A TEXAS RANGER: True Story of the Leander H. Mcnelly's Texas Ranger Company in the Wild Horse Desert. Napoleon Augustus Jennings
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ashes of the campfire to prove it.
“It was along in the winter of ‘69 that I was out huntin’ buffalo with a little hunch-back we called Twisted Charley,” said Criss, telling me the yarn one night, sitting by a campfire near El Paso, Texas. “We were up in the Panhandle, and dead oodles of buffalo grazed around us. We had run across a herd in the afternoon, and killed nineteen between us. Twisted Charley and I were skinnin’ them, and were takin’ off the hides of four or five when the worst norther I ever remember struck us.
“We piled all the wood we could find on the fire, but we couldn’t begin to keep warm, and when night come on it got colder, and colder, and colder, till the coffee, boffin’ in the coffee pot on the fire, had a skim of ice on it that we had to break before we could pour the coffee out.
“Well, a bright idea struck me, and I took one of the green buffalo hides and wrapped myself up in it, and in a minute I was as warm and comfortable as a man could wish to be anywhere. You know there’s nothin’ warmer than a buffalo hide, and this one was extra thick. Charley saw what I had done, and he went and got a hide, too, and wrapped himself up in it. We were not long in fallin’ asleep after that, and I was peacefully dreamin’ about skinnin’ Jacarilla Apache buck Injuns to make moccasins out of, when, all of a sudden, I was woke up by the most awful howlin’ I ever heard.
“I was sure the Injuns were down on us, and I jumped up and grabbed my rifle in a hurry. Then I saw that it was Twisted Charley who was doing the yellin’. I went over to where he lay, wrapped up in the green buffalo hide, and I gave him a kick to wake him up, for I thought, of course, he had a nightmare.
“Help me out, help me out!” he yelled.
“What’s the matter with you?” I asked.
“Don’t you see I’m froze up in this hide and can’t get out?” he howled.
“I took hold of the hide and tried to unroll it, but it was froze ‘round him as hard as boiler-iron. He was warm enough, for he had wrapped himself in it with the hairy side next to him, but he wanted to get out bad.
“I can’t unwrap that hide any way,” I said, after I’d made a trial at it.
“Cut it open,” said Twisted Charley.
“I took my skinning-knife and tried to cut it, but the hide was so hard it turned the knife-edge.
“I’ll have to give it up,” I said, at last.
“What?” yelled Charley. “Man, I can’t stay in this hide forever.”
“You won’t have to,” I says; “This norther’ll blow itself out in three days, and then you’ll thaw out naturally.”
“Thaw me out at the fire,” said Charley,
“That seemed reasonable, and I rolled him over by the fire and began toastin’ first one side and then the other. I thought I’d never get him out; but after awhile, when the hide was actually roasted, I managed to unroll it enough for him to get out. He sat up by the fire the rest of the night, swearin’. He was a beautiful swearer, and the air moderated a whole lot while he was sitiin’ there inventin’ new oaths and lettin’ ‘em out.”
There was one other thing which I did not particularly fancy on that trip to Laredo, and that was the howling of the coyote wolves around our camp at night. Any Texan will tell you that a coyote is the most cowardly and harmless of animals, but his howl is bloodthirsty and horrible at night. It is a shrill, wild, piercing yelp, tapering off to a long, dismal howl. There is something very human in it, and yet it is weird and uncanny and creepy, especially when the one listening to it is a young and inexperienced man, fresh from the quiet of Philadelphia streets. Even when one becomes quite used to it, the howling is anything but soothing to the nerves.
Many a night on that trip I was kept awake for hours by the little wolves around the camp, for I could but believe they would attack us, there seemed such a menace in their howling. The others in the camp, including Mrs. Ross and her baby, paid no attention to the coyotes.
We arrived in Laredo, at night, about ten days after we had started, and found the little town in gala attire. The annual fiesta, or fair, was in progress in Nuevo Laredo, just across the Rio Grande, in Mexico. The Mexicans of both towns had given themselves up to the enjoyment of the holiday season, and only monte, mescal, fandangos, bullfights, and general hilarity were in order. Mescal, by the way, is a liquor made from the century plant, and is about as strong as “moonshine corn whiskey. It has a smoky taste which, to the American palate, is not very agreeable.
When we entered the town that night, the inhabitants were all out of doors and enjoying life to the utmost. At that time Laredo—now an important railroad terminus of twelve or fifteen thousand inhabitants—had about three thousand Mexicans and about forty Americans for its population. Of course, it was “run” by Mexicans. It was on American soil, but in its make-up and system of government there was little or no difference between it and the lesser town of Nuevo Laredo, on the Mexican side of the river. We arrived in town about seven o’clock in the evening and, after a supper of chili con carne and tamales, we crossed the Rio Grande to see what we could of the fiesta.
The market plaza in the Mexican town was given up to the fair. It was filled with booths, and there were enough games of chance and wheels of fortune in operation to stock a dozen county fair race tracks in this country. In a big adobe building on one side of the plaza a great game of monte was in progress. On a long table extending down the middle of the main room in this building were many stacks of Mexican silver dollars. Smaller heaps of half-dollars and quarters were scattered here and there on the table. There were about five thousand silver dollars on the table, and I was told the bank was good for any amount up to fifty thousand dollars.
The dealers sat at intervals around the table, and between them were the players, who crowded around three or four deep. The players wore gayly striped blankets thrown gracefully over their left shoulders. Nearly all wore enormous sombreros, wide of brim and with high peaked crowns, and covered, in many instances, with a wealth of silver or gold lace and embroidery.
Every man in the room was smoking a cornhusk cigarito. I was impressed by the cold-blooded way in which they played the game. Win or lose, they displayed absolutely no emotion. They watched the dealer closely with their keen black eves from under their wide hat brims, as he turned up the cards upon which so much depended; but, no matter whether they became richer or poorer by the turn, they gave no sign of excitement.
One old fellow I watched losing steadily for fully half an hour. He calmly smoked his cigaritos as he continued to stack up his silver dollars, fifty at a time, and he seemed to regard the outcome with utter indifference. He had a well-filled wallet, and time after time he took bills from it, and had them changed by an attendant into silver to bet on the game. Only silver was allowed on the table. After a time, this old man began to win as rapidly as he had lost, but there was no change in his demeanor. He seemed devoid of nerves. He was an ideal gambler, but he was only a type of all the others.
From the fascination of watching others to the excitement of playing was a very little step and I took it. I came out of the room about fifty dollars poorer than I entered it. I had become separated from the Ross brothers, and I started around the plaza to hunt them up. I had not gone far before I found myself surrounded by a crowd of half-drunken Mexicans. They were drinking mescal from a bottle. I attempt to pass on, but one of them caught me by the coatsleeve and detained me. I have no doubt whatever now that he merely wanted hospitably to invite me to take a drink from the bottle, but at that time I did not understand the language, and the blanketed Mexicans looked so villainous that I feared I was about to he assaulted and robbed.
I still had over $200 of the $300 which I had intended to put into the vegetable gardening business with Ross, and when that Mexican caught hold of me and held me, I was frightened. I was so frightened, indeed, that I did a very foolish thing. I roughly broke away from him. He reached to catch me again, and I turned and hit him in the face. Then I ran.
How I escaped from that crowd and away from the plaza has always been a puzzle to