simple uniform of the United States army, the compelling face,
with its crown of bristling silvered hair, the eyes that shone with
a curious, soft fire, the firm mouth and masterful chin, Marcel
Lefort's soul seemed drawn from his bosom as by an invisible hand.
A mist gathered before his eyes, his throat clicked, a mysterious
longing suddenly swept over him from head to foot.
Before he knew what he was about he had traversed the antechamber
and entered the larger room, his footfalls on the bare polished
floor disturbing the dramatic silence.
"My captain!" he cried, stopping short and lifting his eager, boyish
face to the Great Chief. "My general!" He turned with outstretched
sword to the greater chief beyond. He wished to say more, but the
throbbing of his heart was too loud in his ears.
Suddenly Marcel heard a footstep sound behind him. His father! He
had quite forgotten his father.
"He will slay me where I stand!" he groaned inwardly.
A hand whose touch thrilled him was slipped under his arm. He felt
himself drawn to his father's side.
"General An-drrew Jack-_son_,"--the old gunner jpoke with great
dignity and feeling although his English was queer,--"we haf come,
my son an' me, to hoffer ou' swo'de to dose United State'. Yes, my
general. If dose United State' will make us the honah to haccep'."
"By the Eternal," cried General Jackson, surprised into his favorite
oath, "with such a spirit in the air, I would storm all the powers
of the world!"
In less than a month the memorable Battle of New Orleans was
fought--January 8, 1815. The Baratarians, under command of Jean
Lafitte, rendered distinguished service in the short but bloody
and decisive engagement. The two batteries directed by Beluche and
Dominique You were especially commended in the general's official
reports. Piff-Paff and his son served side by side in Dominique
You's battery.
When the battle was over, Marcel stood with his fellow gunners
on the parapet of Rodriguez Canal and looked out across the
field--smoke-hung under the cloudless morning sky. The British
dead, in their scarlet uniforms, were lying row on row, one behind
the other, like grain cut down by the mower's scythe. The boy's
heart sickened. But a prolonged cheer came ringing along the parapet.
General Jackson was walking slowly down the line, stopping in front
of each command to salute the men and to praise their coolness and
courage. As he came up, the Baratarians broke into wild shouts.
The great commander shook hands with Lafitte and his brother, who
stood a little apart.
"Well done, Baratarians!" he said, stepping into the midst of the
powder-grimed crew. His swift glance fell upon a lad whose luminous
eyes were fixed upon him.
"Well done, my little creole!" he added, a rare smile flashing
across his worn face.
"My general," said Marcel, saluting proudly, "me, I am an American!"
HUMPHRY DAVY AND THE SAFETY-LAMP
By George C. Towle
Few boys have ever led a happier, busier, or more varied existence
than did Humphry Davy. He was the son of a poor wood-carver, who
lived in the pretty seaside town of Penzance, in England, where
Humphry was born in 1778. Lowly, however, as was his birth, in
his earliest years Humphry gave many proofs that nature had endowed
him with rare talents.
Some of the stories told of his childish brightness are hard to
believe. They relate, for instance, that before he was two years
old he could talk almost as plainly and clearly as a grown person;
that he could repeat many passages of "Pilgrim's Progress," from
having heard them, before he could read; and that at five years
old he could read very rapidly, and remembered almost everything
he read.
His father, the wood-carver, had died while Humphry was still very
young, and had left his family poor. But by good-fortune a kind
neighbor and friend, a Mr. Tonkine, took care of the widow and her
children, and obtained a place for Humphry as an apprentice with an
apothecary of the town. Humphry proved, indeed, a rather troublesome
inmate of the apothecary's house. He set up a chemical laboratory
in his little room upstairs, and there devoted himself to all sorts
of experiments. Every now and then an explosion would be heard,
which made the members of the apothecary's household quake with
terror.
Humphry began to dream ambitious dreams. Not for him, he thought,
was the drudgery of an apothecary store. He felt that he had in
himself the making of a famous man, and he resolved that he would
leave no science unexplored. He set to work with a will. His quick
mind soon grasped the sciences not only of mathematics and chemistry,
but of botany, anatomy, geology, and metaphysics. His means for
the experiments he desired to make were very limited, but he did
not allow any obstacle to prevent him from pursuing them.
