Part 12

From Louisville Davy left for Mills’ Point with his “trunk, gun-case, old lady’s pitcher [a present for his wife], and all,” and on July 22d found his son William waiting for him with a team. After a rough drive of thirty-five miles, a glimpse of waving corn gleamed through the scattered pines, and like a voice from the other world rang the cry of the bear-hunter through the wilderness. The scarred and sorrowful hounds about the cabin leaped to their feet as they caught the welcome sound, and with baying that gave the bears of the “harricane” an uneasy quarter of an hour, the gaunt pack rushed to meet the master they loved so well. At his own door there was the joyful reunion to which, in the midst of civic honors and the luxuries of civilization, Davy had looked forward with unsuppressed longing. As the family and the neighbors crowded about him, he placed upon a rude mantel the china pitcher for his wife, and took from its leather case the splendid rifle given him in Philadelphia. There was joy and wonder in plenty for all. His suit of broadcloth was touched with something like awe and reverence by those who had worn homespun all their lives.

When the neighbors came together, from time to time, Davy heard the stories of some who were just from the Texas border, or from that unquiet land itself. There were twenty thousand Americans already there, sullen with wrath against the officials of the dual government of Texas and Coahuila who enforced harsh orders and arbitrary laws by means of renegades and ignorant natives in gaudy uniforms. No man like Stephen F. Austin could endure the sight of these rude and often bloodthirsty creatures. The man in a hunting coat became the natural enemy of the officer with gorgeous epaulets and dirty linen, who relied upon the glitter of a clumsy blade to overawe the keen-eyed riflemen from Kentucky and Tennessee. Such matters as these, frequently discussed, awoke in the hunters of the Obion a longing to free their friends and relatives from Mexican rule. The question of Mexico’s right to rule was not considered. The thirteen colonies had grown too great for the mother tree, and, taking new root in the land of their choice, had severed in the whirlwind passions of rebellion the ligaments that hampered both. There was at the bottom of the discontent in Texas the working of the old, invincible law, the “simple plan,”

“That they should take who have the power, And they should keep who can.”

In the summer of this year the people of Vicksburg rose against the gamblers, thieves, and slave-stealers that had become as fierce and daring as the fabled vampires of the Persian vales. Some they hanged, some they told to “stand not upon the order of their going,” while others without warning had taken a wise departure, heading toward the unsettled frontiers, especially Texas, as havens of refuge and fields for future operations. Side by side with sturdy settlers, seeking homes on Texas soil in defiance of Santa Anna’s edict, went the wandering pirates of Barataria Bay and Galveston Island, followers of Lafitte. They scented battle afar off, and added fuel to the beacon-fires of revolution that blazed along the Rio Grande.

When the time came for his return to Washington, Davy left for that city with regret that he could not try the new rifle along the banks of the Obion. He entrusted his political affairs to his friends, and went back to oppose Jackson, regardless of the consequences, which he had no idea would ever become serious.

Before Davy had left Nashville there came stirring news from Texas: a meeting of men favoring open rebellion had taken place at San Antonio in October, and Santa Anna had practically suspended the protection of civil government. The message of the President to Congress made but slight allusion to this state of affairs, but the interests of the South, seeking more slave territory, were in line with the friends of liberty, and the prospect of a war beyond the borders grew more imminent every day. Davy kept his ear to the ground and watched the progress of events with anxiety.

After the same old round of wasted time, bitter speeches, and scant accomplishment, Congress adjourned, and Davy returned home by the old trail over the mountains.

It was in June that he went down the western slopes of the range, through a wild waste of trees and flowers. In the cold coves the laurel still glowed; the lady’s slipper, least of all the orchid sisterhood, swung beside the way; the Indian pine gleamed like a ghostly memory of departed tribes:

“The violets were past their prime, Yet their departing breath Was sweeter, in the blast of death, Than all the fragrance of the time.”

