The stranger traced, without a moment's hesitation: "Time, sunset this
evening; place, the left bank of the Colorado, opposite Austin; weapons,
rifles; and distance, a hundred yards. Do not fail to be in time!"
He then took three steps across the floor, and disappeared through the
window, as he had entered.
"What?" exclaimed Judge Webb, "is it possible Colonel Morton, that you
intend to fight that man? He is a mute, if not a positive maniac. Such a
meeting, I fear, will sadly tarnish the luster of your laurels."
"You are mistaken," replied Morton, with a smile; "that mute is a hero
whose fame stands in the records of a dozen battles, and at least half
as many bloody duels. Besides, he is the favorite emissary and bosom
friend of Houston. If I have the good fortune to kill him, I think it
will tempt the president to retract his vow against venturing any more
on the field of honor."
"You know the man, then. Who is he? Who is he?" asked twenty voices
together.
"Deaf Smith," answered Morton, coolly.
"Why, no; that can not be. Deaf Smith was slain at San Jacinto,"
remarked Judge Webb.
"There, again, your honor is mistaken," said Morton. "The story of
Smith's death was a mere fiction, got up by Houston to save the life of
his favorite from the sworn vengeance of certain Texans, on whose
conduct he had acted as a spy. I fathomed the artifice twelve
months since."
"If what you say be true, you are a madman yourself!" exclaimed Webb.
"Deaf Smith was was never known to miss his mark. He has often brought
down ravens in their most rapid flight, and killed Camanches and
Mexicans at a distance of of two hundred and fifty yards!"
"Say no more," answered Colonel Morton, in tones of deep determination;
"the thing is already settled. I have already agreed to meet him. There
can be no disgrace in falling before such a shot, and, if I succeed, my
triumph will confer the greater glory!"
Such was the general habit of thought and feeling prevalent throughout
Texas at that period.
Toward evening a vast crowd assembled at the place appointed to witness
the hostile meeting; and so great was the popular recklessness as to
affairs of the sort, that numerous and considerable sums were wagered on
the result. At length the red orb of the summer sun touched the curved
rim of the western horizon, covering it all with crimson and gold, and
filling the air with a flood of burning glory; and then the two mortal
antagonists, armed with long, ponderous rifles, took their stations,
back to back, and at a preconcerted signal--the waving of a white
handkerchief--walked slowly and steadily off, in opposite directions,
counting their steps until each had measured fifty. They both completed
the given number about the same instant, and then they wheeled, each to
aim and fire when he chose. As the distance was great, both paused for
some seconds--long enough for the beholders to flash their eyes from one
to the other, and mark the striking contrast betwixt them. The face of
Colonel Morton was calm and smiling; but the smile it bore had a most
murderous meaning. On the contrary, the countenance of Deaf Smith was
stern and passionless as ever. A side view of his features might have
been mistaken for a profile done in cast iron. The one, too, was
dressed in the richest cloth; the other in smoke-tinted leather. But
that made no difference in Texas then; for the heirs of heroic courage
were all considered peers--the class of inferiors embraced none
but cowards.
Presently two rifles exploded with simultaneous roars. Colonel Morton
gave a prodigious bound upward, and dropped to the earth a corpse! Deaf
Smith stood erect, and immediately began to reload his rifle; and then,
having finished his brief task, he hastened away into the
adjacent forest.
Three days afterward, General Houston, accompanied by Deaf Smith and ten
other men, appeared in Austin, and, without further opposition, removed
the state papers.
The history of the hero of the foregoing anecdote was one of the most
extraordinary ever known in the West. He made his advent in Texas at an
early period, and continued to reside there until his death, which
happened some two years ago; but, although he had many warm personal
friends, no one could ever ascertain either the land of his birth, or a
single gleam of his previous biography. When he was questioned on the
subject, he laid his finger on his lip; and if pressed more urgently,
his brow writhed, and his dark eye seemed to shoot sparks of livid fire!
He could write with astonishing correctness and facility, considering
his situation; and, although denied the exquisite pleasure and priceless
advantages of the sense of hearing, nature had given him ample
compensation, by an eye, quick and far-seeing as an eagle's; and a
smell, keen and incredible as that of a raven. He could discover objects
moving miles away in the far-off prairie, when others could perceive
nothing but earth and sky; and the rangers used to declare that he could
catch the scent of a Mexican or Indian at as great a distance as a
buzzard could distinguish the odor of a dead carcass.
It was these qualities which fitted him so well for a spy, in which
capacity he rendered invaluable services to Houston's army during the
war of independence. He always went alone, and generally obtained the
information desired. His habits in private life were equally singular.
He could never be persuaded to sleep under the roof of a house, or even
to use a tent-cloth. Wrapped in his blanket, he loved to lie out in the
open air, under the blue canopy of pure ether, and count the stars, or
gaze, with a yearning look, at the melancholy moon. When not employed as
a spy or guide, he subsisted by hunting, being often absent on solitary
excursions for weeks and even months together, in the wilderness. He was
a genuine son of nature, a grown up child of the woods and prairie,
which he worshiped with a sort of Pagan adoration. Excluded by his
infirmities from cordial fellowship with his kind, he made the inanimate
things of the earth his friends, and entered, by the heart's own
adoption, into brotherhood with the luminaries of heaven! Wherever there
was land or water, barren rocks or tangled brakes of wild, waving cane,
there was Deaf Smith's home, and there he was happy; but in the streets
of great cities, in all the great thoroughfares of men, wherever there
was flattery or fawning, base cunning or craven fear, there was Deaf
Smith an alien and an exile.
Strange soul! he hath departed on the long journey, away among those
high, bright stars, which were his night-lamps; and he hath either
solved or ceased to ponder the deep mystery of the magic word, "life."
He is dead; therefore let his errors rest in oblivion, and his virtues
be remembered with hope.