He was especially fond of wandering along the seashore, and observing
and examining the many curious and mysterious objects which he found
on the crags and in the sand. One day his eye was struck with the
bladders of seaweed, which he found full of air. The question was,
how did the air get into them? This puzzled him, and he could find
no answer to it, because he had no instruments to experiment with.
But on another day, soon after, as he strolled on the beach, what
was his surprise and delight to find a case of surgical instruments,
which had been flung up from some wreck on the coast! Armed with this,
he hastened home, and managed to turn each one of the instruments
to some useful account. He constructed an air-pump out of a
surgeon's syringe, and made a great many experiments with it.
Fortunately for Humphry, he formed a friendship with a youth who
could not only sympathize with him, but was of a great deal of use
to him. This was Gregory Watt, a son of the great James Watt, the
inventor of the steam-engine. Gregory Watt had gone to Penzance
for his health, and had there fallen in with the ambitious son of
the wood-carver. This new friend was able to give Humphry many new
and valuable hints and encouraged him with hopeful words to go on
with his studies and experiments.
Already Humphry was getting to be known as a scientific genius
beyond the quiet neighborhood of Penzance. He had proposed a theory
on heat and light which had attracted the attention of learned
men; and at twenty-one he had discovered the peculiar properties
of nitrous oxide--what we now call "laughing-gas"--though he nearly
killed himself by inhaling too much of it. He had also made many
experiments in galvanism, and had found silicious earth in the skin
of reeds and grass.
So famous indeed had he already become, that at the age of
twenty-two--when most young men are only just leaving college--he
was chosen lecturer on science at the great Royal Institution in
London. There he amazed men by the eloquence and clearness with
which he revealed the mysteries of science. He was so bright and
attractive a young man, moreover, that the best London society
gladly welcomed him to its drawing-rooms, and praises of him were
in every mouth. His lecture-room was crowded whenever he spoke.
But he was not a bit spoiled by all this flattery and homage. He
worked all the harder; resolved to achieve yet greater triumphs
in science than he had yet done. An opportunity soon arose to turn
his knowledge and inventive powers to account in a very important
way. For a long time the English public had every now and then been
horrified by the terrible explosions which took place in the coal
mines. These explosions resulted often in an appalling loss of
human life. Their cause was the filling of the mine by a deadly
gas, called "fire-damp," which, when ignited by a lighted candle
or lamp, exploded with fearful violence. One day an explosion
of fire-damp occurred which killed over one hundred miners on the
spot.
This event called universal attention to the subject, and Humphry
Davy was besought to try and find some means of preventing, or
at least lessening, similar calamities. He promptly undertook the
task, and set about it with all his wonted energy. The problem
before him was how to provide light in the mines in such a way that
the miners might see to work by it, and at the same time be safe
from the danger of fire-damp explosion. Many attempts had been made
to achieve this, but they had all failed,
Davy began his experiments. He soon made several valuable discoveries.
One was that explosions of inflammable gases could not pass through
long narrow metallic tubes. Another was that when he held a piece
of wire gauze over a lighted candle, the flame would not pass through
it. As a result of his long and patient toil Davy was able at last
to construct his now famous _Safety-Lamp_, which has undoubtedly
saved the lives of thousands during the period which has elapsed
since it was invented. He presented a model of his new lamp to the
Royal Society, in whose rooms in London it is to be seen to this
day.
It is a simple affair, being merely a lamp screwed on to a wire
gauze cylinder, and fitted to it by a tight ring. His idea was to
admit the fire-damp into the lamp gradually by narrow tubes, so
that it would be consumed by combustion. The Safety-Lamp was in
truth the greatest triumph of Humphry Davy's useful life.
"I value it," he said, "more than anything I ever did."
Honors of all kinds were showered upon him. Many medals were awarded
to him, and the grateful miners subscribed from their scant wages
enough to present him with a magnificent service of silver worth
$12,000. His discovery was hailed from every part of Europe. The
Czar Alexander of Russia sent him a beautiful vase, and he was
chosen a member of the historic Institute of France; while his own
government conferred upon him the coveted title of baronet.
Sir Humphry Davy, as he was now called, died in the prime of life
and in the fulness of honor and fame. Fond of travel, and continuing
to the last his scientific studies, he went to the continent, and
took up his abode at Geneva, on the borders of one of the loveliest
of Swiss lakes. There he had a laboratory, where he could work at
will, and could also indulge his passion for fishing and hunting.