They were the same birds, it seemed, that flew like bits of flame across his boyhood paths. The bluebird and the yellow warbler still rivalled the scarlet tanager in their splendid liveries, while the thrush, the cat-bird, and the riotous mocking-bird filled the wilderness with a flood of melodies. Past the tumbling cabin at the Limestone’s mouth, past the gentle confluence of the now tame Cove Creek with the Nolichucky, standing at last near the shaky tavern from which his father and mother had gone to their quiet graves, he longed for the sweet perplexities of his childhood as one longs for a drink from the far-away mossy spring where the luscious berries grew, and the arbutus dropped fragrant petals to its edge. He would have rejoiced if the dear ones who had gone to rest might have known of the honors that had come to their barefoot boy. He was nearing fifty years, now, and realized that all men wish to live long lives, yet would not grow old. Already the contest for reëlection had begun in his district. He was confident, with yet a trace of the doubt that always precedes the unattained. He looked in mute farewell at the old scenes, and went his way.

The political campaign was beginning to seethe with excitement. In the Eastern States some considerations of decency prevented utter recklessness in political warfare, but in a State which had not yet outgrown the knife and pistol methods of meeting slander, the owner of a paper had no idea of hanging for a lamb, when he might easily take a sheep. The choicest billingsgate and the most ingenious lying, emanating from all parts of a candidate’s district at once, made fighting the slanderers almost too big a contract for one man. But the rifle was always carried, or a pair of clumsy pistols ready, and license of speech was thereby restricted in public. At one of the meetings Davy was asked why all the Congressmen were not given rifles like his. He answered that he got the gun for being honest and supporting his country, instead of “bowing down and worshipping an idol”――the idol, of course, being Andrew Jackson. The big fellow who was thus answered replied with a rather incredulous air that the statement was pretty strong. “No stronger than true,” was the quick response, as each man went his way. In everything Davy seems to have been certain that he was right. In his simple faith, he thought himself sure of the support of all honest men, forgetting that even honest men may “see through a glass darkly,” and differ much.

XX.

OFF FOR TEXAS

Davy is defeated for Congress――Another scalp for Old Hickory――Davy’s defeat is a crushing blow――He decides to go to Texas――Takes a sad leave of his family and sets forth in hunting suit with “Betsy” over his shoulder――On board the _Mediterranean_ to Helena――The eighty thousand dollar fund, of which Bowie, Fannin, Travis, and Crockett are named as trustees――More about Texas affairs――Davy starts from Little Rock for Fulton, on the way to San Antonio――The travelling parson and the Washita――Davy’s faith in God――Meets with Thimblerig, the gambler――The gambler enlists with Colonel Crockett.

“I begin this chapter,” says Davy’s account of the campaign, “at home, in Weakley County. I have just returned from a two weeks’ electioneering canvass, and I have spoken every day to large concourses of people, with my competitor. I have him badly plagued, for he does not know as much about the ‘Government,’ the deposites [referring to the United States Bank], and the Little Flying Dutchman [Van Buren], as I can tell the people; and at times he is as much bothered as a fly in a tar-pot to get out of the mess. His name is Adam Huntsman; he lost a leg in an Indian fight, they say, during the last war, and the Government run him on account of his military services. I tell him in my speech that I have great hopes of writing one more book, and that shall be the second fall of Adam, for he is on the Eve of an Almighty thrashing. He relishes the joke about as much as a doctor does his own physic. I handle the administration without gloves, and I do believe I will double my competitor, if I have a fair shake, and he does not work like a mole in the dark. Jacksonism is dying here faster than it ever sprung up, and I predict that ‘The Government’ will be the most unpopular man, in one year more, that ever had any pretensions to the high place he now fills. Four weeks from to-morrow will end the dispute in our elections, and if old Adam is not beaten out of his hunting-shirt, my name isn’t Crockett.”

This was Davy’s state of mind in July, 1835. The election took place about the 1st of August, and he had yet to learn that many of the fair words received, and many of the promises, were of no more value, to use his own words, “than a flash in the pan when you have a good shot at a fat bear.”

