. While the company was gathering, the fiddlers began to tune up, which sent a thrill through us. When Ben gave the word, "Secure your pardners for the first quadrille," Miller led out the bride to the first position in the best room, Jack's short leg barring him as a participant. This was the signal for the rest of us, and we fell in promptly. The fiddles struck up "Hounds in the Woods," the prompter's voice rang out "Honors to your pardner," and the dance was on.

Edwards close-herded the black-eyed girl till supper time. Not a one of us got a dance with her even. Mouse admitted next day, as we rode home, that he squeezed her hand several times in the grand right and left, just to show her that she had other admirers, that she needn't throw herself away on any one fellow, but it was no go. After supper Billy corralled her in a corner, she seeming willing, and stuck to her until her brother took her home nigh daylight.

Jack got us boys pardners for every dance. He proved himself clean strain that night, the whitest little Injun on the reservation. We knocked off dancing about midnight and had supper,—good coffee with no end of way-up fine chuck. We ate as we danced, heartily. Supper over, the dance went on full blast. About two o'clock in the morning, the wire edge was well worn off the revelers, and they showed signs of weariness. Miller, noticing it, ordered the Indian war-dance as given by the Cheyennes. That aroused every one and filled the sets instantly. The fiddlers caught the inspiration and struck into "Sift the Meal and save the Bran." In every grand right and left, we ki-yied as we had witnessed Lo in the dance on festive occasions. At the end of every change, we gave a war-whoop, some of the girls joining in, that would have put to shame any son of the Cheyennes.

It was daybreak when the dance ended and the guests departed. Though we had brought our blankets with us, no one thought of sleeping. Our cook and one of the girls got breakfast. The bride offered to help, but we wouldn't let her turn her hand. At breakfast we discussed the incidents of the night previous, and we all felt that we had done the occasion justice.

title: In The Hands Of His Friends


text:
The Passing of Peg-Leg

In the early part of September, '91, the eastern overland express on the Denver and Rio Grande was held up and robbed at Texas Creek. The place is little more than a watering-station on that line, but it was an inviting place for hold-ups.

Surrounded by the fastnesses of the front range of the Rockies, Peg-Leg Eldridge and his band selected this lonely station as best fitted for the transaction in hand. To the southwest lay the Sangre de Cristo range, in which the band had rendezvoused and planned this robbery. Farther to the southwest arose the snow-capped peaks of the Continental Divide, in whose silent solitude an army might have taken refuge and hidden.

It was an inviting country to the robber. These mountains offered retreats that had never known the tread of human footsteps. Emboldened by the thought that pursuit would be almost a matter of impossibility, they laid their plans and executed them without a single hitch.

About ten o'clock at night, as the train slowed up as usual to take water, the engineer and fireman were covered by two of the robbers. The other two—there were only four—cut the express car from the train, and the engineer and fireman were ordered to decamp. The robbers ran the engine and express car out nearly two miles, where, by the aid of dynamite, they made short work of a through safe that the messenger could not open. The express company concealed the amount of money lost to the robbers, but smelters, who were aware of certain retorts in transit by this train, were not so silent. These smelter products were in gold retorts of such a size that they could be made away with as easily as though they had reached the mint and been coined.

There was scarcely any excitement among the passengers, so quickly was it over. While the robbery was in progress the wires from this station were flashing the news to headquarters. At a division of the railroad one hundred and fifty-six miles distant from the scene of the robbery, lived United States Marshal Bob Banks, whose success in pursuing criminals was not bounded by the State in which he lived. His reputation was in a large measure due to the successful use of bloodhounds. This officer's calling compelled him to be both plainsman and mountaineer. He had the well-deserved reputation of being as unrelenting in the pursuit of criminals as death is in marking its victims.

Within half an hour after the robbery was reported at headquarters, an engine had coupled to a caboose at the division where the marshal lived. He was equally hasty. To gather his arms and get his dogs aboard the caboose required but a few moments' time.

Everything ready, they pulled out with a clear track to their destination. Heavy traffic in coal had almost ruined the road-bed, but engine and caboose flew over it regardless of its condition. Halfway to their destination the marshal was joined by several officials, both railway and express. From there the train turned westward, up the valley of the Arkansas. Here was a track and an occasion that gave the most daring engineer license to throw the throttle wide open.

The climax of this night's run was through the Grand Cañon of the Arkansas. Into this gash in the earth's surface plunged the engineer, as though it were an easy stretch of down-grade prairie. As the engine rounded turns, the headlight threw its rays up serried columns of granite half a mile high,—columns that rear their height in grotesque form and Gothic arch, polished by the waters of ages.

As the officials agreed, after a full discussion with the marshal of every phase and possibility of capture, the hope of this night's work and the punishment of the robbers rested almost entirely on three dogs lying on the floor, and, as the rocking of the car disturbed them, growling in their dreams. In their helplessness to cope with this outrage, they turned to these dumb animals as a welcome ally. Under the guidance of their master they were an aid whose value he well understood. Their sense of smell was more reliable than the sense of seeing in man. You can believe the dog when you doubt your own eyes. His opinion is unquestionably correct.

As the train left the cañon it was but a short run to the scene of the depredation. During the night the few people who resided at this station were kept busy getting together saddle-horses for the officer's posse. This was not easily done, as there were few horses at the station, while the horses of near-by ranches were turned loose in the open range for the night. However, upon the arrival of the train, Banks and the express people found mounts awaiting them to carry them to the place of the hold-up.

After the robbers had finished their work during the fore part of the night, the train crew went out and brought back to the station the engine and express car. The engine was unhurt, but the express car was badly shattered, and the through safe was ruined by the successive charges of dynamite that were used to force it to yield up its treasure. The local safe was unharmed, the messenger having opened it in order to save it from the fate of its larger and stronger brother. The train proceeded on its way, with the loss of a few hours' time and the treasure of its express.

Day was breaking in the east as the posse reached the scene. The marshal lost no time circling about until the trail leaving was taken up. Even the temporary camp of the robbers was found in close proximity to the chosen spot. The experienced eye of this officer soon determined the number of men, though they led several horses. It was a cool, daring act of Peg-Leg and three men. Afterward, when his past history was learned, his leadership in this raid was established.

Peg-Leg Eldridge was a product of that unfortunate era succeeding the civil war. During that strife the herds of the southwest were neglected to such an extent that thousands of cattle grew to maturity without ear-mark or brand to identify their owner. A good mount of horses, a rope and a running-iron in the hands of a capable man, were better than capital. The good old days when an active young man could brand annually fifteen calves—all better than yearlings—to every cow he owned, are looked back to to this day, from cattle king to the humblest of the craft, in pleasant reminiscence, though they will come no more. Eldridge was of that time, and when conditions changed, he failed to change with them. This was the reason that, under the changed condition of affairs, he frequently got his brand on some other man's calf. This resulted in his losing a leg from a gunshot at the hands of a man he had thus outraged. Worse, it branded him for all time as a cattle thief, with every man's hand against him. Thus the steps that led up to this September night were easy, natural, and gradual. This child of circumstances, a born plainsman like the Indian, read in plain, forest, and mountain, things which were not visible to other eyes. The stars were his compass by night, the heat waves of the plain warned him of the tempting mirage, while the cloud on the mountain's peak or the wind in the pines which sheltered him alike spoke to him and he understood.