But he was worn out before his time. He was attacked by palsy, and
passed away at Geneva in 1829, in the fifty-first year of his age.
There he was buried. A simple monument reveals where he lies in
the foreign churchyard; while a tablet in Westminster Abbey keeps
alive his memory in the hearts of his countrymen.
KIT CARSON'S DUEL
By Emerson Hough
"How much farther, François?" asked the leader of a little mountain
cavalcade which wound its way down a broad river valley in the heart
of the Rocky Mountains. "See, it is now noon, and the encampment
is not yet in sight. Shall we not stop and rest?"
The speaker was a tall, thin man, whose face, browned by the sun
of the plains and mountains, none the less bore a refinement almost
approaching austerity. The man accosted was leaner and browner than
himself, and wore the full costume of the Western _engage_ of the
fur trade.
"M'sieu' Parker," he replied, "halways you hask how far to ze
hencampment. I do not know. In the mountain we do no hask how far.
We push on ze horse. Thass all."
"But the rendezvous--are you sure it is in this valley of the
Green?"
"It is establish for ze month of August in ze valley of ze Green.
Those man of the mountain, he do not disappoint. This rendezvous
of ze year 1835, it may be ze last one for ze trappaire. But me,
François Verrier, say to you that you shall see ze rendezvous,
also ze trappaire, and ze trader, and ze Injin--hundreds of heem.
My faith! Zay shall see for ze first time ze missionaire to ze
Injin! M'sieu' Parker, you are not ze good father? _Eh bien_, you
shall make some little _priere_ for those _sauvages_."
The thin face of Samuel Parker brightened. This land before his
view, majestic, beautiful, was as fabled and unknown as the continent
of lost Atlantis. It was a wild world, a new one. He, first to
answer that strange appeal from the wild Northwest,--that appeal
carried by the four Nez Perces Indians, who travelled in ignorance
and hope across half a continent to ask that the Book might be sent
out to them by the white man,--felt now exaltation swell within
his soul.
What a meeting must be this, which he had pushed forward so eagerly
to discover! It was a gathering, as he had been well advised, not
in the name of religion or of politics, of art or science--hardly
even in the cause of commerce, although here the wild trappers and
hunters, absent from one year's end to the other in the mountains,
annually met, at some appointed spot in the Rockies, those bold
merchants who brought out to them stores of goods to trade for
furs. The trappers' rendezvous! He had heard of it a thousand tales
distorted and unreal. Truly there was work ahead. He caught up
the reins upon his horse's neck, forgot his weariness, and resumed
his way.
His followers, a score or more of horsemen and pack-train drivers,
among whom rode a short sturdy young man, the future martyr-missionary,
Marcus Whitman, moved on, browned, gaunt, dust-begrimed, yet
cheerful.
They had travelled for perhaps a mile or so down the valley when
the guide, riding abreast of his employer, suddenly pulled up his
horse and signed for his companion to pause.
"M'sieu'," said he, "you think I know little of zis land. Behol'!
We are harrive' zis hour."
He pointed. There, against the sky-line, on a projecting range of
the mountainside which sloped down to the edge of the valley, was
the figure of a mountain man, motionless, and evidently on guard.
"_En avant!_" cried François, setting heels to his horse. "_V'la!_
It is ze guard of ze encampment. Ride quick, _mes camarades!_"
The train, packhorses and all, pushed forward at a gallop, which
soon broke into a wild run--the proper gait in trapper custom for
all who arrived at the mountain rendezvous.
As they rounded the spur of rocks which had made the watch-tower
of the sentinel, the full scene burst upon their eyes. There was
a wide, sweet space in the valley, made as if for the very purpose
of the great rendezvous. A flat of green cottonwoods adjoined the
river-bank. "Benches," or natural terraces, of sweet grass rose
along the hillside a half-mile away. Hundreds of horses, picketed
or hobbled, grazed here and there. Others, favorite steeds of their
masters, stood tied at the doors of lodges, in front of which rose
long, tufted spears, in the heraldry of that land insignia of their
owner's rank. Teepees, a hundred and twoscore, skin tents of the
savage tribes and homes also of the whites, were grouped irregularly
over a space of more than half a mile. At the doors of many of
these, silent Indians sat and smoked. In the wide interspaces of
the village were many men, some of them dressed in brown buckskins,
others clad more gaudily. These passed to and fro, some on foot,
others riding furiously. Animation was in all the air.