Under the special directions of Andrew Jackson, every means of beating Davy Crockett was put in practice. Copies of the _Globe_, franked by his opponents, accused Davy of collecting excess mileage, of being a traitor to the interests of his State, of fawning upon the aristocrats of the Eastern States, of everything that could be urged against him. When the die was cast, he writes, in the gloom of defeat, these words:

“August 11, 1835. I am now at home in Weakley County. My canvass is over, and the result is known. Contrary to all expectations, I am beaten two hundred and thirty votes, from the best information I can get; and in this instance, I may say, bad is the best.... I have been told by good men that some of the managers of the Union Bank [at Jackson] were heard to say, on the day of election, that they would give twenty-five dollars a vote for enough votes to elect Mr. Huntsman. This is a pretty good price for a vote, and in ordinary times a round dozen might be got for the money.

“As my country no longer requires my services, I have made up my mind to go to Texas. My life has been one of danger, toil, and privation, but these difficulties I had to encounter at a time when I considered it nothing more than right good sport to surmount them. Now I start anew upon my own hook, and God only grant that it may be strong enough to support the weight hung upon it. I have a new row to hoe, a long and rough one, but, come what will, I’ll _go ahead_!”

At a general meeting in his district Davy spoke for the last time to the voters of western Tennessee. Recounting his services, and the unfair methods by which he thought himself to have been beaten, he made a pretty strong talk, and concluded by saying that he could not think it a fair fight; but that he was done with politics for the present, and that he was going to Texas.

In all stories of Davy’s life, the poem said to have been written by himself, on the eve of his departure for Texas, is given a prominent place. In his own story he says that it was as “zigzag as a worm fence” when first written, but was overhauled by one Peleg Longfellow, who could hardly have been a relative of H. W. Longfellow. After this and much lopping of some lines and stretching out of others, Davy says he wished he might be shot if wasn’t worse than ever. This is the concluding verse of the poem:

“Farewell to my country! I fought for thee well, When the savage rushed forth like the demons of hell. In peace or in war I have stood by thy side. My country, for thee I have lived――would have died! But I am cast off, my career is now run, And I wander abroad like a prodigal son. Where the wild savage roves, and the broad prairies spread, The fallen――despised――will again――Go Ahead!”

Having now determined to “cut out and quit the States until honest men should have a chance to work their way to the head of the heap,” Davy said good-by to his friends and his family, and started for Mills’ Point, to take a boat down the river.

“The thermometer stood somewhat below freezing point,” he says, “as I left my wife and children; still there was some thawing about the eyelids, a thing that had not happened since I ran away from my father’s house when a thoughtless, vagabond boy. I dressed myself in a clean hunting-shirt, put on a new fox-skin cap with the tail hanging behind, took hold of my rifle ‘Betsy,’ which all the world knows was presented to me by the patriots of Philadelphia, and, thus equipped, started off to go ahead in a new world.”

It appears that up to this time Davy’s account of his life had been taken down by the editor of his book or an assistant. From time to time more was added, evidently from notes or messages sent from the frontier. Manifestos signed by Davy Crockett bear no trace of his style, nor do the concluding chapters of his book, which he never saw completed. Whoever helped the rounding out of his narrative could easily have followed Davy in his wanderings, and it must be taken for granted that this was done. All through the book there is a random way of telling the story, but in no case, after careful study, does there appear any discrepancy.

When Davy boarded the steamer _Mediterranean_ at the Point, he was welcomed by many prominent men on the way to Arkansas and Texas. The steamboat was one of the finest on the river, and before her gangway was aboard, and the slowly turning paddle-wheels had sent the surging waves against the muddy banks, Davy was the centre of a group of bankers, soldiers, Indian-fighters, gamblers, speculators, and all that then made the river their highway. They were interested in the future of Texas, and were determined to make it free of Mexican rule. In the spectacular figure of the famous scout, bear-hunter, and Congressman, they saw a new ideal. Such a history as his was rare to their experiences. They knew he might be relied upon for courage and honesty. When the _Mediterranean_ tied up at Helena, in a storm, a subscription of eighty thousand dollars for the Texan cause was made up on board. Davy Crockett, James Bowie, Colonel Hawkins, Captain Travis, and Captain Fannin were made trustees of this fund. Every one of these names is blazoned upon the Texan scroll of fame. The money was paid in, put in charge of John Slidell, Governor White, and S. S. Prentiss, and was all used in freeing Texas from Mexico.