The robbers' trail was followed but a few miles, when their course was well established. They were heading into the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. Several hours were lost here by the pursuing party, as they were compelled to await the arrival of a number of pack horses; so when the trail was taken up in earnest they were at least twelve hours behind the robbers.

In the ascent of the foot-hills the dogs led the posse, six in number, a merry chase. As they gradually rose to higher altitudes the trail of the robbers was more compact and easy to follow, except for the roughness of the mountain slope. Frequently the trail was but a single narrow path. Old game trails, where the elk and deer, drifting in the advance of winter, crossed the range, had been followed by the robbers. These game trails were certain to lead to the passes in the range. Thus, by the instinct given to the deer and elk against the winter's storm, the humblest of His creatures had blazed for these train robbers an unerring pathway to the mountain's pass.

Along these paths the trail was so distinct that the dogs were an unnecessary adjunct to the pursuing party. These hounds, one of which was a veteran in the service, while the other two, being younger, were without that practice which perfects, showed an exuberance of energy and ambition in following the trail. The ancestry of the dogs was Russian. Hounds of this breed never give mouth, thus warning the hunted of their approach. Man-hunting is exciting sport. The possibility, though the trail may look hours old, that any turn of the trail may disclose the fugitives, keeps at the highest tension every nerve of the pursuer.

All day long the marshal and posse climbed higher and higher on the rugged mountainside. Night came on as they reached the narrow plateau that formed the crest of the mountain, on which they found several small parks. Here they made the first halt since the start in the morning. The necessity of resting their saddle stock was very apparent to Banks, though he would gladly have pushed on. The only halt he could expect of the robbers was to save their own horses, and he must do the same. Forcing a tired horse an extra hour has left many an amateur rider afoot. He realized this. Knowing the necessity of being well mounted, the robbers had no doubt splendid horses. This was a reasonable supposition.

Near midnight the marshal and posse set out once more on the trail. He was compelled to take it afoot now, depending on his favorite dog, which was under leash, the posse following with the mounts. The dogs led them several miles southward on this mountain crest. Here was where the dogs were valuable. The robbers had traveled in some places an entire mile over lava beds, not leaving as much as a trace which the eye could detect. Having the advantage of daylight, the robbers selected a rocky cliff, over which they began the descent of the western slope of this range. The ingenuity displayed by them to throw pursuit from their trail marked Peg-Leg as an artist in his calling. But with the aid of dogs and the dampness of night, their trail was as easily followed as though it had been made in snow.

This declivity was rough, and in places every one was compelled to dismount. Progress was extremely slow, and when the rising sun tipped the peaks of the Continental Range, before them lay the beautiful landscape where the Rio Grande in a hundred mountain streams has her fountain-head. With only a few hours' rest for men and animals during the day, night fell upon them before they had reached the mesa at the foot-hills on the western slope. An hour before nightfall they came upon the first camp or halt of the robbers. They had evidently spent but a short time here, there being no indication that they had slept. Criminals are inured to all kinds of hardship. They have been known to go for days without sleep, while smugglers, well mounted, have put a hundred miles of country behind them in a single night.

The marshal and party pushed forward during the night, the country being more favorable. When morning came they had covered many a mile, and it was believed they had made time, as the trail seemed fresher. There were several ranches along the main stream in the valley, which the robbers had avoided with well-studied caution, showing that they had passed through in the daytime. There are several lines of railroad running through this valley section. These they crossed at points between stations, where observation would be almost impossible either by day or night. Inquiries at ranches failed on account of the lack of all accurate means of description. The posse was maintaining a due southwest course that was carrying them into the fastnesses of the main range of the western continent. Another full day of almost constant advance, and the trail had entered the undulating hills forming the approach of this second range of mountains. Physical exertion was beginning to tell on the animals, and they were compelled to make frequent halts in the ascent of this range.

The fatigue was showing in the two younger dogs. Their feet had been cut in several places in crossing the first range of mountains. During the past nights in the valley, though their master was keeping a sharp lookout, they encountered several places where sand-burrs were plentiful. These burrs in the tender inner part of a dog's foot, if not removed at once, soon lame it. Many times had the poor creatures lain down, licking their paws in anguish. On examination during the previous night, their feet were found to be webbed with this burr. Now, on climbing this second mountain, they began to show the lameness which their master so much feared, until it was almost impossible to make them take any interest in the trail. The old dog, however, seemed nothing the worse for his work.

On reaching the first small park near the summit of this range, the pursuers were so exhausted that they lay down and took their first sleep, having been over three days and a half on the trail. The marshal himself slept several hours, but he was the last to go to sleep and the first to awake. Before going to sleep, and on arising, he was particular to bathe the dogs' feet. The nearest approach to a liniment that he possessed was a lubricating tube for guns, which he fortunately had with him. This afforded relief.

It was daybreak when the pursuers took up the trail. The plateau on the crest of this range was in places several miles wide, having a luxuriant growth of grass upon it. The course of the robbers continued to the southwest. The pursuers kept this plateau for several miles, and before descending the western slope of the range an abandoned camp was found, where the pursued had evidently made their first bunks. Indications of where horses had been picketed for hours, and where both men and horses had slept were evident. The trail where it left this deserted camp was in no wise encouraging to the marshal, as it looked at least thirty-six hours old. As the pursuers began the descent, they could see below them where the San Juan River meanders to the west until her waters, mingling with others, find their outlet into the Pacific. It was a trial of incessant toil down the mountain slope, wearisome alike to man and beast. Near the foot-hill of this mountain they were rewarded by finding a horse which the robbers had abandoned on account of an accident. He was an extremely fine horse, but so lame in the shoulders, apparently owing to a fall, that it was impossible to move him. The trail of the robbers kept in the foot-hills, finally doubling back an almost due east course. Now and then ranches were visible out on the mesa, but in all instances they were carefully avoided by the pursued.

Spending a night in these hills, the posse prepared to make an early start. Here, however, they met their first serious trouble. Both of the younger dogs had feet so badly swollen that it was impossible to make them take any interest in the trail. After doing everything possible for them, their owner sent them to a ranch which was in sight several miles below in the valley. Several hours were lost to the party by this incident, though they were in no wise deterred in following the trail, still having the veteran dog. Late that afternoon they met a pastor who gave them a description of the robbers.

"Yesterday morning," said the shepherd, in broken Spanish, "shortly after daybreak, four men rode into my camp and asked for breakfast. I gave them coffee, but as I had no meat in my quarters, they tried to buy a lamb, which I have no right to sell. After drinking the coffee they tendered me money, which I refused. On leaving, one of their number rode into my flock and killed a kid. Taking it with him, he rode away with the others."

A good description of the robbers was secured from this simple shepherd,—a full description of men, horses, colors, and condition of pack. The next day nothing of importance developed, and the posse hugged the shelter of the hills skirting the mountain range, crossing into New Mexico. It was late that night when they went into camp on the trail. They had pushed forward with every energy, hoping to lessen the intervening distance between them and the robbers. The following morning on awakening, to the surprise and mortification of everybody, the old dog was unable to stand upon his feet. While this was felt to be a serious drawback, it did not necessarily check the chase.

