How he contrived to eke out subsistence was difficult to conceive. To the tavern he had been almost the only customer, and in succession consumed the little stores his poor wife had managed to accumulate. He appeared to feel a kind of semi-consciousness that if “bears did not fall in his way” during the winter, it might go hard with him; and he pointed to four mounds of earth behind the log-hut, and said that “the biggest would soon be alongside of 'em.”
As the heat of midday was too great to proceed in, I learned from him thus much of his own story, and some particulars of the road to Bexar, whither I had now resolved on proceeding, since, according to his opinion, that afforded me a far better chance of coming up with the expedition than by following their steps to Austin.
“Had you come a few hours earlier to-day,” said he, “you could have joined company with a Friar who is travelling to Bexar; but you 'll easily overtake him, as he travels with a little wagon and a sick woman. They are making a pilgrimage to the saints there for her health. They have two lazy mules and a half-breed driver that won't work miracles on the roads, whatever the Virgin may after! You'll soon come up with them, if Charry's like what she used to be.”
This intelligence was far from displeasing to me. I longed for some companionship; and that of a Friar, if not very promising as to amusement, had at least the merit of safety,—no small charm in such a land as I then sojourned in. I learned besides that he was an Irishman who had come out as a missionary among the Choctaws, and that he was well versed in prairie life; that he spoke many of the Indian dialects, and knew the various trails of these pathless wilds like any trapper of them all.
Such a fellow-traveller would be indeed a prize; and as I saddled my mare to follow him, I felt lighter at heart than I had done for a long time previous. “And his name?” said I.
“It is half-Mexican by this. They call him Fra Miguel up at Bexar.”
“Now then for Fra Miguel!” cried I, springing into my saddle; and with a frank “Good-bye,” took the road to Bexar.
I rode along with a light heart, my way leading through a forest of tall beech and alder trees, whose stems were encircled by the twining tendrils of the “Liana,” which oftentimes spanned the space overhead, and tempered the noonday sun by its delicious shade. Birds of gay plumage and strange note hopped from branch to branch, while hares and rabbits sat boldly on the grassy road, and scarcely cared to move at my approach. The crimson-winged bustard, the swallow-tailed woodpecker, with his snowy breast, and that most beautiful of all, the lazuli finch, whose color would shame the blue waters of the Adriatic, chirped and fluttered on every side. The wild squirrel, too, swung by his tail, and jerked himself from bough to bough, in all the confidence of unmolested liberty; while even the deer, timid without danger, stood and gazed at me as I went, doubtless congratulating themselves that they were not born to be beasts of burden.
There was so much novelty to me in all around that the monotonous character of the scene never wearied; for, although as far as human companionship was concerned, nothing could be more utterly solitary and desolate, yet the abundance of animal life, the bright tints of plumage, and the strange concert of sound, afforded an unceasing interest.
Occasionally I came upon the charred fragments of firewood, with other signs indicative of a bivouac, showing where some hunting-party had halted; but these, with a chance wheel-track, were all the evidence that travellers had ever passed that way. The instincts of the human heart are, after all, linked to companionship, and although it was but a few hours since I had parted with “mine host” of Brazos, I began to conceive a most anxious desire for the society of a fellow-traveller. I had pushed Charcoal for some time, in the hope of overtaking the Friar; but not only without success, but even without coming upon any recent tracks that should show where the party passed. I could not have mistaken the road, since there was but one through the forest; and at last I became uneasy lest I should not reach some place of shelter for the night, and obtain refreshment for myself and my horse. From the time that these thoughts crossed my mind, all relish for the scene and its strange associations departed. A scarlet jay might have perched upon my saddle-bow unmolested; a “whip-poor-will” might have chanted her note from my hat or my holsters unminded; the antlered stags did indeed graze me as they went, without my once remembering that I was the owner of one of “Colt's sharp bores,” so intent I had grown upon the topic of personal safety. What if I had gone astray? What if I fell in with the Choctaws, who often came within a few miles of Austin? What if Charcoal fell lame, or even tired? What if—But why enumerate all the suspicions that, when chased away on one side, invariably came back on the other? There was not an incident, from a sprained ankle to actual starvation, that I did not rehearse; and, like that respected authority who spent his days speculating what he should do “if he met a white bear,” I threw myself into so many critical situations and embarrassing conjectures that my head ached with overtaxed ingenuity to escape from them.