AM.“ COPYRIGHT. 1880. HY Bun”: & Alums. “1557 ENTERED As Smash (‘mss MATI‘ER AT THE wa Ynnx. N. Y.. POST OFFICE. N4‘I\'Hlll)¢~r, 1901. No. 10 Cents a Copy. v | $1.00 a. Year. 0- . NI. J. IVI‘IIKS‘ & “0.. Publishers, (JAMES SULLIVAN, Punvmrz'rom, 379 Pran firm-N. pr York. Published Every Month. THE SILENT RIFLEMAN. A TALE OF THE TEXAN PLAINS. BY HENRY W. HERBERT. \“v a ‘V Salty.ll‘:n. 0 1’4" ‘ \IP I — I mm m rm (:0an ANXIOUBLY A8 m an m on rowan m m The Silent Rifleman. u e Silent Rifleman. A Tale of the Texan Plains. av HENRYWVTT HERBERT. CHAPTER I. THE HORSE AND THE RIDER. Irr wanted an hour or two of sunset on a lovely evenin in the latter part of September, when a single orseman might have been seen, making his way to the westward, across the high dry prairie land, which lies between the upper por— tion of the river Nueces and the Bravo del Norte. He was a small, spare man, of no great per- sonal power, but of a figure which gave promise of great agility and capability of enduring fatigue, the most remarkable feature of which was the extraordinary length of his arms. His countenance, without being in the least degree handsome, was pleasing and expressive, with a broad and massive forehead, a quick, clear, black eye, a firm, well-cut mouth, and a character of great acuteness, combined with indomitable resolution. His dress consisted of an Indian hunting-shirt and leggins of buckskin, exquisitely dressed, and adorned with much fringe and embroidery of porcupine quills, wrought in black upon a claret-colored ground. His head was covered by a. high-crowned broad-leafed hat of dark 3y felt, with some heavy silver ornaments in go hand, and his feet were protected by stout Indian moccasins. In the wilderness, and on that frontier es- cially, all men go armed, the traveler depend— ng on his weapons not on], for the defense, but the subsistence of his life; ut the person I have described was loaded with otfenswe armsto a degree unusual even in that land of perilous an cruel warfare. A short, heavy English rifle, carrying a ball of twelve to the pound, was slung by a black leather belt across his shoulders, the braided strap which sup rted his large buffalo-horn powder flask an bullet ouch of otter skin crossing it on his breast. rom a leatherézirdle, which was buckled about his waist, he he hung a long, straight, two—edged sword in a steel scabbard with a silver basket hilt on the left side, which was counterbalanced by a. long, broad—bladed hunting knife with a uck-horn hilt, resting u n 1115 right hi . There were holsters at the w of his large exican saddle, containing a pair of fine dueling pistols with ten- inch barrels; and in addition to these, there was suspended from the pummel a formidable hatchet with a bri ht steel head and a spike at the back, like an ndian tomahawk, but in all respects a more ponderous and superior instru- ment. On the croupe of his horse, and attached to the cantle of the saddle, he carried a small valise of untanned leather, with a superb Mexi- can blanket of blue and scarlet strapped upon it, and a large leathern bottle with a horn drinking-cup swinging from it on one side; while to the other was fastened a portion of the loin of a fat buck, which had fallen in the course of the morning by the rifle of the traveler. The horse which carried this well-appointed rider was a dark-brown thoroughbred of eat wer and action, at least sixteen hen s in ight, and apparently, though somewhat low in flesh, in the nest possible condition. He was rhaps what might be termed an English cross- fired but his quarters and arm were superb and deep, roomy chest showed ample 8 ca for that breathing apparatus, so essentia to and endurance. He had one white foot behind, and a broad white blaze on his face, across which there was a. large seam, evident] the scar of 9. Ion and severe broad-sword cu ; in his fore-ghoul or there was another mark as of a stab with a lance or bayonet, and on his left quarter the traces of three bullets or grape 0t. None of these wounds had, however, impaired either his strength or his 3 d; nor had the long day’s journey, which e had performed, diminished the pride of his high slashing action or quenched in the least degree' the wild an fler light of his untamed aye. atom, in fact, could be more perfect than the whole air and appearance of both horse and rider. Though care and grooming were mani- fest in the condition and coat of the noble ani- mal, the arms and accouterments of the man were as bri ht and