In bringing to bay over thirty criminals, one of whom had paid the penalty of his crime on the gallows, master and dog had heretofore been an invincible team. Old age and physical weakness had now overtaken the dog in an important chase, and the sympathy he deserved was not withheld, nor was he deserted. Tenderly as a mother would lift a sick child, Banks gathered him in his arms and lifted him to one of the posse on his horse. To the members of the posse it was a touching scene: they remembered him but a few months before pursuing a flying criminal, when the latter—seeing that escape was impossible and turning to draw his own weapon upon the officer, whose six-shooter had been emptied at the fugitive, but who with drawn knife was ready to close with him in the death struggle—immediately threw down his weapon and pleaded for his life.

Yet this same officer could not keep back the tears that came into his eyes as he lifted this dumb comrade of other victories to a horse. With an earnest oath he brushed the incident away by assuring his posse that unless the earth opened and swallowed up the robbers they could not escape. A few hours after taking up the trail, a ranch was sighted and the dog was left, the instructions of the Good Samaritan being repeated. At this ranch they succeeded in buying two fresh horses, which proved a valuable addition to their mounts.

Now it became a hunt of man by man. To an experienced trailer like the marshal there was little difficulty in keeping the trail. That the robbers kept to the outlying country was an advantage. Yet the latter traveled both night and day, while pursuit must of necessity be by day only. With the fresh horses secured, they covered a stretch of country hardly credible.

During the day they found a place where the robbers had camped for at least a full day. A trail made by two horses had left this camp, and returned. The marshal had followed it to a rather pretentious Mexican rancho, where there was a small store kept. Here a second description of the two men was secured, though neither one was Peg-Leg. He was so indelibly marked that he was crafty enough to keep out of sight of so public a place as a store. These two had tried unsuccessfully to buy horses at this rancho.

The next morning the representative of the express company left the posse to report progress. He was enabled to give such an exact description of the robbers that the company, through their detective system, were not long in locating the leader. The marshal and posse pushed on with the same unremitting energy. The trail was now almost due east. The population of the country was principally Mexican, and even Mexicans the robbers avoided as much as possible. They had, however, bought horses at several ranches, and were always liberal in the use of money, but very exacting in regard to the quality of horseflesh they purchased; the best was none too good for them. They passed north of old Santa Fé town, and entering a station on the line of railway by that name late at night, they were liberal patrons of the gaming tables that the town tolerated. The next morning they had disappeared.

At no time did the pursuers come within two days of them. This was owing to the fact that they traveled by night as well as day. At the last-mentioned point messages were exchanged with the express company with little loss of time. Banks had asked that certain points on the railway be watched in the hope of capture while crossing the country, but the effort was barren of results. In following the trail the marshal had recrossed the continuation of the first range of mountains which they had crossed to the west ten days before, or the morning after the robbery, three hundred miles southward. There was nothing difficult in the passage of this range of mountains, and now before them stretched the endless prairie to the eastward. Here Banks seriously felt the loss of his dogs. This was a country that they could be used in to good advantage. It would then be a question of endurance of men and horses. As it was, he could work only by day. Two lines of railway were yet to be crossed if the band held its course. The same tactics were resorted to as formerly, yet this vigilance and precaution availed nothing, as Peg-Leg crossed them carefully between two of the watched places. Owing to his occupation, he knew the country better by night than day.

Banks was met by the officials of the express company on one of these lines of railroad. The exhaustive amount of information that they had been able to collect regarding this interesting man with the wooden leg was astonishing. From out of the abundance of the data there were a few items that were of interest to the officer. Several of Eldridge's haunts when not actively engaged in his profession were located. In one of these haunts was a woman, and toward this one he was heading, though it was many a weary mile distant.

At the marshal's request the express people had brought bloodhounds with them. The dogs proved worthless, and the second day were abandoned. When the trail crossed the Gulf Railway the robbers were three days ahead. The posse had now been fourteen days on the trail. Banks followed them one day farther, himself alone, leaving his tired companions at a station near the line of the Panhandle of Texas. This extra day's ride was to satisfy himself that the robbers were making for one of their haunts. They kept, as he expected, down between the two Canadians.

After following the trail until he was thoroughly satisfied of their destination, the marshal retraced his steps and rejoined his posse. The first train carried him and the posse back to the headquarters of the express company.

Two weeks later, at a country store in the Chickasaw Nation, there was a horse race of considerable importance. The country side were gathered to witness it. The owners of the horses had made large wagers on the race. Outsiders wagered money and livestock to a large amount. There were a number of strangers present, which was nothing unusual. As the race was being run and every eye was centred on the outcome, a stranger present put a six-shooter to a very interested spectator's ear, and informed him that he was a prisoner. Another stranger did the same thing to another spectator. They also snapped handcuffs on both of them. One of these spectators had a peg-leg. They were escorted to a waiting rig, and when they alighted from it were on the line of a railroad forty miles distant. One of these strangers was a United States marshal, who for the past month had been very anxious to meet these same gentlemen.

Once safe from the rescue of friends of these robbers, the marshal regaled his guest with the story of the chase, which had now terminated. He was even able to give Eldridge a good part of his history. But when he attempted to draw him out as to the whereabouts of the other two, Peg was sullenly ignorant of anything. They were never captured, having separated before reaching the haunt of Mr. Eldridge. Eldridge was tried in a Federal court in Colorado and convicted of train robbery. He went over the road for a term of years far beyond the lease of his natural life. He, with the companion captured at the same time, was taken by an officer of the court to Detroit for confinement. When within an hour's ride of the prison—his living grave—he raised his ironed hands, and twisting from a blue flannel shirt which he wore a large pearl button, said to the officer in charge:—

"Will you please take this button back and give it, with my compliments, to that human bloodhound, and say to him that I'm sorry that I didn't anticipate meeting him? If I had, it would have saved you this trip with me. He might have got me, but I wouldn't have needed a trial when he did."

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: The Passing of Peg-Leg


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Author:Littleton Waller Tazewell

Works

 * A Review of the Proclamation of President Jackson (1832–33)

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 member of the embassy which, with the Marquis of Northampton at its head, proceeded in June to the French king, to negotiate the marriage of Princess Elizabeth of France to Edward. To cover his expenses, he was granted imprests amounting to 300l. (ib. iii. 269, 326); and on 26 June he was despatched to England with letters to the council asking for further instructions, with which he probably returned to France (Cal. State Papers, For. 1547–53, pp. 128, 133;, i. 473, ii. 243).

While clerk of the council Thomas became a sort of political instructor to the young king, who appears to have narrowly watched the proceedings of his council, and, without the knowledge of its members, sought Thomas's opinion on their policy and on the principles of government generally (see especially Thomas's ‘Discourse on the Coinage’ in, op. cit. ii. 389). The nature of this teaching may be gathered from a series of eighty-five questions drawn by Thomas for the king, and still preserved, along with a prefatory letter, in his own writing at the British Museum (Cotton. MSS. Titus B. ii.); they were printed in Strype's ‘Ecclesiastical Memorials’ ( i. 156). Another autograph manuscript in the same collection (Vespasian, D. xviii. ff. 2–46) contains six political discourses confidentially written for the king. These were published in their entirety (in, op. cit. ii. 365–393, and in D'Aubant's edition of Thomas's works, ut supra), while that treating of foreign affairs was summarised by Burnet (Hist. of Reformation, ii. 233), and printed by Froude (Hist. of England, v. 308–10). Some further ‘commonplaces of state’ drawn up by Thomas for the king's use are also printed in Strype (op. cit. ii. 315–27). Froude suggests that Thomas's teaching, if not his hand, is also perceptible in the king's journal (Preface to Pilgrim, vol. viii.; Hist. v. 349). He also dedicated to the king as ‘a poore newe yeres gift,’ probably in January 1550–1, an English translation from the Italian of Josaphat Barbaro's account of his voyages to the east, which had been first published in Venice in 1543. Thomas's manuscript, which is still preserved at the British Museum (Royal MSS. 17 C. x.), was edited, with an introduction by Lord Stanley of Alderley, for the Hakluyt Society in 1873, in a volume of ‘Travels to Tana and Persia’ (London, 8vo).