Davy is said to have gone to New Orleans, and is known to have visited Natchez, stirring up the more peaceable to active interest in the affairs of the Americans threatened by the new attitude of the Mexican Government. For three years all Mexican troops had been kept out of Texas; the latest news told of the coming of General Cos with a strong force, and the garrisoning of San Antonio by several hundred Mexican soldiers, selected, by orders from Santa Anna, from the lowest classes, men who were ever ready to cut throats, plunder, or insult the colonists. With the money subscribed, the gathering of supplies for the “inevitable conflict” went rapidly forward. The return of Stephen F. Austin, after eight months’ captivity in Mexican prisons, brought a new force into the field. The Americans cast bullets, looked to their priming, and built adobe forts under pretense of building homes. The slow ferment of racial hatred, the antipathies of men who worshipped God in different ways or not at all, the cherishing of the memories of murderous deeds on both sides, grew slowly into a flood of passion, fed by every heart-throb day and night.

After various journeys along and about the Red River, Davy started for the front, where the old city of San Antonio de Bejar stood forever the centre of bloody tragedies and bitter strife. After being entertained in true Western style at Little Rock, he set forth for Fulton, one hundred and twenty miles across country. The citizens had given him a horse and saddle, and the company of four or five men, bound for Washita River, gave the party the appearance of a band of scouts. After a ride of fifty miles they drew near the river, when sounds of music were heard. “Hail Columbia” rolled across the fringe of alders along the banks, but when they raised their voices in a cheer the playing stopped, to again break into that old sad song of vanished hopes, “Over the Water to Charlie.” Putting spurs to their tired horses, they came to the river’s edge, to look upon the spectacle of a travelling parson whom they had seen at Little Rock, sitting in a sulky in the middle of the swirling stream. His horse could barely keep his feet, and yet the parson played with a composure that told of his faith in a higher power. He had fiddled for more than an hour, not daring to turn or venture on, and when he was rescued by Davy’s company he was about used up.

From this point Davy went on towards Fulton with the preacher, as far as Greenville. As they rode along, the old parson spoke so warmly of the bountiful works of Providence that his faith was imparted to his companion. “We were alone in the wilderness,” wrote Davy, “but all things told me that God was there. The thought renewed my strength and courage. I had left my country; felt somewhat like an outcast; but now I was conscious that there was One still watching over me. My soul leaped with joy at the thought: I never felt so grateful in all my life; I never before loved God so sincerely. I felt that I still had a friend.”

There are some that will sneer at Davy’s confession of his faith and love, forgetting that the wandering outcast, even the worst of men, looks out sometimes from the darkest depths to the long-remembered sweetness of a mother’s smile. “How sharp the point of this remembrance is!” The careless or the hardened shrink from tender memories, but sometimes, in the moment of evil impulse or of passion’s sway, their hands by these are stayed from wickedness. In such a heart as Davy Crockett’s there will always burn the reverential fires that keep the soul alight.

At Fulton Davy took passage on a steamboat for Natchitoches, in Louisiana. As the boat puffed its way down the writhing channel of the Red River, he noticed a small cluster of passengers intent upon something that seemed to be very amusing. “I drew nigh to the cluster,” he says, “and, seated on a chest, was a tall, lank sea-sarpent-looking blackleg, who was interesting the passengers by his skill at thimble-rig [the shell game]; at the same time he was picking up their shillings just as fast as a hungry gobbler would a pint of corn.”

