Chapter III.

       Table of Contents

      Horse peddling speculation—Santa Fe Expedition—Chills and fever—The call to arms—Jack Hays—The horse Prince—Departure of the Rangers from Bexar—Mexican Robbers—The Sevilla scrape—Colt's revolvers—Deer hunting—Encampment at the Forks—Discovery of the enemy -The Ranger's ruse—The Camanches surprised—Battle of Walter's creek—Sam. Taylor mounded—The stern old warrior.

      Returned to Seguin, at the conclusion of my first campaign, the business I adopted for a livelihood, then a common one in that region, was capturing wild horses, and after breaking them to the saddle or harness, disposing of them to the planters. Sometimes I purchased from the Mexicans those which had already been subdued, and collecting a drove, would set out on a sort of horse-peddling speculation. Frequently these excursions extended into Louisiana, where profitable customers were generally to be found among the cotton and sugar growers on the bayous. They usually cost me, when purchased, four or five dollars a head, and were sold for a price ranging from fifteen to thirty, so that with industry and good luck, it was capable of being made a remunerative and, as it was to me, a congenial occupation.

      At length, however, the country again rang with a call for volunteers, though previous to this time, I have omitted to relate, the men of the famous Santa Fe Expedition had departed on their disastrous journey. I had arranged with Ben McCullough and others to make one of this party; in fact accompanied it a long distance above Austin, but there becoming prostrated by a violent attack of chills and fever, which rendered a further advance painful to myself and inconvenient to the party, I was induced most reluctantly to turn back. Retracing my steps to Austin, I lingered idly in the neighborhood of the Colorado until health returned, when, responding to the call to arms, I entered on my second campaign as a Texas Ranger, by joining Jack Hays at San Antonio.

      There are few readers in this country, I venture to conjecture, whose ears have not become familiar with the name of Jack Hays. It is inseparably connected with the struggle of Texas for independence, and will live in the remembrance of mankind so long as the history of that struggle shall survive. In the imagination of most persons he undoubtedly figures as a rough, bold giant, bewhiskered like a brigand, and wielding the strength of Hercules. On the contrary, at the period of which I write, he was a slim, slight, smooth-faced boy, not over twenty years of age, and looking younger than he was in fact. In his manners he was unassuming in the extreme, a stripling of few words, whose quiet demeanor stretched quite to the verge of modesty. Nevertheless, it was this youngster whom the tall, huge-framed brawny-armed campaigners hailed unanimously as their chief and leader when they had assembled together in their uncouth garb on the grand plaza of Bexar. It was a compliment as well deserved as it was unselfishly bestowed, for young as he was, he had already exhibited abundant evidence that, though a lamb in peace, he was a lion in war; and few, indeed, were the settlers, from the coast to the mountains of the north, or from the Sabine to the Rio Grande, who had not listened in wonder to his daring, and gloried in his exploits.

      On a previous page I have given the general appearance of a Ranger, and have now nothing further in particular to add in that regard. Perhaps I should have said that if he was more sensitive in one point than in another, it was in regard to the condition and qualities of his horse. So well was this feeling understood, and the necessity which created it appreciated, that every animal remarkable for its power and speed was secured by the inhabitants, far and wide, for the service of the Rangers. It may, therefore, be supposed that they were well provided for in this respect. The horse I rode was a gallant black, clean-limbed, fleet as the wind, and recognized the name of Prince. He was a native of New York, and had been sent to Galveston when a two-year-old, as a present to Colonel Walton, the mayor of the city. He had more than once almost taken the life of the Colonel’s son, and was of such a savage and vicious temper that he determined to get rid of him. He happened to fall into my possession, and for years we lived together, mutually sharing in numerous adventures, in the hunt and on the trail, in peace and war, the most intimate of companions. In the course of his experience he came to regard a Mexican or Indian with intense hatred, and in the confusion and shock of battle, with his teeth and heels often rendered as effectual service as the armed rider on his back.

      There was something less than fifty of us, marshaled under Hays in the square of San Antonio, prepared to obey the order of President Houston, to scour the frontier in search of marauding bands of Mexicans and Indians. Our provisions consisted of a homoeopathic quantity of corn meal, coffee, sugar, and salt, in addition to which the citizens came out and filled the gourds which hung from our Spanish saddles with whisky, when, reining into line, we waved our coonskin caps to the populace, and galloped from the city.

      Our destination was the headwaters of the Sevilla. Some three or four days subsequent to our departure, while dismounted on the banks of a small stream, one of the men who had gone out to bring in a deer for dinner, came flying back with the intelligence that Mexicans were approaching. In an instant we were in our saddles, and hurrying forward, presently discovered a company of some eighty Mexicans, with a large number of unmounted horses. They shifted their course as soon as we hove in sight, whereupon Hays dashed forward on a keen run, and riding up close to them, in a loud voice ordered a halt. The order was disregarded, when, spurring our horses to their utmost speed, we rounded a point of timber, presenting ourselves directly in their front. Of necessity, a fight ensued. In less time than I have been describing our maneuvers, the two parties were intermingled, interchanging thrusts and blows in a hand-to-hand encounter. It was a terrific onslaught, but of short duration. How it happened under the circumstances has ever been to me a matter of wonder; nevertheless, it is a fact, that only one of our men was slightly wounded, while half of their number, over forty, were killed outright, ten wounded, and the remainder taken prisoners. We conducted them back to San Antonio, entering the city amidst the most extravagant demonstrations of delight and triumph. The leaders were handed over to the civil authorities, by whom they were tried, convicted and hung, it appearing on investigation they were simply robbers returning from the pillage of LaGrange, on the Colorado. In the history of Texas this affair is mentioned as the battle of Sevilla, but amongst those engaged in it, it is always alluded to as the “Sevilla Scrape.”

      But a short time elapsed when rumors filled the town that Indians were ravaging the settlements along the Guadaloupe. Now, for the first time, we had furnished ourselves with Colt’s revolvers, instruments of death, destined thereafter to figure prominently in the wild warfare of Texas. We sallied forth once more, without any definite object in view, save watching closely for trails, as we rode leisurely along. Our only amusement was hunting deer, with which the prairies abounded; a pastime we indulged in as much for the excitement it afforded as the venison steaks it furnished us in the camp.

      At length, little apprehending danger, we halted at a locality known in that region as “The Forks.” It is a sharp