Influential as was Thomas's position at court, it was not free from danger, and, realising this, he vainly asked to be sent on government business to Venice (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1547–80, p. 43). On the accession of Mary, Thomas lost all his preferments, including his employment at court, because ‘he had (it is said) imbibed the principles of Christopher Goodman against the regimen of women, and too freely vented them’ (Biographia Britannica, ii. 947; cf., loc. cit.; , Eccles. Mem. i. 278). He attached himself to the ultra-protestant party, and according to Bale (Script. Illustr. Brit. ed. 1557–9, ii. 110) designed the murder of Bishop Gardiner, but of this there is no evidence (but cf., i. 112). He took an active part in Sir Thomas Wyatt's conspiracy. On 27 Dec. 1553 he left London for Ottery Mohun in Devonshire, the residence of Sir Peter Carew, who was the leader of the disaffected in the west; but when Carew failed to raise the west, Thomas on 2 Feb. 1553–4 fled, going ‘from county to county, in disguise, not knowing where to conceal himself; and yet he did not desist from sending seditious bills and letters to his friends declaring his treasonable intentions, in order that he might induce them to join him in his treasons’ (indictment against Thomas printed in Dep. Keeper of Records, 4th Rep. p. 248; Froude (Hist. vi. 174) erroneously mentions him as being with Wyatt when he made his entry into London on 7 Feb.). Probably his intention was to escape to Wales (Cal. State Papers, Dom. s.a. p. 59), but he went no further than Gloucestershire, with which county he had some previous connection (, i. 522). He was arrested, and on 20 Feb. he was committed to the Tower along with Sir Nicholas Throckmorton [q. v.] (ib. p. 395;, Annales, ed. 1615, p. 623). Conscious ‘that he should suffer a shameful death,’ he attempted on the 26th to commit suicide ‘by thrusting a knife into his body under his paps, but the wound did not prove mortal’. He was put on the rack with the view of extracting some statement implicating the Princess Elizabeth, and it was probably to prevent this that he attempted suicide. The chief evidence against him, apart from his sojourn at Sir Peter Carew's house, was the confession of a fellow conspirator, Sir Nicholas Arnold, who alleged that on the announcement of the proposed marriage between Mary and Philip of Spain, Thomas ‘put various arguments against such marriage in writing,’ and finally on 22 Dec. suggested that the difficulty might be solved by asking one John Fitzwilliams to kill the queen. This ‘devyse’ was communicated to Sir Thomas Wyatt, who, when suing for pardon during his own trial, said that he had indignantly repudiated it. Throckmorton,


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260 errands for me. I took a walk and listened with pleasure to the song of the little Robin. October 1. I called at the Philosophical Hall and at the Public Library, but I am again told that Leeds, though wealthy, has no taste; nevertheless I hope to establish an agency here. October 3. I visited the museum of a Mr. Calvert, a man who, like myself, by dint of industry and perseverance is now the possessor of the finest collection I have seen in England, with the exception of the one at Manchester. I received a letter from Mr. Havell only one day old; wonderful activity this in the post-office department. I have been reading good Bewick's book on quadrupeds. I have had no success in Leeds, and to-morrow go to York.

York, October 5. Mr. Barclay, my agent here, I soon found had done almost nothing, had not indeed delivered all the numbers. I urged him to do better, and went to the Society Hall, where I discovered that the number which had been forwarded from Edinburgh after I had left there was miserably poor, scarcely colored at all. I felt quite ashamed of it, although Mr. Wright thought it good; but I sent it at once to Havell for proper treatment. Being then too late to pay calls, I borrowed a volume of Gil Blas, and have been reading.

October 6. No luck to-day, my Lucy. I am, one would think, generally either before or after the proper time. I am told that last week, when the Duke of Wellington was here, would have been the better moment. I shall have the same song given me at Newcastle, I dare foretell. I have again been reading Gil Blas; how replete I always find it of good lessons. October 8. I walked this morning with Mr. Barclay to the house of Mr. F——, a mile out of town, to ascertain if he had received the first number. His house was expressly built for Queen Elizabeth, who, I was told, had never been

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 however, when his own trial came on, traversed the allegations of Arnold, who (he said) sought ‘to discharge himself if he could so transfer the devise to William Thomas.’ In support of his statement he asked that the court should examine Fitzwilliams, who was prepared to give evidence, but was denied audience, at the request of the attorney-general (cf., i. 297). When, however, Thomas's own trial came on at the Guildhall on 8 May, he was found guilty of treason; and, on the 18th, was drawn upon a sled to Tyburn, where he was hanged, beheaded, and quartered, making ‘a right godly end’ (ib. p. 279), saying at his death that ‘he died for his country’ (, Annales, p. 624). On the following day his head was set on London Bridge ‘and iii. quarters set over Crepullgate’ (, Diary, pp. 62–3), whereabouts he had perhaps previously lived (, i. 192).

In a private act of parliament, passed on the accession of Elizabeth, Thomas's name was included among those whose heirs and children were restored in blood after their attainder, but it is not known whether he was married or had a family (, Annals of the Reform. i. 468).

In addition to the works already mentioned, Thomas wrote ‘Of the Vanitee of this World,’ 8vo, 1549. Some authorities date it 1545, in which case it was the author's first work (, i. 279;, Typogr. Antiq. ed. Herbert, i. 449; cf. ib. ed. Dibdin, iii. 331). But no copy is extant either of this work or of another work attributed to Thomas by Tanner and Wood, ‘An Argument wherein the Apparel of Women is both Reproved and Defended: being a Translation of Cato's Speech and L. Valerius Answer out of the Fourth Decad of Livy’ (London, 1551, 12mo). He is also said by Bale to have translated from the Italian into English ‘The Laws of Republicks’ and ‘On the Roman Pontiffs,’ and during his imprisonment he wrote ‘many pious letters, exhortations, and sonnets’ ( 279), but none of these survive.

Thomas was a shrewd observer of men and affairs, but, according to Wood, had a ‘hot fiery spirit,’ which was probably the cause of most of his troubles. He was certainly ‘one of the most learned of his time’. His Italian grammar and dictionary were the first works of the kind published in English, while his ‘History of Italy’ was formerly held in the highest esteem for its comprehensive account of the chief Italian states. All his works are remarkable for their methodical arrangement, his style is always lucid, and his English shows ‘much better orthography than that current at a later period.’