clean as if they had just issued from 1y neat and in perfect order, and was worn with a sort of jaunty smartness that bespoke the wearer something of a frontier dandy. ‘fiis hair, which he were long wasnicely ar- ranged and hung in dark cur s over his gay- colored neckerch of; and his close curled beard wabeen trimmed recently, and by a practiced ,, His seat in the saddle was the perfection of one and neatness; yet it was evident mu spite of the wwwdmfmedomof filinhghorodowithumnchpoworugrm, - l ' scenery of that green wilderness. e armory; his dress was accurate. and that there was a world of stren th in the swelling muscles of the thi h and eg which rested so lightly on the em osscd and orna- mented saddle. The finger, which played continuallyfwith the long-checlmd, heavy curb on his charger, was as light and delicate as a feather: and the man— ner in which the animal champed on the solid part, tossing his head, and making the bits ring and jingle merrily, showed that he had a fine light mouth, and that he felt no inconvenience from the powerful bridle. As the day were 011 toward its close, the rider began to strain his eves somewhat anxiously, directing them forward as if in search of seine object which he greatly desired to see; but still as he messed swell after swell of the high and prairie land, nothing met his gaze but one low ridge succeeding another, rising up bare and bleak, covered only with long coarse grass withered beneath the fierce rays of an Ameri- can sun, and interspersed here and there with tufts and thickets of prickly pear and other stunted thorny bushes. There were no symptoms of verdure or rich vegetation on this arid and barren tract; no traces of any water whether in the she of streamlct, pool or fountain; all was dry, urn- ed and yellow, almost as the scorched sands of the Arabian desert. Neither were there any signs of animal life in this ungenial and treeless waste: no birds sprung up from the thick grass before the feet -, of the gallant horse; no deer or antelope was seen bounding away across the sky—line of the near horizon; no hum of insect life reached the ear of the rider, as he passed steadily and rapid- ly onward. At length, when the sun was no longer above three times the width of his own disk from the level line of the lowest plain, he set his 5 ms to his horse, and at him from the high sashing trot which be ad hitherto maintained, into a long slingin gallop, which carried him over the round at t 6 rate of some sixteen miles the our. After he had ridden at this rate for thirty or forty minutes, he reached the brow of one of the low rollin waves of earth, which constitute the surface 0 the rairie, and thence saw the land falling away in a long gentle slope for some six miles toward the west, at which dis- tance it was bounded by a long continuous line of hills whose range seemed interminable. At the base of this range appeared a dense line, looking somber enough at that distance, but which the ex erienccd eye of the horseman well knew indicated a heav * growth of timber -—perhaps a deep forest, an within its shadowy depths, a wide and never—failin stream. An exclamation of pleasure roke from the lips of the rider, spoken in American but with a strong foreign accent. The hard-ridden horse tossed his head and snuffed the air with his broad distended nostrils as if he inhaled the pleasant freshness of the stream and the sweet grasses there. They did not however, relax their speed in consequence of the pleasure aris- ing from that long desired view: but, if any thin hastened more Swiftly forward to the spot whic romised to both horse and rider repose and re reshment after the toils of the long and weary day. Ashort elf-hour brought them to the forest just as the sun was setting; and nothin can be conceived in nature more lovely t an the For about a mile in width, on either side of the rand, ma.