Part 3 (1/2)
SAM. HOUSTON.
After the reading, the deaf man waited a few seconds, as if for a reply, and then turned and was about to leave the hall, when Colonel Morton, interposed, and sternly beckoned him back to the table. The stranger obeyed, and Morton wrote: ”You were brave enough to insult me by your threatening looks ten minutes ago; are you brave enough now to give me satisfaction?”
The stranger penned his reply: ”I am at your service!”
Morton wrote again: ”Who will be your second?”
The stranger rejoined: ”I am too generous to seek an advantage; and too brave to fear any on part of others; therefore, I never need the aid of a second.”
Morton penned: ”Name your terms.”
The stranger traced, without a moment's hesitation: ”Time, sunset this evening; place, the left bank of the Colorado, opposite Austin; weapons, rifles; and distance, a hundred yards. Do not fail to be in time!”
He then took three steps across the floor, and disappeared through the window, as he had entered.
”What?” exclaimed Judge Webb, ”is it possible Colonel Morton, that you intend to fight that man? He is a mute, if not a positive maniac. Such a meeting, I fear, will sadly tarnish the l.u.s.ter of your laurels.”
”You are mistaken,” replied Morton, with a smile; ”that mute is a hero whose fame stands in the records of a dozen battles, and at least half as many b.l.o.o.d.y duels. Besides, he is the favorite emissary and bosom friend of Houston. If I have the good fortune to kill him, I think it will tempt the president to retract his vow against venturing any more on the field of honor.”
”You know the man, then. Who is he? Who is he?” asked twenty voices together.
”Deaf Smith,” answered Morton, coolly.
”Why, no; that can not be. Deaf Smith was slain at San Jacinto,”
remarked Judge Webb.
”There, again, your honor is mistaken,” said Morton. ”The story of Smith's death was a mere fiction, got up by Houston to save the life of his favorite from the sworn vengeance of certain Texans, on whose conduct he had acted as a spy. I fathomed the artifice twelve months since.”
”If what you say be true, you are a madman yourself!” exclaimed Webb.
”Deaf Smith was was never known to miss his mark. He has often brought down ravens in their most rapid flight, and killed Camanches and Mexicans at a distance of of two hundred and fifty yards!”
”Say no more,” answered Colonel Morton, in tones of deep determination; ”the thing is already settled. I have already agreed to meet him. There can be no disgrace in falling before such a shot, and, if I succeed, my triumph will confer the greater glory!”
Such was the general habit of thought and feeling prevalent throughout Texas at that period.
Toward evening a vast crowd a.s.sembled at the place appointed to witness the hostile meeting; and so great was the popular recklessness as to affairs of the sort, that numerous and considerable sums were wagered on the result. At length the red orb of the summer sun touched the curved rim of the western horizon, covering it all with crimson and gold, and filling the air with a flood of burning glory; and then the two mortal antagonists, armed with long, ponderous rifles, took their stations, back to back, and at a preconcerted signal--the waving of a white handkerchief--walked slowly and steadily off, in opposite directions, counting their steps until each had measured fifty. They both completed the given number about the same instant, and then they wheeled, each to aim and fire when he chose. As the distance was great, both paused for some seconds--long enough for the beholders to flash their eyes from one to the other, and mark the striking contrast betwixt them. The face of Colonel Morton was calm and smiling; but the smile it bore had a most murderous meaning. On the contrary, the countenance of Deaf Smith was stern and pa.s.sionless as ever. A side view of his features might have been mistaken for a profile done in cast iron. The one, too, was dressed in the richest cloth; the other in smoke-tinted leather. But that made no difference in Texas then; for the heirs of heroic courage were all considered peers--the cla.s.s of inferiors embraced none but cowards.
Presently two rifles exploded with simultaneous roars. Colonel Morton gave a prodigious bound upward, and dropped to the earth a corpse! Deaf Smith stood erect, and immediately began to reload his rifle; and then, having finished his brief task, he hastened away into the adjacent forest.
Three days afterward, General Houston, accompanied by Deaf Smith and ten other men, appeared in Austin, and, without further opposition, removed the state papers.
The history of the hero of the foregoing anecdote was one of the most extraordinary ever known in the West. He made his advent in Texas at an early period, and continued to reside there until his death, which happened some two years ago; but, although he had many warm personal friends, no one could ever ascertain either the land of his birth, or a single gleam of his previous biography. When he was questioned on the subject, he laid his finger on his lip; and if pressed more urgently, his brow writhed, and his dark eye seemed to shoot sparks of livid fire!
He could write with astonis.h.i.+ng correctness and facility, considering his situation; and, although denied the exquisite pleasure and priceless advantages of the sense of hearing, nature had given him ample compensation, by an eye, quick and far-seeing as an eagle's; and a smell, keen and incredible as that of a raven. He could discover objects moving miles away in the far-off prairie, when others could perceive nothing but earth and sky; and the rangers used to declare that he could catch the scent of a Mexican or Indian at as great a distance as a buzzard could distinguish the odor of a dead carca.s.s.
It was these qualities which fitted him so well for a spy, in which capacity he rendered invaluable services to Houston's army during the war of independence. He always went alone, and generally obtained the information desired. His habits in private life were equally singular.
He could never be persuaded to sleep under the roof of a house, or even to use a tent-cloth. Wrapped in his blanket, he loved to lie out in the open air, under the blue canopy of pure ether, and count the stars, or gaze, with a yearning look, at the melancholy moon. When not employed as a spy or guide, he subsisted by hunting, being often absent on solitary excursions for weeks and even months together, in the wilderness. He was a genuine son of nature, a grown up child of the woods and prairie, which he wors.h.i.+ped with a sort of Pagan adoration. Excluded by his infirmities from cordial fellows.h.i.+p with his kind, he made the inanimate things of the earth his friends, and entered, by the heart's own adoption, into brotherhood with the luminaries of heaven! Wherever there was land or water, barren rocks or tangled brakes of wild, waving cane, there was Deaf Smith's home, and there he was happy; but in the streets of great cities, in all the great thoroughfares of men, wherever there was flattery or fawning, base cunning or craven fear, there was Deaf Smith an alien and an exile.
Strange soul! he hath departed on the long journey, away among those high, bright stars, which were his night-lamps; and he hath either solved or ceased to ponder the deep mystery of the magic word, ”life.”