[Authorities cited; Strype's works, especially his Ecclesiastical Memorials, which is always the work referred to in the text above when ‘Strype’ simply is quoted; Wood's Athenæ Oxonienses, ed. Bliss, i. 218–21, and Biographia Britannica (1747), ii. 947; Lansdowne MSS. (Brit. Mus.), vol. 980, folio 144; Burnet's Hist. of the Reformation, ed. Pocock, ii. 232–3; Anthony Harmer's Specimen of Errors (1693), p. 159; Richard Grafton's Chronicle (1569), p. 1341; Foulis's History of Romish Treasons (1681), pp. 317–18; Froude's Preface to the Pilgrim, and his History of England, v. 308–10, 349, vi. 145, 174, 189. Thomas's trial is briefly reported in Dyer's Reports, ed. 1688, p. 99 b, and its legal and constitutional aspects discussed in Willis Bund's Selection of Cases from the State Trials, i. 154–64. The indictment, together with notices of some other papers, was printed in the Deputy-Keeper of Records' 4th Rep. pp. 246–9, and in Lord Stanley of Alderley's Introduction to the Travels to Tana, while further particulars are given in the reports of the trials of Wyatt and Throckmorton in Cobbett's State Trials, i. 862–902. There is an excellent Welsh account of Thomas in Y Traethodydd for 1862, pp. 369–76; see also Cymru, 1895, p. 151.]  THOMAS, WILLIAM (1593–1667), ejected minister, born at Whitchurch in Shropshire, was educated first in the high school there. On 1 Dec. 1609 he matriculated from Brasenose College, Oxford, graduating B.A. on 8 Feb. 1613 and M.A. on 17 June 1615. On 4 Jan. 1616 he was presented to the rectory of Ubley, near Pensford in Somerset, where he worked for over forty years. He was an earnest puritan. In 1633 he refused to read ‘The Book of Sports,’ and on 23 June 1635 he was suspended ab officiis, and on 28 July a beneficiis. He was restored after three years' suspension, on the intercession of friends with Archbishop Laud. He took the ‘covenant’ of August 1643, and the ‘engagement’ of October 1649. He was one of the subscribers to the ‘Attestation of the Ministers of the County of Somerset, against the Errors, Heresies, and Blasphemies of the Times’ in 1648. In 1654 he was assistant to the committee for the ejection of scandalous ministers.

Having addressed some letters of remonstrance to Thomas Speed, a merchant and quaker preacher at Bristol, Thomas was attacked by Speed in ‘Christ's Innocency Pleaded’ (London, 1656). The question of the lawfulness of tithes was chiefly in dispute, and Thomas was accused by his adversary of a readiness to preach ‘rather at Wells for


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Rh


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 142 of hair into her bosom, got upon her horse, and set off on her journey to her bridegroom's kingdom.

One day, as they were riding along by a brook, the princess began to feel very thirsty; and she said to her maid, "Pray get down, and fetch me some water in my golden cup out of yonder brook, for I want to drink." "Nay," said the maid, "if you are thirsty, get off yourself, and stoop down by the water and drink; I shall not be your waiting-maid any longer." Then she was so thirsty that she got down, and knelt over the little brook, and drank; for she was frightened, and dared not bring out her golden cup; and she wept and said, "Alas! what will become of me?" And the lock answered her, and said

But the princess was very gentle and meek, so she said nothing to her maid's ill behaviour, but got upon her horse again.

Then all rode further on their journey, till the day grew so warm, and the sun so scorching, that the bride began to feel very thirsty again; and at last, when they came to a river, she forgot her maid's rude speech, and said, "Pray get down, and fetch me some water to drink in my golden cup." But the maid answered her, and even spoke more haughtily than before: "Drink if you will, but I shall not be your waiting-maid." Then the princess was so thirsty that she got off her horse, and lay down, and held her head over the running stream, and cried and said, "What will become of me?" And the lock of hair answered her again—

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A Texas Matchmaker

=List of Chapters=
 * Lance Lovelace
 * Shepherd's Ferry
 * Las Palomas
 * Christmas
 * A Pigeon Hunt
 * Spring Of '76
 * San Jacinto Day
 * A Cat Hunt On The Frio
 * The Rose And Its Thorn
 * Aftermath
 * A Turkey Bake
 * Summer of '77
 * Hide Hunting
 * A Two Years' Drouth
 * In Commemoration
 * Matchmaking
 * Winter At Las Palomas
 * An Indian Scare
 * Horse Brands
 * Shadows
 * Interlocutory Proceedings
 * Sunset

title: A Texas Matchmaker


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Rh in it after all. It resembles an old church, the whole front being of long, narrow windows. The inside is composed of large rooms, highly decorated with ancient pictures of the F—— family. The gardens are also of ancient appearance; there were many box-trees cut in the shape of hats, men, birds, etc. I was assured the number had not been received, so I suppose it never was sent. On our return Mr. Barclay showed me an asylum built by Quakers for the benefit of lunatics, and so contrived with gardens, pleasure-grounds, and such other modes of recreation, that in consequence of these pleasant means of occupying themselves many had recovered. October 9. How often I thought during these visits of poor Alexander Wilson. When travelling as I am now, to procure subscribers, he as well as myself was received with rude coldness, and sometimes with that arrogance which belongs to parvenus. October 11. It has been pouring down rain during all last night and this day, and looks as if it would not cease for some time; it is, however, not such distressing falls of water as we have in Louisiana; it carries not every object off with the storm; the banks of the rivers do not fall in with a crash, with hundreds of acres of forest along with them; no houses are seen floating on the streams with cattle, game, and the productions of the husbandman. No, it rains as if Nature was in a state of despondency, and I am myself very dull; I have been reading Stanley's Tales. October 12. This morning I walked along the Ouse; the water had risen several feet and was quite muddy. I had the pleasure of seeing a little green Kingfisher perched close to me for a few minutes; but the instant his quick eye espied me, he dashed off with a shrill squeak, almost touching the water. I must say I longed for a gun to have stopped him, as I never saw one fresh killed. I saw several men fishing with a large scoop-net, fixed to a long pole. The fisherman laid the net gently on the water, and

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 The professor's son was named John! Could anything be more commonplace?

"I'll have to take you around and show you things tomorrow," John said cordially, accepting the account of my arrival without surprise.

A red-headed servant-girl, roast-pork and rhubarb-sauce for dinner, and checkers afterwards, a hot bath at bedtime, the ringing of a telephone somewhere else in the house—is it any wonder that it was months before I would believe that I had actually come into a different universe? What slight differences there were in the people and the world, merely served to emphasize the similarity. For instance, I think they were just a little more hospitable and "old-fashioned" than we are. Making due allowances for the fact that I was a rather remarkable phenomenon, I think I was welcomed more heartily in this home and in others later, people spared me more of their time and interest from their daily business, than would have happened under similar circumstances in a correspondingly busy city in America.

Again, John found a lot of time to take me about the city and show me banks and stores and offices. He drove a little squat car with tall wheels, run by a spluttering gasoline motor. (The car was not as perfect as our modern cars, and horses were quite numerous in the streets. Yet John was a busy business man, the district superintendent of a life-insurance agency). Think of it! Life insurance in Einstein's t dimension.

"You're young to be holding such an important position," I suggested.

"Got started early," John replied. "Dad is disappointed because I didn't see fit to waste time in college. Disgrace to the family, I am."