Noticing Davy’s interest in his actions, the gambler finally urged him to make a bet; whereupon Davy, knowing the trick, named the thimble under which the pea was resting, but insisted upon lifting it himself. The pea was there, and the gambler was obliged to treat the crowd about him. After the laugh was over, “poor Thimblerig,” as Davy calls him, had to forego his game, and soon came and started a conversation with the man who had outwitted him. He seemed to be a good-natured, intelligent sort of fellow, “with a keen eye to the main chance.” “He belonged to that numerous class,” says Davy, “that you can trust as far as you can sling a bull by the tail, and no farther. All the time he was talking to me he was seated on a chest, playing mechanically with his pea and thimbles, as if he was afraid he would lose his sleight-of-hand.”

At Natchitoches, the gambler, deploring his past and the hopelessness of his leading an honest life, was told by Davy that if he could not really lead the life of an honest man, the next best thing was to die like a brave one.

“Most men are remembered as they died,” said Davy “and not as they lived.”

“You are right; but how is this to be done?”

“Come with me to Texas; cut aloof from your degrading habits and associates, and in fighting for freedom, regain your own.”

The gambler started from the table at which he was sitting, seized Davy’s hand, and exclaimed, with kindling eyes, “I will be a man again, and live honestly or die bravely. I will go with you to Texas.” In this way was Thimblerig enlisted. His real name is not known.

XXI.

THE BEE-HUNTER

At Natchitoches: forty bushels of frogs to the acre――The Bee-Hunter casts his lot with Colonel Crockett and Thimblerig――The welcome at Nacogdoches――Davy’s parting speech――The Bee-Hunter says farewell to Kate――The journey to the Rio Trinidad――Encounter with the Pirate and the Indian Hunter――They also enlist with the Colonel――Chasing the buffalo, and separation of the party――Davy and the mountain lion――The spectacle of Halley’s comet――A party of Comanches surround Thimblerig――The party reunited――Encounter with Mexicans――In sight of the Alamo――The welcome at San Antonio.

The next morning, after an early walk along the lowlands of the river, which were said to produce each year forty bushels of frogs to the acre, with alligators enough for fences, Davy was standing in front of the village inn, when he heard a clear and musical voice break into song. Drawing near to the singer, he saw him to be a young man of about twenty-two, of light and graceful figure, indicating strength and activity. He was dressed in a hunting-shirt, tastily ornamented with fringe. A highly-finished rifle was in his hand, and a hunting-pouch, covered with Indian ornaments, was slung across his shoulders. His clean shirt-collar was open, secured only by a black riband around his neck. The young man’s face was a handsome, bright, and manly one. From his eyes to his breast he was sunburnt as dark as mahogany, while the upper part of his high forehead was as white and as polished as marble. Thick clusters of curly hair showed under his cap.

When the young man saw Davy, he called him by name, and said that he had come to meet him, for the purpose of going with him to Texas. He was a bee-hunter, and knew the trails that the Spanish had dignified with the name of roads. As soon as they could get a horse for Thimblerig, the three men started for Nacogdoches, in Texas, where the first troubles had begun. The Bee-Hunter proved a cheerful companion and an experienced guide, and after a journey of one hundred and twenty miles they came in sight of Nacogdoches, then a straggling settlement of one thousand people. From afar they saw the tri-color, two-starred flag of Texas and Coahuila, at the top of a high pole, and when nearer heard the sound of fife and drum, in honor of Crockett’s arrival. The day was spent in hearing the news, procuring supplies, and writing letters, and at a late hour they were ready for an early start for San Antonio, two hundred miles distant.

What they had heard was enough to stir their blood. The capture of General Cos and his Mexicans by General Burleson, the surrender of the Alamo, and the clearing from Texas soil of the last Mexican soldier, presaged an easy road to Texan freedom. But the danger of an invasion by another and larger Mexican army was not unlikely.

Before going to bed, Crockett surprised Thimblerig, busy with his thimbles and the elusive pea, in the midst of a dozen men. At the sight of his new friend, the crestfallen gambler hustled his apparatus out of sight.