- estic river. the earth was covere with the reshest and richest greensward, as tender in its hues, and as soft and elastic to the foot as the finest English lawn. The whole of this vast meadow was thickldy set with gigantic trees; live-oaks with their oaks of every species, own 0 a size 0 trunk and spread of limb wh ch we can barely con- ceive, accustomed as we are to the less luxuriant Vegetation of the Northern forests. For the most part, this belt of noble timber was com~ pletoly free from underwood, the trees standng so far apart as to admit the maneuvering of a regiment of horse between their huge and messy hoes; but in some places there were dense thickets of be , wild peach and holly, all mat- ted and inte wined with enormous vines and creepers of every description, so as to defy the entrance of any intruder larger than a rabbit or a. rat into their green recesses. And over all was spread the eternal canopy of fresh, dark fol‘ e, perpetually renewed, and sheltering the mois 8011 beneath it with an unchanged vault of living eenery. Throug this Wild paradise the mighty river rolled its llucid waves, rapid, an deep and strong, an as transparent as the purest cr stal. Beautiful as was the picture in itse f, its loveliness was yet enhanced a thousand-fold by the contrast it presented to the arid and burnin plains, almost destitute of vegetation, over w ich the way of the travoler had lain, and the almost into erable glare with which the unclouded sun had scourged the head of both horse and rider during the live-long day. Galloping his horse joyously over the rich green turf, the traveler soon reached the river, at a spot where it was bordered by a little eep evergreen folia e, and beach or margin of pure white sand, asfirm, and almost as hard as marble; andspringing into the cool clear water till it laved the heaving flanks of his charger he suffered it to drink long and deep of the pure beverage, which had not touched its thirsty lips since the early morning. This duty done he returned to the shore, and, selecting an oak tree about twu feet in girth around which the grass grew unusually tall an luxuriant, tied his companion to its stem by the lasso, or cord of plaited hide which was coiled at his saddle-bow, allowing him a range of some twenty yards in circumference, removed the heavy bit and ponderous saddle, and, not till then, applied himself to satisfy the urgency of his Own thirst with water from the river, slightly mingled with the contents of the good leathcrn bottie. Having drank freely, he again returned to the care of his horse, which he rubbed down carefully. washing its eyes and nostrils, pulling its ears, chafing its clean bony legs till they were perfectly free from moisture, whether of sweat or of the river water which had bathed them so recently. Then, after polishing his accouterments, as if for parade, he hung his rifle and his broad- sword from the fork of a stunted oak tree, c014 lecting some dry leaves and branches, and, striking a light from the ready flint and steel, soon had a. clear bright fire glancing and flash- ing in a sheltered nook surrounded on all sides but one, that where his horse was tethered, b a dense and impenetrable thicket of bays, prickly pear and holly. Within a ew minutes half a dozen twigs, fixed in the ground about the blazing fire, sup- ported as many steaks of fat venison, each with a biscuit under it imbibing the delicious gravy, and a second with salt and pe per, all whic unusual dainties were supplied Eon) the small valise of the provident and epicurean frontiersman. \Vhile his supper was cookin thus and send‘ ing forth rich and unwonted 0501s through the forest, our traveler had prepared his simple couch, sp)reading his handsome poncho on the deep her age, with his saddle arranged for his illow, immediately under the tree from which e had suspended his gun and saber—his pistols, the locks and copper ca 5 of which be carefully inspected, his tomahaw being laid ready to his hand beside it—his good knife never left his girdle—so that if aroused from his slumters by any sound of peril, he might ring to his feet armed at once, and prepared or an fortune. All the precautions which he too were but the ordinar accidents, as a. painter would term them, of t e life of a frontiersman; but the nicety of his arrangements, the neatness of his dress, the extreme ains which he took with his horse and arms. am above all the unusual fare, the biscuits and condiments, the leathern bottle, filled not with rum or whisky, but with flue Xeres wine, betokened tastes and habitudec more cultivated, perhaps manners more refined, than would be ordinarily expected from the rover of the Texan wilderness. To render it, however, more up rent than this that our traveler’s condition in ife and his acquirements were superior to the opinion men would naturally form from his dress, and from the place in which we find him, as be cast him- self down on the soft greensward near the fire, and ran his fingers through the long rich curls from which he had removed his hat, he began to burn an air from a favorite opera, while he ins ted