What in particular shall I say about the city? It might have been any one of a couple of hundred American cities. Only it wasn't. The electric street cars, except for their bright green color, were perfect; they might have been brought over bodily from Oshkosh or Tulsa. The ten-cent stores with gold letters on their signs; drug-stores with soft drinks; a mad, scrambling stock-exchange; the blaring sign of an advertising dentist; brilliant entrances to motion-picture theaters, were all there. The beauty-shops did wonders to the women's heads, excelling our own by a good deal, if I am any judge; and at that time I had nothing more important on my mind than to speculate on that question. Newsboys bawled the Evening Sun, and the Morning Gale in whose curious, flat type I could read accounts of legislative doings, murders and divorces, quite as fluently as I could in my own Tribune at home. Strangeness and unfamiliarity had bothered me a good deal on a trip to Quebec a couple of years ago; but they were not noticeable here in the t dimension.

For three or four weeks the novelty of going around, looking at things, meeting people, visiting concerts, theaters, and department stores, was sufficient to absorb my interest. Professor Vibens' hospitality was so sincerely extended that I did not hesitate to accept, though I assured him that I would repay it as soon a I got established in this world. In a few days I was

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A Texas Matchmaker/Lance Lovelace

When I first found employment with Lance Lovelace, a Texas cowman, I had not yet attained my majority, while he was over sixty. Though not a native of Texas, "Uncle Lance" was entitled to be classed among its pioneers, his parents having emigrated from Tennessee along with a party of Stephen F. Austin's colonists in 1821. The colony with which his people reached the state landed at Quintana, at the mouth of the Brazos River, and shared the various hardships that befell all the early Texan settlers, moving inland later to a more healthy locality. Thus the education of young Lovelace was one of privation. Like other boys in pioneer families, he became in turn a hewer of wood or drawer of water, as the necessities of the household required, in reclaiming the wilderness. When Austin hoisted the new-born Lone Star flag, and called upon the sturdy pioneers to defend it, the adventurous settlers came from every quarter of the territory, and among the first who responded to the call to arms was young Lance Lovelace. After San Jacinto, when the fighting was over and the victory won, he laid down his arms, and returned to ranching with the same zeal and energy. The first legislature assembled voted to those who had borne arms in behalf of the new republic, lands in payment for their services. With this land scrip for his pay, young Lovelace, in company with others, set out for the territory lying south of the Nueces. They were a band of daring spirits. The country was primitive and fascinated them, and they remained. Some settled on the Frio River, though the majority crossed the Nueces, many going as far south as the Rio Grande. The country was as large as the men were daring, and there was elbow room for all and to spare. Lance Lovelace located a ranch a few miles south of the Nueces River, and, from the cooing of the doves in the encinal, named it Las Palomas.

"When I first settled here in 1838," said Uncle Lance to me one morning, as we rode out across the range, "my nearest neighbor lived forty miles up the river at Fort Ewell. Of course there were some Mexican families nearer, north on the Frio, but they don't count. Say, Tom, but she was a purty country then! Why, from those hills yonder, any morning you could see a thousand antelope in a band going into the river to drink. And wild turkeys? Well, the first few years we lived here, whole flocks roosted every night in that farther point of the encinal. And in the winter these prairies were just flooded with geese and brant. If you wanted venison, all you had to do was to ride through those mesquite thickets north of the river to jump a hundred deer in a morning's ride. Oh, I tell you she was a land of plenty."

The pioneers of Texas belong to a day and generation which has almost gone. If strong arms and daring spirits were required to conquer the wilderness, Nature seemed generous in the supply; for nearly all were stalwart types of the inland viking. Lance Lovelace, when I first met him, would have passed for a man in middle life. Over six feet in height, with a rugged constitution, he little felt his threescore years, having spent his entire lifetime in the outdoor occupation of a ranchman. Living on the wild game of the country, sleeping on the ground by a camp-fire when his work required it, as much at home in the saddle as by his ranch fireside, he was a romantic type of the strenuous pioneer.

He was a man of simple tastes, true as tested steel in his friendships, with a simple honest mind which followed truth and right as unerringly as gravitation. In his domestic affairs, however, he was unfortunate. The year after locating at Las Palomas, he had returned to his former home on the Colorado River, where he had married Mary Bryan, also of the family of Austin's colonists. Hopeful and happy they returned to their new home on the Nueces, but before the first anniversary of their wedding day arrived, she, with her first born, were laid in the same grave. But grief does not kill, and the young husband bore his loss as brave men do in living out their allotted day. But to the hour of his death the memory of Mary Bryan mellowed him into a child, and, when unoccupied, with every recurring thought of her or the mere mention of her name, he would fall into deep reverie, lasting sometimes for hours. And although he contracted two marriages afterward, they were simply marriages of convenience, to which, after their termination, he frequently referred flippantly, sometimes with irreverence, for they were unhappy alliances.

On my arrival at Las Palomas, the only white woman on the ranch was "Miss Jean," a spinster sister of its owner, and twenty years his junior. After his third bitter experience in the lottery of matrimony, evidently he gave up hope, and induced his sister to come out and preside as the mistress of Las Palomas. She was not tall like her brother, but rather plump for her forty years. She had large gray eyes, with long black eyelashes, and she had a trick of looking out from under them which was both provoking and disconcerting, and no doubt many an admirer had been deceived by those same roguish, laughing eyes. Every man, Mexican and child on the ranch was the devoted courtier of Miss Jean, for she was a lovable woman; and in spite of her isolated life and the constant plaguings of her brother on being a spinster, she fitted neatly into our pastoral life. It was these teasings of her brother that gave me my first inkling that the old ranchero was a wily matchmaker, though he religiously denied every such accusation. With a remarkable complacency, Jean Lovelace met and parried her tormentor, but her brother never tired of his hobby while there was a third person to listen.

Though an unlettered man, Lance Lovelace had been a close observer of humanity. The big book of Life had been open always before him, and he had profited from its pages. With my advent at Las Palomas, there were less than half a dozen books on the ranch, among them a copy of Bret Harte's poems and a large Bible.

"That book alone," said he to several of us one chilly evening, as we sat around the open fireplace, "is the greatest treatise on humanity ever written. Go with me to-day to any city in any country in Christendom, and I'll show you a man walk up the steps of his church on Sunday who thanks God that he's better than his neighbor. But you needn't go so far if you don't want to. I reckon if I could see myself, I might show symptoms of it occasionally. Sis here thanks God daily that she is better than that Barnes girl who cut her out of Amos Alexander. Now, don't you deny it, for you know it's gospel truth! And that book is reliable on lots of other things. Take marriage, for instance. It is just as natural for men and women to mate at the proper time, as it is for steers to shed in the spring. But there's no necessity of making all this fuss about it. The Bible way discounts all these modern methods. 'He took unto himself a wife' is the way it describes such events. But now such an occurrence has to be announced, months in advance. And after the wedding is over, in less than a year sometimes, they are glad to sneak off and get the bond dissolved in some divorce court, like I did with my second wife."

All of us about the ranch, including Miss Jean, knew that the old ranchero's views on matrimony could be obtained by leading up to the question, or differing, as occasion required. So, just to hear him talk on his favorite theme, I said: "Uncle Lance, you must recollect this is a different generation. Now, I've read books"—

"So have I. But it's different in real life. Now, in those novels you have read, the poor devil is nearly worried to death for fear he'll not get her. There's a hundred things happens; he's thrown off the scent one day and cuts it again the next, and one evening he's in a heaven of bliss and before the dance ends a rival looms up and there's hell to pay,—excuse me, Sis,—but he gets her in the end. And that's the way it goes in the books. But getting down to actual cases—when the money's on the table and the game's rolling—it's as simple as picking a sire and a dam to raise a race horse. When they're both willing, it don't require any expert to see it—a one-eyed or a blind man can tell the symptoms. Now, when any of you boys get into that fix, get it over with as soon as possible."