Shouts, cries, a tumult formed of many factors filled the air.
Babel of speech rose from Frenchmen, Spaniards, Canadians, English,
Scotch, Irish, and American backwoodsmen, and Indians of half a
dozen tribes. Horses, dogs, black-haired and blanketed women, and
children of divers colors moved about continually. The gathering
was heterogeneous, conglomerate, picturesque, savage.
Samuel Parker, missionary to the Oregon tribes, and now come hither
to the mountain market of 1835 as knight-errant of the Gospel,
pulled up his horse at the edge of the encampment and gazed in
sheer amazement. His party--except Whitman, who reined in his horse
at his friend's side--passed on and joined the shouting throng.
Apparently they conveyed certain news as they rode; for now out of
the circling ranks of wild horsemen there swept toward the strangers
a group of yelling riders.
Long ribbons and waving eagle feathers streamed from the manes and
tails of their ponies. Some riders, even of the white men, wore
the great war-bonnets of the northern tribes, the long crests of
feathers sweeping back upon the croups of the rough-coated steeds
they rode. Weapons were in the hands of all. Loud speech and many
oaths were on their lips. They might well have disturbed bolder
hearts than that of a peaceful missionary.
The leader of the approaching band was a man of gigantic stature,
more than six inches above the six-feet mark. He was dark of hair
and eye; a wide mustache swept back across his face, and his heavy,
untrimmed beard, matted and sunburned at the edges, gave him an
expression savage and forbidding.
Clad in the buckskin of a mountain trapper, none the less this
personage affected a certain finery. A brilliant sash encircled
his waist, his hat bore a wide plume. At his belt hung pistols,
and in his hand was a long rifle. He pulled up his horse squatting,
its nose high in air.
"How, friend!" he cried. "Or _be_ you friend, who come thus without
word to Bill Shunan's camp?"
"Sir," replied the missionary, "my name is Parker--Samuel Parker.
I am from far New England, and am bound upon my way to Oregon.
I have come aside from the Sublette Cutoff trail to be present at
this rendezvous. Yourself I do not know."
"What! Not know Bill Shunan, the bully of the Rockies, and the
owner of this camp? Hark ye, stranger, ye're treading on dangerous
ground. I've whipped half a dozen men to-day, and driven every
fighter of the rendezvous back into his lodge. _They_ know Bill
Shunan, and they show him respect, as you shall yourself."
Samuel Parker made no reply, and found no way to move forward,
even had he been sure that friends awaited him in the village. The
giant went on:
"Now, what's your business, man? Ye look like no trapper nor good
mountain man. As for more Yankee traders, we've enough of them now,
and more than enough. Look ye at their packs, laid out there, half
of them not opened! The traders are robbing us mountain men at
this market. Two skins they ask for a pint of sugar, if one would
please his squaw. As much goes for a knife; and three skins for
coffee as much as you could put in a pint cup. Powder they hold as
high as gold-dust, and a blanket is worth a pair of horses. It's
robbery, and I'll have no more of it. If Jim Bridger and Bill
Williams, and their half-black Beckwourth, and Gervais, and Fraeb,
and their other offscourings of old Ashley, will not rebel against
such doings, then, for one, Bill Shunan is not afraid. My people
were French back in old Canada. It is the French who found the
Rockies, and who ought to own them! These Americans--I whip them
with switches! And so I'll whip you if ye come here as a trader
and give us no better measure than these others! Now, I say, who
are ye?"
The dark eye of the missionary lighted again with its hidden fire.
"I am a missionary," said he, "a man of the church, a minister
of the Gospel, as I would have said to you. I have come to this
encampment to hold divine services among you. Red men or white, we
are brethren, and we are sinners in common." The close-shut mouth,
the dull flush visible beneath the tan, the flash of the eye, all
bespoke him a man not devoid of courage. Yet his speech brought
only rage to the other.
"Minister!" he cried. "By all the saints, no unfrocked priest
shall speak words in this camp of mine! Not even a good father of
the French has been present at a rendezvous of the bully boys of
the mountains; and who are you, to come intruding at the frolic
of the trappers? I'll have no sniveling Protestant here. So get ye
gone at once!"
