The Guerilla Chief, and Other Tales

As to be expected, the birds whirred upward into the air; but not all together. Neither did they fly in one direction. They had been somewhat scattered over the pasture; and the suddenness of our onslaught caused a still further separation of their cohorts, which flew off in bands of two and three together, taking different directions – some of them, being, perhaps, more scared than the rest, going away alone.

The hunters, as if taking their cue from this sudden distribution of the game, became separated in like manner – the hounds also scattering into couples as the chase proceeded.

For an instant or two I was nonplussed: not knowing which party to follow; but, seeing what I believed to be the biggest gobbler of the gang flying over the pecan copse in a backward direction, and reckoning from his ponderous appearance that his flight would not be a protracted one, I wheeled my horse, and galloped under and after him.

There were none of the dogs going my way; but I had been told that this was of no great importance. A good horse will easily run down this sort of game; and the hounds are only useful when it comes to the finale of the chase, and the turkey is to be “grupped.” Then the dismounted horseman is in danger of losing his bird, by the latter taking a foul start, and so escaping him.

Determined, should I succeed in running down my turkey, to take precautions against this, I lanced my horse’s flanks and rode on.

Unfortunately, it was not my own horse’s flanks I was lacerating, or the chase would not have continued so long. To save my precious steed, I was astride of a horse furnished to me by my host – a stout Mexican mustang, which, although by no means an indifferent mount, was nothing to the splendid Arab I had left in contiguity with the maize-trough of the planter.

I urged the animal forward with all the speed that lay in his lithe sinewy limbs; and after less than a half-mile made over the verdant turf of the prairie, I had the satisfaction to see the gobbler drop suddenly down upon the grass, and continue his flight upon his long red legs.

I was scarcely three hundred yards behind him, as he touched the ground. This the mustang soon reduced to a tenth part of the distance; when the old cock, perceiving himself in danger of being caught, once more whirred up towards the sky.

This second “spring” did not exceed a couple of hundred paces; and his coming down so soon convinced me, that the “balance” of the pursuit would be a trial between the legs of the turkey and the limbs of the mustang.

This conviction turned out to be well founded; and on we went over the prairie, with all the speed that bird and beast were capable of commanding.

For the first half-mile or so I saw that I was gaining upon the gobbler – not rapidly; for the mustang, though tough, was far from being a fast one. He promised bottom, however; and I was indulging in high hopes that in time I should overtake the turkey, and carry him back a prize, a triumph in the eyes of my hunting companions.

All at once this agreeable prospect began to appear doubtful. Although I continued to press the mustang, both with spurs and voice, I still perceived that the distance between me and the turkey was gradually growing greater, instead of less!

Surely the horse had not slackened his speed? I had guarded against that. The gobbler, then, must have quickened his.

What was the explanation?

I soon discovered it. I saw that the chase was carrying me up a hill.

A sharp ridge trended across the prairie, transversely to the line of the pursuit. Both pursued and pursuer had parted from the level plain, and were now gliding up the acclivity.

I knew the meaning of this. I remembered a chapter of my ornithology, studied among the pine barrens of Tennessee, where I had observed a turkey-gobbler distance the hounds against the steep slope of a ridge; and do it with perfect ease. I knew that the bird, aided by its extended wings, could run against the hill with almost double the speed of either dog or horse; and that was the reason why my mustang was falling so far into the rear.

I kept on; but only to have my chagrin increased, by seeing the gobbler go much faster than myself.

He reached the crest of the ridge before my little steed, badly blown, had got half up its sloping side!

I was about to give up the chase in despair. The distance separating me from the turkey was at least two hundred yards; and I fancied that the mustang, winded as he was, might be hurt in trying to overtake it. I did not desire to damage my reputation by “riding a free horse to death.”

While thus hesitating, I was astonished by observing an unexpected circumstance. The turkey had reached the summit of the ridge, and was so conspicuously outlined against the blue background of the sky, that I could see it from head to heel. While admiring the outlines of the magnificent bird, I saw its wings all at once cease from their flapping, and drop down by its sides, while, at the same instant, the action of its limbs became suspended, and, as if having spent its last effort of strength, it tumbled over on the turf.

“Good!” thought I, “I’ve run it down, after all! What a fool I was to think of discontinuing the chase! There’s nothing more to do but to ride up and take possession of it.”

Lest the bird might recover breath, and make a new start, I once more drove my spurs into the sides of the mustang, and galloped up to the crest of the ridge.

I need not have been in such hot haste: for on getting near enough to the gobbler to be able to judge of his condition, I saw that he was dead!

“’Twas the pace that killed him!” I muttered to myself, gleefully adapting the old saw to the circumstance which was giving me so much gratification.

I lost no time in dismounting from my horse, with the design of taking possession of my prize.

