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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ferryboat which was punted across the river between the two republics. Behind me, I knew there was a crowd of irate Mexicans, bent on capturing me, and wreaking vengeance for the insult I had put upon their companion and countryman. I flew on the wings of fear, for I doubted not that my fate would be sealed if they caught me. Suddenly, to my great horror, I felt myself caught around one arm by such a powerful hand that my progress was instantly arrested, and I was swung about as though I were on a pivot. Before I realized what had happened I heard a drawling voice say:
“You seem to be in a hurry, friend; where are you bound for?”
My captor was a superb looking fellow. He was over six feet in height, and built like an athlete. His handsome, manly face was smiling good-naturedly. His mouth was hidden by an enormous drooping light mustache, but his blue eyes twinkled in evident enjoyment of my discomfiture.
He wore a big, wide-brimmed white felt hat and a richly embroidered buckskin Mexican jacket, and he was puffing a cigarito.
“Let me go! Let me go!” I cried. “A crowd of Mexicans are after me, and if they catch me, they’ll kill me.”
“What do they want you for?” he asked, in his drawling amused tone.
“I hit one of them; and—”
“Oh, well, I reckon we can stand ‘em off,” he said. “Here take this gun, an’ use it.”
As he spoke he handed me a six-shooter. By this time the advance runners of my pursuers had nearly reached the spot where we stood, under the flaring lamp in front of a saloon. My new friend whipped out the mate to the revolver he had given me, and fired straight at the rapidly approaching men. They turned, instantly, and ran the other way. I think they went a little faster than they had come. Then the big man, who had so strangely come to my rescue, smiled again in his quiet way, and, putting up his six-shooters, said:
“Come in and have a drink; it’ll do you good.”
“Hadn’t I better get over to Texas?” I inquired, anxiously; “those Mexicans may come back here at any moment.”
“Oh, I guess they ain’t in any hurry to come back, yet awhile,” he answered. “If they do, we can have some more fun with ‘em.”
So I went into the saloon with him and took a drink of the vilest whiskey that ever passed my lips. I got away as soon as I could, and reached the ferry and the Texas side of the river without further adventure. Not, however, until I reached Ross’ wagon, which he had put in a wagon yard, did I feel quite safe.
The name of my friend in need was Thompson—Bill Thompson. He was a brother of the notorious Ben Thompson, the desperado marshal of Austin, Texas, who, with King Fisher, another desperado, was killed in San Antonio one night by William H. Simms, whom they attacked. But I shall tell their story further on. Bill Thompson, at the time he helped me, was a fugitive from justice, charged with killing a man in Kansas. There was a reward on his head of $500. In another place I shall also tell how, as a Texas Ranger, I was able to repay Bill Thompson for what he did for me that night.
Chapter III
I Become a Quartermaster's Clerk for a Brief Season— United States Commissioner Peterson—His Duelling and Other Traits—Arrested by Mexicans—The Tables Turned — Peterson's Revenge — Mexicans Charged with Smuggling—Heavy Bail Required— General Exodus of Mexicans.
John Ross met with many disappointments in Laredo in his attempt to start a market-garden, and in the end gave it up. In the meantime my money was used up, and when at last we found the scheme was a failure, I was down to my last ten dollars. I saw that I should have to look about for some way in which to make a living, and the outlook in that town of Mexicans was not bright.
I made the acquaintance of all the white men in the town, however, and among others I came to know a certain lieutenant of the Twenty-fourth Infantry, two companies of which regiment were stationed at Fort McIntosh, about a mile from Laredo and above it, on the Rio Grande. The lieutenant was the quartermaster of the post and had an office in Laredo. He came to it from the post every morning. I heard he was in need of a clerk and I applied for the place. I was probably the only applicant he had, for he took me immediately.
I soon learned the routine of the office and found the work easy. But I did not keep the place long. The quartermaster, like many other officers stationed at remote frontier posts, was not so abstemious as he might have been. In the mornings he was quite sober, but after he went to luncheon he wasn’t. One afternoon he signed a number of reports which I had prepared, and told me to send them off. He did not so much as glance through the reports when he signed them, in an unsteady hand, and I was not certain they were correctly made out. I was new to the business and did not want to get into trouble, so I held the reports until the following morning, with the idea that he would look them over when he was fresh and clear-headed. That was where I made a mistake. He was furiously angry when I delicately hinted, the next morning, that he had been slightly under the influence of intoxicants the day before.
“Make out a voucher for your pay to date, instantly, sir,” he said, gruffly. “You are grossly impertinent, sir.”
I did not think I had been impertinent in trying to avoid trouble for him, but he would listen to no explanation, and I had to go.
There was one curious thing which happened while I was a quartermaster’s clerk and which may be worthy of brief mention. In the same building with the quartermaster’s office was the storeroom of the commissary department. It was filled with all sorts of canned goods and glass jars containing preserves, jams, pickles, butter, and fancy groceries of many kinds. One day word came that the inspector-general was about to pay the office a visit. The quartermaster received the letter and gave it to me to file. He told the commissary-sergeant about it.
About an hour later there was a great crash in the storeroom next to the quartermaster’s office. We ran in to see what was the matter, and found that all the shelves on one side of the room had broken down, carrying with them the glass jars. Butter, pickles, preserved fruits, jams, olives, and the like lay in a heap on the floor, mixed up with broken glass. When the inspector-general arrived, the next day, he looked long and earnestly at the wreck and then condemned the whole lot to be thrown into the Rio Grande. The accident seemed a most timely one, for the commissary-sergeant had been doing a thriving little retail grocery business among his acquaintances, before the inspector-general’s visit.
After leaving the quartermaster’s service, I was again thrown on my own resources, and it was at this time that I first met Hamilton C. Peterson, United States Commissioner at Laredo. Peterson had formerly been a captain in the army. He was a good lawyer and an expert civil engineer. He was the best revolver-shot I ever saw before or since. He was always ready to bet anything, from a drink of whiskey to a basket of champagne, on his marksmanship. He could hit a half-dollar with a pistol ball four times out of five at fifty paces.
Physically, Peterson was a fine-looking man. His face was handsome, and his big, fierce, black mustache gave the impression that he was a daredevil of the most pronounced type, shading, as it did, a resolute, well-modeled chin. His appearance did not belie his character. His principal occupation, at the time I first made his acquaintance, was challenging men to fight duels. He was a hard drinker, and very quarrelsome when in liquor. Every time he had a dispute with a man, he would, as soon as possible thereafter, challenge him to fight a duel. Sometimes he would get me to write a challenge at his dictation. But as the fame of his marksmanship had spread all over the state, his challenges were never accepted.
When I left the quartermaster I went to Peterson and asked him if he could get me something to do. He said he could and would. He was going on a surveying trip in a few days, and would take me with him to carry a surveyor’s chain and to assist him in other ways. Having decided this important matter for me, he proposed that we go and play