324CHAPTER VII
A Crop of Colonels
“And thus they led a quiet life
During their princely raine.”
–Ballad of King Cophetua and the Beggar-Maid.
Some years after the events recorded here, there appeared in the Boonville Javelin (post-bellum and revived) a serial of reminiscences, which, behind an opalescent gossamer of romance, pictured the Missourians and the chivalrous rôle they played around that forlornly chastened and be-chased damsel, la República Mexicana.
Quite aside from the prodigious deeds set forth therein, the journalistic epic is of itself naïvely prodigious, as anyone knowing Mr. Boone with pen in hand will at once suspect. All the little Trojan band–call them Gascons if you will, but own that if they boasted they were ever keen to substantiate the bluff–all of them, then, strove and blazed away invariably as heroes and were just as peerless as could be. You wouldn’t look for anything else from Mr. Boone. He must, however, be credited with one peculiarity, that he never hinted at himself as one of the glorious company. Daniel knew his newspaper ethics. He knew that the newspaper man is not the story, however they may regard it in France, for instance, where the reporter is ever the bright particular cynosure of any interview that bears his signature.
A few strokes of the Meagre Shanks brush in the way of excerpts from his narrative, with plenty of extenuating dots in between, should make an impression, even though impressionistic, and serve perhaps as a sketch of what befell after Din 325Driscoll had bearded the Tiger, freed Don Rodrigo, and surrendered his own two captives. To begin:
A retreat was had [Daniel always got under way slowly, as though fore-resolved not to stampede.] Echo demands, “Retreat?–The Iron Brigade in retreat?” ’Twas true. Rallied once again, but under another flag than the Bars, the Missourians rode all that dank, wet night lest they meet and have to fight their new friends, the guerrillas under Rodrigo Galán. It was a weird predicament. Two days before, they were peaceful settlers in the land–omne solum forti patria–their blood-flecked swords as ploughshares fleshed in earth’s warm bosom.... But tyrannical confiscation of the soil they tilled loomed foreboding.... Pestered nigh unto forceful phrases with shooing robbers of both sides out of their melon patches, and fired at last by the sentiment that it behooved them to sally forth and regulate things themselves.... They only lacked a Cincinnatus. Their old general would not lead them. Wearing his bright chaplet of renown, Joe Shelby now drove mules, a captain over long wagon trains....
Then gallant Din Driscoll appeared among them, the dry-humored, reckless Jack Driscoll of other days, attired now in the brave, dashing regimentals of the Republic[!] From out the wilds of distant Michoacan he came with the long gallop that never would tire, and pausing at cabin after cabin in the Colony’s broad acres, summoned his old comrades to arms ... to arms against the invader.... Who, now, will argue bucolic content? Those lusty young planters smelled the battle from afar. What now were waving tassels to the glory of deeds?–a cuspide corona–to a wreath of powder-burned laurel? That very day the Iron Brigade rallied again, gathered once again at the oft remembered bugle’s full, resonant blare.
Fighting came sooner than the Missourians hoped. Even as they started for Michoacan, a ragged Indito, whose village 326had been razed by the Cossacks, met the command and asked for the Señor Coronel Gringo. Driscoll heard what he had to tell, and was greatly concerned, though the others laughed at first and scoffed. For it seemed that the Indito did not know who sent him, except that it was a señor chaparrito, a short little señor. “Then you must be a Shorter Yet?” said Driscoll. “Well, what do you bring?” The Indito produced from his ragged shirt a bit of parchment, whereon Colonel Driscoll was urged to join with his new recruits in an attack on Maximilian’s escort, for Maximilian was on his way to Vera Cruz. The parchment was signed, “El Chaparrito.”
“Shorty! That word means ‘Shorty’,” the troopers guffawed. But Driscoll showed them another handwriting at the bottom. The parchment had been countersigned in blank, thus: “Benito Juarez, Libertad y Reforma.” The Missourians were respectful after that. Many thought that the mysterious guardian angel of the Republic’s battles must be the Presidente himself, though the Presidente was thousands of miles away.