As I approached the fallen gobbler, I stopped short to contemplate him.

A splendid creature he appeared, even in death. His plumage still gleamed with the iridescent hues of life – just as at sunrise of that morning, when he had strutted his short hour over the prairie turf before the eyes of his coquettish female companions.

I was still occupied in this post-mortem examination, when I perceived that there was blood upon the beak of the bird – a tiny stream oozing out between its mandibles.

I was somewhat astonished by this singular circumstance – the effect of a simple chase. But I was a hundredfold more surprised on perceiving the true cause of the sanguinary extravasation, when I saw the feathered end of an arrow protruding out from under the wing-coverts of the turkey.

I had scarcely time to reflect on this singular appearance, when I heard a “swishing” noise in the air above me.

I looked up. A looped cord was descending over my head, which the instant after had settled upon my shoulders. At the same instant a wild yelling filled my ears; and I saw running towards me a score of human forms, whose naked, bronze-coloured skins, clouted thighs, and vermillion faces, proclaimed them to be Indians.

I perceived at once that I had fallen into the hands of a party of Comanches – on the war-trail, too – as their scant dress and painted faces proclaimed.

They had been bivouacking on the other side of the ridge; and seeing only the turkey as it came upon the crest, some one of them had taken advantage of the pause which the bird had made on perceiving them, and sent an arrow into its side.

When I said just now that I had fallen into their hands, I spoke figuratively. It had not gone quite so far as that; though, had I been without the bowie-knife habitually carried in my belt, such most certainly would have been my fate – and I should, perhaps, never have had an opportunity of recording this adventure.

But the keen blade proved my preserver. In an instant it was out of its sheath; and the lazzo that had fallen over my shoulders – and in another second of time would have entangled my arms – lay, with its loop cut open, idly trailing upon the grass.

I never took to the saddle with greater celerity; and if my mustang had been allowed to lag a little while ascending that prairie slope, he made amends for the delay in going down again.

He needed neither voice nor spur to urge him to his utmost speed. The sight of the Indians, to say nothing of their wild yelling – well understood, and dreaded, by the mustang – had given him an impetus that carried him across the plain like a streak of lightning.

Fortunately, the Indians were afoot, and I was not followed; but this knowledge did not hinder me from continuing my gallop until I had retraced the ground gone over in the turkey chase, and rejoined my friends – still engaged with the gobblers they had pursued in the opposite direction.

My report caused a sudden suspension of their sports – succeeded by a quick ride straight homeward.

By good fortune, a brace of the birds had been already secured, to grace the dinner-table on the following day, and upon which they appeared, their flavour not a little heightened by the spice of adventure that had come so near preventing their capture.

Story 6

Trapped in a Tree

Among the many queer characters I have encountered in the shadow of the forest, or the sunshine of the prairie, I can remember none queerer, or more original, than Zebulon Stump – “Old Zeb Stump,” as he was familiarly known among his acquaintances.

“Kaintuck by birth and raisin’,” as he used to describe himself, he was a hunter of the pure Daniel Boone breed. The chase was his sole railing; and he would have indignantly scouted the suggestion, that he ever followed it for mere amusement.

Though by no means of uncongenial disposition, he affected to hold all amateur hunters in a kind of lordly contempt; and his conversation with such was always of a condescending character. For all this, he was not averse to their company; especially that of the young gentlemen of the neighbourhood who chanced to be honoured with his acquaintance.

Being myself one of those who could lay claim to this privilege, I oft-times availed myself of it; and many of my hunting excursions were made in the companionship of Old Zeb Stump. He was, in truth, my guide and instructor, as well as companion; and initiated me into many mysteries of American woodcraft, in which I was at that time but little skilled.

To me one of the most insoluble of these mysteries was that of Old Zeb’s own existence; and I was acquainted with him for a considerable time before I could unravel the clue to it. He stood six feet in boots, fabricated out of the tanned skin of an alligator – into the ample tops of which were crowded the legs of a pair of coarse “copperas” trowsers; while the only other garments upon his body were a doeskin shirt, and a “blanket-coat” that had once been green, but, like the leaves of the autumnal forest, had become changed to a sere and yellowish hue. A slouch “felt” shaded his cheeks from the sun; though for this purpose it was not often needed: since it was only upon very rare occasions that Old Zeb strayed beyond the shadows of the “Timber.”

Where he lived, and how he supported himself, were to me the two points that chiefly required clearing up. In the tract of virgin forest, where I was in the habit of meeting him by appointment, there was neither house nor hut. So said the people of Grand Gulf (a small town upon the Mississippi in which I was sojourning). And yet Old Zeb had told me that in this forest region was his home.

It was only after our acquaintance had ripened into a strong feeling of fellowship, that I became his guest; and had the pleasure of spending an hour under his humble roof.