"From the drift of your remarks," said June Deweese very innocently, "why wouldn't it be a good idea to go back to the old method of letting the parents make the matches?"

"Yes; it would be a good idea. How in the name of common sense could you expect young sap-heads like you boys to understand anything about a woman? I know what I'm talking about. A single woman never shows her true colors, but conceals her imperfections. The average man is not to be blamed if he fails to see through her smiles and Sunday humor. Now, I was forty when I married the second time, and forty-five the last whirl. Looks like I'd a-had some little sense, now, don't it? But I didn't. No, I didn't have any more show than a snowball in—Sis, hadn't you better retire. You're not interested in my talk to these boys.—Well, if ever any of you want to get married you have my consent. But you'd better get my opinion on her dimples when you do. Now, with my sixty odd years, I'm worth listening to. I can take a cool, dispassionate view of a woman now, and pick every good point about her, just as if she was a cow horse that I was buying for my own saddle."

Miss Jean, who had a ready tongue for repartee, took advantage of the first opportunity to remark: "Do you know, brother, matrimony is a subject that I always enjoy hearing discussed by such an oracle as yourself. But did it never occur to you what an unjust thing it was of Providence to reveal so much to your wisdom and conceal the same from us babes?"

It took some little time for the gentle reproof to take effect, but Uncle Lance had an easy faculty of evading a question when it was contrary to his own views. "Speaking of the wisdom of babes," said he, "reminds me of what Felix York, an old '36 comrade of mine, once said. He had caught the gold fever in '49, and nothing would do but he and some others must go to California. The party went up to Independence, Missouri, where they got into an overland emigrant train, bound for the land of gold. But it seems before starting, Senator Benton had made a speech in that town, in which he made the prophecy that one day there would be a railroad connecting the Missouri River with the Pacific Ocean. Felix told me this only a few years ago. But he said that all the teamsters made the prediction a byword. When, crossing some of the mountain ranges, the train halted to let the oxen blow, one bull-whacker would say to another: 'Well, I'd like to see old Tom Benton get his railroad over this mountain.' When Felix told me this he said—'There's a railroad to-day crosses those same mountain passes over which we forty-niners whacked our bulls. And to think I was a grown man and had no more sense or foresight than a little baby blinkin' its eyes in the sun.'"

With years at Las Palomas, I learned to like the old ranchero. There was something of the strong, primitive man about him which compelled a youth of my years to listen to his counsel. His confidence in me was a compliment which I appreciate to this day. When I had been in his employ hardly two years, an incident occurred which, though only one of many similar acts cementing our long friendship, tested his trust.

One morning just as he was on the point of starting on horseback to the county seat to pay his taxes, a Mexican arrived at the ranch and announced that he had seen a large band of javalina on the border of the chaparral up the river. Uncle Lance had promised his taxes by a certain date, but he was a true sportsman and owned a fine pack of hounds; moreover, the peccary is a migratory animal and does not wait upon the pleasure of the hunter. As I rode out from the corrals to learn what had brought the vaquero with such haste, the old ranchero cried, "Here, Tom, you'll have to go to the county seat. Buckle this money belt under your shirt, and if you lack enough gold to cover the taxes, you'll find silver here in my saddle-bags. Blow the horn, boys, and get the guns. Lead the way, Pancho. And say, Tom, better leave the road after crossing the Sordo, and strike through that mesquite country," he called back as he swung into the saddle and started, leaving me a sixty-mile ride in his stead. His warning to leave the road after crossing the creek was timely, for a ranchman had been robbed by bandits on that road the month before. But I made the ride in safety before sunset, paying the taxes, amounting to over a thousand dollars.

During all our acquaintance, extending over a period of twenty years, Lance Lovelace was a constant revelation to me, for he was original in all things. Knowing no precedent, he recognized none which had not the approval of his own conscience. Where others were content to follow, he blazed his own pathways—immaterial to him whether they were followed by others or even noticed. In his business relations and in his own way, he was exact himself and likewise exacting of others. Some there are who might criticise him for an episode which occurred about four years after my advent at Las Palomas.

Mr. Whitley Booth, a younger man and a brother-in-law of the old ranchero by his first wife, rode into the ranch one evening, evidently on important business. He was not a frequent caller, for he was also a ranchman, living about forty miles north and west on the Frio River, but was in the habit of bringing his family down to the Nueces about twice a year for a visit of from ten days to two weeks' duration. But this time, though we had been expecting the family for some little time, he came alone, remained over night, and at breakfast ordered his horse, as if expecting to return at once. The two ranchmen were holding a conference in the sitting-room when a Mexican boy came to me at the corrals and said I was wanted in the house. On my presenting myself, my employer said: "Tom, I want you as a witness to a business transaction. I'm lending Whit, here, a thousand dollars, and as we have never taken any notes between us, I merely want you as a witness. Go into my room, please, and bring out, from under my bed, one of those largest bags of silver."

The door was unlocked, and there, under the ranchero's bed, dust-covered, were possibly a dozen sacks of silver. Finding one tagged with the required amount, I brought it out and laid it on the table between the two men. But on my return I noticed Uncle Lance had turned his chair from the table and was gazing out of the window, apparently absorbed in thought. I saw at a glance that he was gazing into the past, for I had become used to these reveries on his part. I had not been excused, and an embarrassing silence ensued, which was only broken as he looked over his shoulder and said: "There it is, Whit; count it if you want to."

But Mr. Booth, knowing the oddities of Uncle Lance, hesitated. "Well—why—Look here, Lance. If you have any reason for not wanting to loan me this amount, why, say so."

"There's the money, Whit; take it if you want to. It'll pay for the hundred cows you are figuring on buying. But I was just thinking: can two men at our time of life, who have always been friends, afford to take the risk of letting a business transaction like this possibly make us enemies? You know I started poor here, and what I have made and saved is the work of my lifetime. You are welcome to the money, but if anything should happen that you didn't repay me, you know I wouldn't feel right towards you. It's probably my years that does it, but—now, I always look forward to the visits of your family, and Jean and I always enjoy our visits at your ranch. I think we'd be two old fools to allow anything to break up those pleasant relations." Uncle Lance turned in his chair, and, looking into the downcast countenance of Mr. Booth, continued: "Do you know, Whit, that youngest girl of yours reminds me of her aunt, my own Mary, in a hundred ways. I just love to have your girls tear around this old ranch—they seem to give me back certain glimpses of my youth that are priceless to an old man."

"That'll do, Lance," said Mr. Booth, rising and extending his hand. "I don't want the money now. Your view of the matter is right, and our friendship is worth more than a thousand cattle to me. Lizzie and the girls were anxious to come with me, and I'll go right back and send them down."

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 tithes than at Ubley for souls’ (p. 10). Thomas retorted in a work entitled ‘Rayling Rebuked,’ with a second part, ‘A Defence of the Ministers of this Nation’ (London, 1656). Thomas's controversial tone is more moderate than that of his antagonist. Speed, however, prepared another work, ‘The Guilty-covered Clergyman Unveiled’ (London, 1657), to which Thomas replied in ‘Vindication of Scripture and Ministry’ (London, 1657). The controversy then dropped. Both of Thomas's books were noticed by George Fox in his ‘Great Mistery of the Great Whore Unfolded’ (1659, pp. 104–10, 237–42).

