“Why, the man in the street says the other one insulted him this morning, and that he had his hand on his knife, at the very moment he did so, so he couldn’t reply. And now he says he’s ready to talk with him, and he wants to have him come out, and as many of his friends as are a mind to, may come with him; he’s got enough for all of ’em, he says. He’s got two revolvers, I believe.”
We did not hear how it ended; but, about an hour afterwards, I saw three men, with pistols in their hands, coming from the bar-room.
The next day, I saw, in the streets of the same town, two boys running from another, who was pursuing them with a large, open dirk-knife in his hand, and every appearance of ungovernable rage in his face.
The boat, for which I was waiting, not arriving, I asked the landlady—who appeared to be a German Jewess—if I could not have a better sleeping-room. She showed me one, which she said I might use for a single night; but, if I remained another, I must not refuse to give it up. It had been occupied by another gentleman, and she thought he might return the next day, and would want it again; and, if I remained in it, he would be very angry that they had not reserved it for him, although they were under no obligation to him. “He is a dangerous man,” she observed, “and my husband, he’s a quick-tempered man, and, if they get to quarrelling about it, ther’ll be knives about, sure. It always frightens me to see knives drawn.”
A Texas drover, who stayed over night at the hotel, being asked, as he was about to leave in the morning, if he was not going to have his horse shod, replied:
“No sir! it’ll be a damn’d long spell ’fore I pay for having a horse shod. I reckon, if God Almighty had thought it right hosses should have iron on thar feet, he’d a put it thar himself. I don’t pretend to be a pious man myself; but I a’nt a-goin’ to run agin the will of God Almighty, though thar’s some, that calls themselves ministers of Christ, that does it.”
CHAPTER II.
A TRIP INTO NORTHERN MISSISSIPPI.
Vicksburg, March 18th.—I arrived at this place last night, about sunset, and was told that there was no hotel in the town except on the wharf-boat, the only house used for that purpose having been closed a few days ago on account of a difference of opinion between its owner and his tenant.
There are no wharves on the Mississippi, or any of the southern rivers. The wharf-boat is an old steamboat, with her paddle boxes and machinery removed and otherwise dismantled, on which steamboats discharge passengers and freight. The main deck is used as a warehouse, and, in place of the furnace, has in this case a dram shop, a chandler’s shop, a forwarding agency, and a telegraph office. Overhead, the saloon and state-rooms remain, and with the bar-room and clerk’s office, kitchen and barber’s shop, constitute a stationary though floating hostelry.
Though there were fifty or more rooms, and not a dozen guests, I was obliged, about twelve o’clock, to admit a stranger who had been gambling all the evening in the saloon, to occupy the spare shelf of my closet. If a disposition to enjoy occasional privacy, or to exercise a choice in one’s room-mates were a sure symptom of a monomania for incendiarism, it could not be more carefully thwarted than it is at all public-houses in this part of the world.