"Sir," said the minister, "I have ridden far, and I am not of a
mind to go back." He crowded his horse forward, the more so as he
saw approaching another band of men from the encampment. He could
only hope that they might be of a class not quite the same as this
desperado. A moment later these riders joined the group of parleyers.
"How now, what is this?" cried out the tall man who led these
newcomers. "Who's the stranger? Does he carry news from the States?"
"Back with ye, Bill Williams!" cried Shunan. "'Tis but a sniveling
preacher from the East, and I have told him he shall bring no psalms
here."
The freshly arrived horsemen made small reply to Shunan's speech,
but bent a curious gaze upon the stranger. The latter saw at a
glance that these were no allies of the bully. Therefore he glanced
toward them as if in appeal.
Without a word a half-score of them urged their horses round him,
and separated him from Shunan's party.
"What!" cried Shunan. "You dispute me? I tell ye he will never
see the sun again if he pushes himself into this camp. What do ye
mean, you puny Yankees? Do ye want me to put ye on your death-beds,
as I have a couple of ye before to-day? Back with ye! For I say
this man shall not come into camp!"
"Shunan," broke in a quiet voice, "who gives you right to issue
orders here?"
The speaker was a young man, still in his twenties; and so far from
equaling in stature the giant whom he addressed, he was slight and
small, not over five feet six inches in height, although of good
shoulders and great depth of chest.
He sat a dark-brown horse, fully caparisoned in the Spanish fashion.
His garb was of buckskin, but plain and devoid of ornamentation.
A wide hat swept over his well-tanned face, and from beneath its
brim there shone the steely glance of gray-blue eyes.
Shunan, dumfounded, whirled his horse toward the speaker.
"Shunan," repeated this man, in turn urging his own horse forward,
"you've made trouble enough in the encampment. You shall no longer
act the bully here. The stranger comes in peace, and he shall be
heard here if he likes. What!" and the blue eyes flashed. "Would
you issue orders at a meeting of the free men of the mountains--the
very place in all the world where every man who comes in friendship
is made welcome? This is our country. This is our encampment. The
law of what is right shall govern here; and I take it upon myself
to say this to you!"
Silence fell upon all who heard these words. The last speaker
raised his hand as Parker would have spoken. The friends of the
young man now pressed closer about him. He did not give back, but
urged his mount still forward, until it breasted the cream-colored
horse which Shunan rode. The bully, half-sobered from his potations
by this stern situation, did not himself give back.
"Who are you?" he cried. "By what right do ye question Bill Shunan?
Would ye be the next to be whipped with switches? There is but one
end to this, boy! Are ye ready for it?"
"Have I ever been found unready?" asked the young man, quietly.
"I say again, this land is free. The stranger shall have meat and
robes at my lodge, and if he will speak, he shall have his say."
In a rage Shunan spurred forward, his hand uplifted; yet the brown
horse and its rider receded not an inch. The issue was joined.
There must now be combat!
"Not here!" cried old Bill Williams, suddenly. "Wait! Back to the
camp with ye all, and there let it be decided proper!"
This speech met with sudden approval upon both sides. An instant
later the missionary's horse was swept forward in a rush which
carried both parties, intermingled, deep into the center of the
tented village.
Well toward the middle of the encampment there was a large and
irregular space left unoccupied, a sort of plaza, devoted to common
use, and employed as meeting-ground in the trading operations of
the market, or the jollifications, which occupied far more of the
time. As the riders came into this open space Shunan and his party
drew off to the right. His antagonist sought out his lodge upon
the opposite side. He was followed here by several of his warmer
friends, Williams, Bridger, Fraeb, other men of the mountains at
one time known throughout the length and breadth of the West.
"Sir," said the young man, turning toward Samuel Parker, "get you
down, and come within my house. Perhaps by this time you are used
to such. We bid you welcome. I shall return to you soon, after I
have settled this matter which has come up between me and yonder
ruffian."
"I beseech you!" cried the missionary, reaching out an imploring
hand. "What is it you would do? Surely you do not mean--you would
not engage in combat with this man--you do not mean bloodshed?
This--on my account--no, no! Let me go."
The quiet man whom he thus accosted made no answer at first, but
pushed back the hat from his brow and gazed upon the newcomer with
a kindly eye.