with a curious eye the approaching en of his culinary preparations. If, however, he had hoped to enjoy his coming meal and his night’s repose without interruption, he had reckoned without his host; for, at the same instant in which his charger ceased from feedin , snuffed the air eagerly, and uttered a low w ining, the traveler started to his feet and listened anxiously for a moment, although there were no sounds which could have been distinguished by any human ear unsharpened p the necessities and habits of a woodman’s 1 e. Satisfied apparently that something was at hand which might mean mischief, he quietly took up his pistols and thrust them into his girdle, reached down his rifle from the branch on which it hung, loosened his wood-knife in its scabbard, and passed the handle of his hatchet through a loop in his sword belt, 50 that the peat?) rested (in :11 sort of fold or ket fatality ea er, evi enty re red for its race y and the haft lay clogs ogahis left thi h. The broadsword be entirely neg ec expected, one, rha , which he re only as a horseman’s ml): an? which might be held to imply that he acted at times in company with Otl'li'eirs, and those idisciplinsd hfirsetrluen.mmpu ese reparat one ma e, 8] en , et delihgra ely, he stooped and his car i, be ground: nor did he raise himself his full hi ht for several minutes. ‘Two four, six, ei ht,” he muttered to him- self at intervals “ es, there are eight of them! By Heaven! it is too great odds; yet I had fain halt here, for Emperor has had a. M , dayofit”-- "than nickly hepauwdsmomenhasifindmbt. q ~ 3 . weapon of no utility in the struggle wh h be replacedhubitsinthochnrgu‘h 5;, ' .. taken no note of it. - !; fisyl “Silent Bifieman. mouth, and the saddle on his back, and hung his I did not unfasten the lasso, nor did his com- , pressed lip, flashing eye and curled nostril show ‘ any disposition to abandon his position and his supper. Again he laid his ear to the ground and listened. “Yes, there are eight of them, sure enough," he again muttered; and then, after a pause, he added: “ but two of them are mules, I think; and they are coming right down hitherward." Then he look-3d tohis rifle lock and cocked his ; rece. “ Unless they turn aside when they reach the timber, they will be on me in five minutes; and if they know the forest, they will not turn, that’s certain; for here’s the only place where on can find hard bottom to ride in and out of e old Bravo, for ten miles up and down." He paused from his soliloquy, listened again, and then a smile crept across his intelligent face. self for nothing—they are dragoon horses; I can tell their managed pace; thou rh, what the devrl brings dragoons hither, the evil himself best knows.” Then he hung up his arms as before, again re. moved saddle and bridle from his horse, threw down his pistols and his hatchet on the grass, and, instead of concealin9 mules behind us.” “ Is there so much danger?” “ The country is alive with horse. Ever}, village is in arms, every rancho has turned out its riders; and keen riders they are, I assure you. Why, between us and the fences, and all the way t0ward Encinos. there are not less than a thousand men scattt red about in little hands from six to fifty and upward. Here we are above the Presidio road, and what the devil brought you above it I don’t know, and I am sure you don‘t. I fancy you must have lost you way. You should have gone down as low moms; and so taken the chance of a train and convoy. But it. is no use talk" 1g about it now; for that game’s up.“ “ Why upr” “ Carrcra and five hundred horse are between us and Revilla now, partly on the look-out for your humble servant: I had half a mind to go down and take a look at them, till I met you. If I could get within three hundred yards of the dog, I’d pay him a debt that Brown Bess”—ho smiled griinlv, and tapped the bretch of his rifle—“owes lim.” “And is there no chance of running the gantlet of their parties, and getting through clear!” “None, under heaven! They know that I j have got these dispatches, and fancy that I Too little, in supposing) that there was any if! ea of i about it. The i( to guide or assist a lady in the midst of danger! As to my being able to carry you safely into Taylor’s camp, that’s uite another thin . Ac- cording to him the ol Partisan is wort more than a whole New York regiment—for the last news was that Lally is cut off, and hrs laid down his arms, with all the eleventh, to a horde of these guerrilla. vagabonds. I don’t believe