In Mark Twain’s “Life on the Mississippi,” he has told a story of the methods of the Murrell gang, a story too sickening for repetition. The existence of such a fraternity of criminals had a great influence upon the history of Texas and its neighbors, the United States and Mexico. Under the great cottonwoods in the swamps of Madison County, men met who had plundered and burned ships and cut throats all the way from Curaçoa to the Bahama Banks and Barnegat; who had both filled and emptied the unspeakable barracoons of the slave-trade on the Guinea coast; who had been midnight assassins in Paris and Madrid, brigands from the ruins of the Appian Way, pirates from every maritime nation of the globe; and always besides, there was the more or less gentlemanly gambler of the Mississippi river-boats, ready to lead or follow where there was promise of plunder. There were secret signs, passwords, and grips, relay stations on their highways of crime, and everywhere confederates who ranked with the first citizens in unsullied reputations and sober living. The gang sold slaves trained to run away, to be sold again and then again, until led into the tangled pathways of some reeking swamp, to die the death of a dog at the hands of men who left no danger of detection overlooked. In 1835 their operations as gamblers upon the great river, and as robbers and swindlers along its shores, led to their being driven out of the jurisdiction of the courts and vigilance committees of the frontier. They went to Texas, because there was no other place to which they dared to go. Here their reckless habits infused new life into the discontent already existing among the colonists, and hastened the inevitable conflict that was so soon to occur.
During the years 1832 and 1833, Davy was a private citizen, but he was by no means an idle one. If he still hunted the bears of the “harricane” at his back door, he tells nothing in regard to such pursuits. His time was taken up in writing the story of his own life, and in planning for the next election. That he wrote his autobiography in the two years mentioned is shown by the work itself. His constant reference to the removal of the “deposites” from the United States Bank is good proof that much of the book was written after the date of the removal.
In his canvass of his district for votes, while fighting his way back to Washington, Davy found his lessons in history and national questions of great assistance. His easy familiarity with the names of famous statesmen, his crude painting of Eastern life and manners, and his new self-possession in speaking before a crowd, all served to awaken the admiration and win the support of a people who loved the spectacular in politics. His readiness to pit himself against all comers, in everything from oration to sharp-shooting, made him an attraction at every public gathering. The story of the Middle Fork camp-meeting has not yet faded from the memory of the men who lived upon its banks.
It was a splendid summer afternoon, when Davy rode into an open place in the forest, twenty miles east of his cabin, where two or three hundred men and women had come to listen to the exhortations of the “rider,” a long, ungainly preacher.
He was about to lead in a hymn when a rough and red-nosed man with a bottle of whisky in his pocket, leaped upon the rock and levelled his rifle in the faces of the astonished people.
“The first man sings has got to fight!” he yelled. “I’m the wild-cat hunter from the Wolf Creek branch of the Rutherford Fork. I’ve et up all the Injuns, bears, an’ wildcats ez fur ez the Big Sandy, an’ I’m dying hungry now fur hymn-books an’ preachers an’ folks thet sings.”
He stopped, glared at the astonished old “rider,” then took out the bottle and drank a half-dozen swallows with a gurgling sound. Some one spoke in the crowd. “Shut up!” he yelled, lifting his bottle and waving it above the shrinking women and children below. “Shut up an’ git out o’ sight before ye see the wildcat hunter eat the preacher, hide and hair!”
There was the crack of a rifle, and the bottle was shattered into fragments, dashing the raw liquor into the rowdy’s eyes and cutting his face with bits of glass. When he could see, Davy Crockett’s gun was almost touching his nose.
“Hand the preacher your gun,” said Davy, “stand where you are, and sing like all possessed. If you don’t, we’ll make you eat a wildcat for sure. All right, preacher, go ahead!”
After the singing was over, the wildcat hunter hung about, trying in vain to recover his gun, and finally departed in discreet silence as the daylight faded in the west.