The Wild Huntress: Love in the Wilderness. Майн Рид
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to provide me with that much coveted article, a civilian’s suit: in proof of which, my old undress-frock, with its yellow spread-eagle buttons, clung to my shoulders like a second shirt of Nessus. The vanity of wearing a uniform, that may have once been felt, was long ago threadbare as the coat itself; and yet I was not wanting in friends, who fancied that it might still exist! How little understood they the real state of the case, and how much did they misconstrue my involuntary motives!
It was just to escape from such unpleasant associations, that I held on to my “scrip.” Most of my brother-officers had sold theirs for a “song,” and spent the proceeds upon a “supper.” In relation to mine, I had other views than parting with it to the greedy speculators. It promised me that very wilderness-home I was in search of; and, having no prospect of procuring a fair spirit for my “minister,” I determined to “locate” without one.
I was at the time staying in Tennessee—the guest of a campaigning comrade and still older friend. He was grandson of that gallant leader, who, with a small band of only forty families, ventured three hundred miles through the heart of the “bloody ground” and founded Nashville upon the bold bluffs of an almost unknown river! From the lips of their descendants I had heard so many thrilling tales of adventures, experienced by this pioneer band, that Tennessee had become, in my fancy a region of romance. Other associations had led me to love this hospitable and chivalric state; and I resolved, that, within its boundaries, I should make my home. A visit to the Land-office of Nashville ended in my selection of Section Number 9, Township—, as my future plantation. It was represented to me as a fertile spot—situated in the “Western Reserve”—near the banks of the beautiful Obion, and not far above the confluence of this river with the Mississippi. The official believed there had been some “improvement” made upon the land by a squatter; but whether the squatter still lived upon it, he could not tell. “At all events, the fellow will be too poor to exercise the pre-emption right, and of course must move off.” So spoke the land agent. This would answer admirably. Although my Texan experience had constituted me a tolerable woodsman, it had not made me a woodcutter; and the clearing of the squatter, however small it might be, would serve as a beginning. I congratulated myself on my good luck; and, without further parley, parted with my scrip—receiving in return the necessary documents, that constituted me the legal owner and lord of the soil of Section 9. The only additional information the agent could afford me was: that my new purchase was all “heavily timbered,” with the exception before referred to; that the township in which it was situated was called Swampville; and that the section itself was known as “Holt’s Clearing”—from the name, it was supposed, of the squatter who had made the “improvement.”
With this intelligence in my head, and the title-deeds in my pocket, I took leave of the friendly official; who, at parting, politely wished me “a pleasant time of it on my new plantation!”
Chapter Nine.
Friendly Advice.
On returning to the house of my friend, I informed him of my purchase; and was pleased to find that he approved of it. “You can’t be taken in,” said he, “by land upon the Obion. From what I have heard of it, it is one of the most fertile spots in Tennessee. Moreover, as you are fond of hunting, you’ll find game in abundance. The black bear, and even the panther—or ‘painter,’ as our backwoodsmen have it—are still common in the Obion bottom; and indeed, all throughout the forests of the Reserve.”
“I’m rejoiced to hear it.”
“No doubt,” continued my friend, with a smile, “you may shoot deer from your own door; or trap wolves and wild-cats at the entrance to your hen-roost.”
“Good!”
“O yes—though I can’t promise that you will see anything of Venus in the woods, you may enjoy to your heart’s content the noble art of venerie. The Obion bottom is a very paradise for hunters. It was it that gave birth to the celebrated Crockett.”
“On that account it will be all the more interesting to me; and, from what you say, it is just the sort of place I should have chosen to squat upon.”
“By the by,” interrupted my friend, looking a little grave as he spoke, “your making use of that familiar phrase, recalls the circumstance you mentioned just now. Did I understand you to say, there was a squatter on the land?”
“There was one—so the agent has told me; but whether he be still squatted there, the official could not say.”
“Rather awkward, if he be,” rejoined my friend, in a sort of musing soliloquy; while, with his eyes fixed upon the ground, he kept pulling his “goatee” to its full length.
“In what way awkward?” I asked in some surprise. “How can that signify?”
“A great deal. These squatters are queer fellows—ugly customers to deal with—especially when you come to turn them out of their house and home, as they consider it. It is true, they have the pre-emption right—that is, they may purchase, if they please, and send you to seek a location elsewhere; but this is a privilege those gentry rarely please to indulge in—being universally too poor to purchase.”
“What then?”
“Their motto is, for ‘him to keep who can.’ The old adage, ‘possession being nine points of the law,’ is, in the squatter’s code, no dead-letter, I can assure you.”
“Do you mean, that the fellow might refuse to turn out?”
“It depends a good deal on what sort of a fellow he is. They are not all alike. If he should chance to be one of the obstinate and pugnacious kind, you are likely enough to have trouble with him.”
“But surely the law—”
“Will aid you in ousting him—that’s what you were going to say?”
“I should expect so—in Tennessee, at all events.”
“And you would be disappointed. In almost any other part of the state, you might rely upon legal assistance; but, I fear, that about Swampville you will find society not very different from that you have encountered on the borders of Texas; and you know how little help the law could afford you there, in the enforcement of such a claim?”
“Then I must take the law into my own hands,” rejoined I, falling into very old-fashioned phraseology—for I was beginning to feel indignant at the very idea of this prospective difficulty. “No, Warfield,” replied my sober friend, “do not take that course; I know you are not the man to be scared out of your rights; but, in the present case, prudence is the proper course to follow.—Your squatter, if there be one—it is to be hoped that, like many of our grand cities, he has only an existence on the map—but if there should be a real live animal of this description on the ground, he will be almost certain to have neighbours—some half-dozen of his own kidney—living at greater or less distances around him. They are not usually of a clannish disposition; but, in a matter of this kind, they will be as unanimous in their sympathies, and antipathies too, as they would about the butchering of a bear. Turn one of them out by force—either legal or otherwise—and it would be like bringing a hornets’ nest about your ears. Even were you to succeed in so clearing your land, you would find ever afterwards a set of very unpleasant neighbours to live among. I know some cases in point, that occurred nearer home here. In fact, on some wild lands of my own I had an instance of the kind.”
“What, then, am I to do? Can you advise me?”
“Do as others have often done before you; and who have actually been forced to the course of action I shall advise. Should there be a squatter, and one likely to prove obstinate, approach him as gently as you can, and state your case frankly. You will find