In 1662, on the passing of the act of uniformity, Thomas declined to conform, and was ejected from his living. He continued to reside at Ubley, and attended the established worship. He took the oath imposed by the Oxford Five Mile Act in 1666. He died on 15 Nov. 1667, and was buried in the chancel of the church at Ubley. His son Samuel [q. v.] erected a monument to his memory there.

Thomas was a good scholar and a successful preacher. He kept copious manuscript volumes of ‘Anniversaria,’ in which he entered comments on memorable events, besides volumes on special subjects, his ‘Ægrotorum Visitationes’ and ‘Meditationes Vespertinæ.’ Bishop Bull, who resided in his house as pupil for two years (1652–4), states that he ‘received little or no improvement or assistance from him in his study of theology,’ but adopted views opposed to those of Thomas, through the influence of his son Samuel, with whom he contracted an intimate acquaintance.

In addition to the controversial tracts against Speed, and some ‘Exhortations,’ Thomas published: 1. ‘The Protestant's Practice,’ London, 1656. 2. ‘Christian and Conjugal Counsall,’ London, 1661. 3. ‘A Preservation of Piety,’ London, 1661, 1662. 4. ‘The Country's Sense of London's Sufferings in the Late Fire,’ London, 1667. 5. ‘Scriptures opened and Sundry Cases of Conscience Resolved’ (on Proverbs, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel, and Daniel), London, 1675, 1683. The subject of this article must be distinguished from three other silenced ministers of both his names: William Thomas, a schoolmaster, who died in 1693; William Thomas, an itinerant baptist preacher about Caermarthen, who died on 26 July 1671 and was buried at Llantrissent in Monmouthshire; and William Thomas, M.A., of Jesus College, Oxford, who was ejected from the rectory of St. Mary's Church, Glamorganshire, and afterwards kept a school at Swansea.

[Foster's Alumni; Reg. Univ. Oxon. (Oxford Hist. Soc.) II. ii. 307, iii. 317; Wood's Athenæ, ed. Bliss, iii. cols. 798–9; Calamy's Cont. p. 745; Palmer's Nonconformist's Memorial, iii. 171, 212–15, 500, 503; Nelson's Life of Bull, pp. 22–4; Sylvester's Reliquiæ Baxterianæ, iii. 13.]  THOMAS, WILLIAM (1613–1689), bishop of St. David's and Worcester successively, was born at Bristol on 2 Feb. 1613, being the son of John Thomas (a linendraper of that town, but a native of Carmarthen) by his wife Elizabeth Blount, a niece of Thomas Blount, a wealthy Bristol lawyer, and a descendant of the Blounts of Eldersfield in Worcestershire. According to a pedigree which Thomas took out of the Herald's College in 1688 (cf. Harleian MS. No. 2300), with the view of establishing his claim to the Herbert arms, his father's family was descended from Henry Fitzherbert, chamberlain to Henry I, through Thomas ap William of Carmarthen, whose great-grandson, William Thomas, having probably entered Gray's Inn on 2 June 1600 (, Gray's Inn Register, p. 99), became recorder of Carmarthen in 1603, was elected M.P. for the borough in 1614, although the sheriff made no return (, Parl. Hist. of Wales, p. 52), and was described by the Earl of Northampton, when lord president of Wales, as ‘the wisest and most prudent person he ever knew member of a corporation.’ He was the bishop's grandfather, and it was with him that the bishop was brought up after his father's somewhat early death at Bristol. After attending the grammar school, Carmarthen, then kept by Morgan Owen [q. v.], he proceeded to Oxford, where he matriculated from St. John's College on 13 Nov. 1629, but graduated B.A. 12 May 1632 and M.A. 5 Feb. 1634–5 from Jesus College, of which he was also fellow and tutor. He was ordained deacon on 4 June 1637 and priest in 1638 by Bancroft, the bishop of Oxford. He was appointed shortly afterwards vicar of Penbryn, Cardiganshire, and chaplain to the Earl of Northumberland (cf. Braybrooke manuscripts in Hist. MSS. Comm. 8th Rep. p. 279a), who presented him to the living of Laugharne with Llansadwrnen in Carmarthenshire, from which he was ejected in 1644. During the Commonwealth he maintained his increasing family by keeping a private school at Laugharne, but in 1660 he was restored to his livings, and was also appointed precentor of St. David's (, Fasti, i. 316; cf. Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1660–1, p. 173), and on 2 Aug. created D.D. of Oxford by chancellor's letters. He subsequently held the


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262 with a good degree of force he sank it, meantime drawing it along the bottom and grassy banks towards him. The fish, intent on feeding, attempted to escape, and threw themselves into the net and were hauled ashore. This was the first successful way of fishing I have seen in England. Some pikes of eight or ten pounds were taken, and I saw some eels. I have set my heart on having two hundred subscribers on my list by the first of May next; should I succeed I shall feel well satisfied, and able to have thee and our sons all together. Thou seest that castles are still building on hopeful foundations only; but he who does not try anything cannot obtain his ends. October 15, Newcastle. Yesterday I took the coach and found myself here after an uneventful journey, the route being now known to me, and came to my former lodgings, where I was followed almost immediately by the Marquis of Londonderry, who subscribed at once. Then I called upon friend Adamson, who before I could speak invited me to dinner every day that I was disengaged. He advised me to have a notice in the papers of my being here for a few days, so I went to the Tyne Mercury; saw Mr. Donkin, who invited me to breakfast with him to-morrow at half-past seven, quite my hour.

October 17. During the day Mr. Wingate, an excellent practical ornithologist, came to see me, and we had much conversation which interested me greatly. Also came the mayor, who invited me to dine with him publicly to-morrow. I have writen to Mr. Selby to ask if he will be at Alnwick Castle on Friday, as if so I will meet him there, and try to find some subscribers. Several persons have asked me how I came to part with Mr. Lizars, and I have felt glad to be able to say that it was at his desire, and that we continue esteemed friends. I have been pleased to find since I left London that all my friends cry against my painting in oil; it proves to me the real taste of good William Rathbone; and now I do declare to thee that I will

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 Rh

And as she leaned down to drink the lock of hair fell from her bosom, and floated away with the water. Now she was so frightened that she did not see it; but her maid saw it, and was very glad, for she knew the charm; and she saw that the poor bride would be in her power, now that she had lost the hair. So when the bride had done drinking, and would have got upon Falada again, the maid said, "I shall ride upon Falada, and you may have my horse instead": so she was forced to give up her horse, and soon afterwards to take off her royal clothes and put on her maid's shabby ones.

At last, as they drew near the end of their journey, this treacherous servant threatened to kill her mistress if she ever told any one what had happened. But Falada saw it all, and marked it well.

Then the waiting-maid got upon Falada, and the real bride rode upon the other horse, and they went on in this way till at last they came to the royal court. There was great joy at their coming, aud [sic] the prince flew to meet them, and lifted the maid from her horse, thinking she was the one who was to be his wife; and she was led upstairs to the royal chamber; but the true princess was told to stay in the court below.

Now the old king happened just then to have nothing else to do; so he amused himself by sitting at his kitchen-window, looking at what was going on; and he saw her in the courtyard. As she looked very pretty, and too delicate for a waiting-maid, he went up into the royal chamber to ask the bride who it was she had brought with her, that was thus left standing in the court below.

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