FLORENCE BRANDON.
Loss of property, grief and misfortune is almost always sure to affect
the appetite. A hearty vigorous digestion is incompatible with
depression of spirits, or sudden paralysis of sorrow.
But Leonidas Swipes was subject to no such weakness, so far as the loss
of his magnificent drove of sheep was concerned. How remote the prospect
of his recovering a tithe of his property, he was resolved that it
should interfere in no way with the meal before him.
Himself and his two companions seated themselves upon the ground, near
one of the large baggage wagons, while several of the females occupied
themselves with placing their food upon a matting before them.
In the caravan were a couple of fine milch cows which, although they had
traveled all the way from the States were in good condition and gave
excellent milk. When a large pitcher of the cool delightful liquid was
placed before the hungry horsemen, their eyes expanded in amazement; but
neither Mr. Doolittle nor Mr. Birchem uttered a syllable, except when
Swipes asked them whether it was not splendid, whereupon they replied
with a grunt and nod of the head.
“Well, I swan if it doesn’t beat all I ever seed or heerd tell on.
That’s the first drop of decent milk I’ve tasted since leaving
Connecticut,” said he, addressing the elderly woman who was acting the
part of a waiter. “We had some in Santa Fe, but it couldn’t begin with
this.”
At this point, Swipes poured out a large cup-full, and slowly drank off
its contents, gradually lifting the cup until it was inverted over his
face thrown back so far as to be horizontal. In this position, he held
it for some time until sure the last drop had descended into his mouth,
when he lowered it again with a great sigh and a prolonged—“A——hem!”
“But that is splendid now! _splendid_, by jingo! if it isn’t. When I had
that up to my mouth, I just shut my eyes, and there! I was back in
Connecticut agin, a sitting under the old mulberry tree, at noon, after
we have been mowing hay, and was taking our lunch! Ah! I was a boy
again.”
While the hunters were eating, most of the emigrants were consulting
together, making the arrangements for the day’s journey, and debating
the proposition, the Yankee had made for some of them to join in the
pursuit of the thieving Comanches.
Fred Wainwright, feeling somewhat interested in Swipes, sauntered slowly
toward him, and took a seat on the ground near the party, while they
ate, that he might relieve his depression of spirit somewhat by
conversing with the quaint New Englander, who, as has been seen was more
disposed to be loquacious than anything else.
“I say Mr.——also Mr.——what did you tell me was your name?” remarked the
latter, as he suddenly cast his eyes toward the young hunter.
“Wainwright.”
“I say, Mr. Wainwright, you belong to them trappers; don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Wal, what do you think of my proposition. Fine chance for a spec,” said
he, speaking rapidly and looking shrewdly. “’Taint often you have such a
chance.”
“I have no particular feeling about it either way,” replied Wainwright.
“It is a big loss for you, but we are bound to this emigrant party,
having made an engagement to accompany them through the mountains, and
don’t believe Lancaster or Harling will join you without the free
consent of this party.”
“Hang the Comanches!” exclaimed Swipes, as well as he could, with his
mouth full of meat, bread and milk; “hang ’em I say, they’re up to all
kinds of tricks, I understand, but I think they have served us just
about the meanest one I ever heerd tell 'on. I swan if they haint. I
say, Mr. Wainwright, are you much acquainted with the place over the
mountains where you’re going!”
“Never have been there in my life.”
“Don’t say; how in creation then are you going to act as guide; that’s
what I should like to know?”
“I am not the guide; it is Lancaster; he has been on the mountains
several times.”
“O—ah! I understand; then he could tell me all about the country. Have
you ever heard him speak of the place?”
“Oh! yes; he has referred to it many times.”
“Do you know whether there is a good opening for a talented young man?”
“It isn’t likely these emigrants would be traveling there through all
this danger, unless there was a prospect of their bettering themselves.
But what sort of business do you expect engaging in?”
“Well, anything most; I’m handy at everything; served my time as
shoemaker, worked some at tailoring and blacksmithing and on the farm,
and teached school in the winter. Say, you now,” exclaimed Swipes, with
a sudden gleam of eagerness. “What kind of a place would it be to open a
select school?”
The young hunter could not forbear a laugh at the simplicity of the
question.
“I don’t think I could give you much encouragement in that direction.
The country is most too young to give much attention to their schools,
as yet, but I’ve no doubt there will be a fine chance in a short time,
for such an institution. I am quite aware there is nothing more
beneficial to a new settlement than a church and school.”
“Say Mr. Wainwright,” said Mr. Swipes, looking up in the face of the
young hunter, with no little interest. “You look to me and you talk just
as if you’ne been a school teacher.”