one-half of it, to be sure: but what is true is this. that not a single train has got through safe] in the last four months—no, not the half of a train, though they are convoyed, each by five or six hundred foot, and a company or two of dragoons. Oh! there is he devil to pa , I can tell you. These fellows are ettin eir pluck up, and are beginnin to ht like the deuce under their own lea ers. here’s that follow, the Padre J nrauta, as they call him, will give Uncle Sam more trouble than Santa Anna and the whole lot of his generals. Here today, and a hundred miles off to-morrow. Nothing but horse are worth a cent against them: and we have no horse to speak of, and what we have, for the most part scarce worth the fora of their horses. You ragoon fellows and t e mounted rifles can do our work: but I would not give Jack Hays an one company of his old rangers for all the volunteer horse together. Not one man in ten can sit his horse if it swerves, as they all do when it comes under fire. More saddles are em tied, in every charge, by the fellows tumbling 3 up out of them, than by the bullets of the enemy. It is enough. to make a horse swear to think of the blunderm of the government at home. They seem to thin ; that cavalry are made in fivo minutes, and that the moment they have stuck five or srx hun- hundred country lawyers and village storekeep- ers upon the backs of unbroken and unbitted wagon-horses, they are at once lurse. Why, Heaven save the mark! with the (xrcptioncf artillery alone, there is no arm in the scrv1ce that needs so much training as horse. Give me five thousand good horse, and a battery or two of curricle guns and mountain howitzcrs, and I’ll engage to keep all our communications open far and near; and, till they do so, we shall al- ways be blocked up, as we are. now, and hem- med in with these scoundrels almost in Sight of our outposts.” “ You think, then, that there is great risk?” “I must not deceive on. I do think so. I am just on my return rom 8. Ion scout on my own hook, as they sa , through al this bor- der country, and a gool way inland, too, for I had a notion to find out what was going for- ward where our fellows have not been. 80 I struck northward from Monterey and held to the westward of San Fernando, and Gigedo and Monelova; and then, to the northward o the last, turned easterly so far as Espada, whence I was about to make my way back to Monterey as fast.as Emperor could carry me; for, be- tween ourselves, I have picked up some infor- mation that old Zachar would give one of his ears to have now. an I have captured some dispatches, also. But they must wait it seems, for I am no one’s man now, as I told on, and theycan neither cashier me fo’r disc lance, nor shoot me far deserting—t t is one comfort; and. since such lathe case, w yd u. ‘friuld’ ‘ l1 , Samarium”. t erre Delacroix refusing ; shall trv to fall down upon Mier. But I am no fool. Our only chance is the straight inland road keeping clear of the villages, and travel- ing hereafter, as much as we can b night. I shall be easier when we have got old ravo here between us and the bounds." “ Are they so formidable?” “I can hardly fancy irregular horse more formidable. They are capitally, though slightly mounted—well armed with a lance fourteen feet long, with a sharp steel head of eighteen inches: two escopetas, or 1i ht ounce ball, cam- bines; a long straight swor , a knife and law, with which they can catch You or your horse anywhere they please, both at full gollo . They ride admirably, and fight devilish w Do on call that formidable?” " ther so, I must confess.” “Rather so! I believe you! ~Wh , it was only yesterday morning, eight of t em stole upon me while I was eating my breakfast un- der the lee of a muskeet thicket. Ishot one with my rifle before I backed Em eror, and two with my pistols afterward; an charged through them sword in hand, knocking one head over heels, and cutting another half through the shoulder. But the other three still stuck to me, firing their cursed escopetas—one of them did send a bullet through my hunting. shirt and barked my bridle arm—and, as the ground was deep and boggy, I could not ride away from them; they chased me all of five miles and curse me! lfI dared to see how far off they were from me, for fear of seem a, lance point within a band’s breadth of my Eid— ncys. Faith! I believe they were so close as that to me once. I could not get time to load a weapon; I had put up my sword, to hold the horse together better in the de