“Yes; give us the latest news, sir,” requested the lieutenant.
The Texan eyed him, and thumped his rifle butt emphatically on the hot deck.
“I will, and gladly. News? Full of it. Fighting? Well, I reckon you-all know what’s been the trouble. By the Mexican constitution of 1824 all the states of the Mexican Republic were guaranteed rights and privileges, same as the states of the United States, and we Texans looked forward to having our own legislature and governor. Then that Don Anastasio Bustamante rose for the presidency of Mexico, overrode the constitution, made a sort of one-hoss monarchy of all Mexico, and followed out the plan they’d tried before of putting soldiers—the wust kind, being mostly thieves and murderers from the prisons—over us in Texas, oppressing Americans with taxes, selling our lands, saying that no more American settlers should come in, and such like.”
“I know,” nodded the lieutenant.
“Of course, that business doesn’t work with a people like us who’ve brought in their families, and settled according to agreement with the government, and improved the land and built houses, and done more in ten years than the Mexicans did in a hundred. So last spring while Don Santa Anna was heading a revolution in Mexico across the Rio Grande, to restore the rights of the constitution of 1824, we Texans did a little house-cleaning on our own account, and drove every monarchist and Bustamantist across the border. When I left, things had calmed down and the country was feeling hopeful again.”
“Then it’s a good place for Americans, is it?” asked the lieutenant.
“Yes, sir. It’s been a good country, and now it’ll be a better one. Where else in this world can a man with a family get three squar’ miles of the best soil, best grass, best water, in the best climate and among the best people on earth, for thirty dollars down, and the rest pay as he goes? We’ve all declared in favor of Santa Anna, the Mexican troops have gone to help him lick Bustamante; as soon as he’s made president he’ll give us what we want under the constitution of ’24. So come along, everybody. There’s land a-plenty and room for all.”
“Wall, stranger, you make a good talk,” spoke a passenger. “But what mought you be doin’ now, if it’s any of our business? You’ve said whar you’re from, but whar you goin’, out of such a fine country?”
“I’m on my way to Fort Gibson. Saw this boat p’inting down stream, so I borrowed a Choctaw dug-out and came to learn the news from above. What’s doing, up ’round Gibson?”