“No,” laughed Fred, “I never taught school a day in my life.”
“You’ve got larning enough to do so. I swan if you haint! when I hear a
man say _taught_ for _teached_, and _beneficial_, and all them kind of
words, I always set him down as knowing enough to teach school. Perhaps
you notice I don’t allers speak grammatically and call my words exactly
right; but don’t let that give you the idea that I havn’t got no
education. I’m sensible of the mistakes after I make them, and when it’s
too late to help ’em——Jingo!”
Leonidas Swipes raised his hands in the most profound amazement, as
Florence Brandon suddenly walked around the wagon, came up to where they
were sitting, and asked in the most musical of tones, “Is there anything
more to which you will be helped?”
The discomfited Yankee for a time was unable to find his tongue. He sat
gazing at the picture as one enraptured. His companions now found their
tongues, and both replied that they were amply provided and wished for
nothing more, whereupon she turned and disappeared.
Poor Fred Wainwright was in a dilemma fully as sore as that of Swipes.
He had no thought of the girl until the exclamation of the latter. She
halted within a few feet of where he was reclining upon the ground, and
when Swipes became confused she turned toward the young hunter, and
looked in his face with a smile as if she would like to have him join
her in the enjoyment of the scene. But Fred’s face was as red as a
Comanche’s when he looked up and encountered those soulful eyes.
Ah! those eyes with their deep heavenly blue! had he not looked into
them before? Those red lips! had he not heard the sweetest words of his
life come from them? and that queenly head; had he not bent over that!
But stay! this will never do.
The minute he felt the eye of the young lady fastened upon him he let
his own fall to the ground, and had his life depended on it he could not
have raised them again. He could feel that his countenance was burning
and fiery red, and his heart was thumping as it never thumped before.
Indeed he feared that he should really faint unless he could recover
himself.
He was enraged at himself for displaying such an unmanly weakness, and
by a strong effort of the will he overcame his emotion—not enough to
raise his eyes, to catch a glimpse at the hem of her dress as she
flitted from sight again.
“Can it be that she suspected me?” he asked himself where she had gone.
“No, I think she would not recognize me in this dress. Then my beard
conceals my features, so that when I look into a spring, as I am about
to drink, I cannot believe that I am the person I was a year ago. And my
cap; I would hardly know my own brother in it. I would not have her know
me at this time for the world, and I do hope that her look at me raised
no suspicion in her mind.”
“By jingo!” exclaimed Leonidas Swipes, as soon as he could find tongue
to express himself, “isn’t she a picter? If I wan’t engaged now, I—ahem!
might sail in.”
“So you are engaged?” remarked Wainwright, glad to find an excuse for
directing the attention from his own awkwardness.
“Yes,” replied the Yankee, resuming his eating in a serious
matter-of-fact matter. “Yes, I’m fast; and if them Comanches hadn’t
stolen them sheep, I calculated being in San Francisco in ten months
from now, to take passage in the steamer for hum, and to buy Deacon
Poplair’s farm and settle down with Araminty—but hangnation, the sheep
are gone, and where’s the use of talking?”
And as if to draw his griefs clean out of his remembrance, he ate more
ravenously than ever.
But all that is temporal must have an end, and so did the enormous meal
of the three half famished sheep dealers. When they had finally gorged
themselves, and were remounted on their animals, they by no means were
the woebegone-looking wretches that might have been imagined, in those
who had just seen a hundred thousand dollars slip and escape off on the
prairies. On the contrary they seemed quite cheerful. Messrs. Doolittle
and Birchem were silent, as a matter of course, but Leonidas looked
greasy and rather jovial.
As soon as the meal was concluded and the march was resumed, the train
heading a little toward the north west, as Leonidas remarked they were
some distance north of the pass by which they hoped to make their way
through the mountains into Lower California, which in reality was
Southern California, a considerable ways north of the Gulf, and not the
peninsula known by that name.
Leonidas Swipes was informed by the trappers that they truly sympathized
with the loss borne by him and his friends, but their engagement with
Mr. Bonfield and the leaders of the train forbade them to unite with
them in the attempt to secure the sheep. In fact, the trapper informed
them that it was useless for them to expect to regain their property. It
would require but a short time for the Comanches to reach one of their
villages, where they could marshal a hundred warriors with which to
defend their property; and mounted on their swift mustangs, it was
almost impossible to compete with them.
It was a hard dose to swallow, but Swipes took it philosophically, and
persisted in believing there was some hope of recovering them. At least,
as the Comanches took the same direction that the train was following,
he concluded to remain with the latter for the present.