“I have often thought of my first appearance among those frontier people with considerable amusement. When a boy, almost beardless and just from the schools, I came on horseback to San Saba, wearing a nice silk hat, carrying a silver-headed cane, and dressed as young gentlemen generally dress in the best communities of the older states. The old frontiersmen looked upon me with almost intolerable scorn, and there was some serious talk of hanging me as a suspected horse-thief, for no other reason in the world than because I was well-dressed, well-educated and decidedly well-behaved, though rather a reserved young fellow.
“One old chap, rough and bearded, and to my eye quite a monster in appearance, actually talked of this within my hearing. The look of scorn he cast upon me was sublime. I was quick to perceive the drift of things; and as the Indians were then stealing and scalping at a great rate, I threw aside my nice clothes, and silver-headed cane, put on a rough suit and went Indian hunting with the frontiersmen, sleeping with them in their houses, in the woods and on the prairie. They soon grew fond of me, and I have never been in a country where I had so many warm friends; but they never ceased to joke me about my three-story hat and silver-headed cane. Had I not thrown aside these articles it is not at all impossible that I might have been hanged.”
This was the kind of people among whom Uncle John and Ned lived now.
CHAPTER II.
A NEIGHBORHOOD ROW.
What was true of the people who lived in San Saba, during the days when the incident we have just recorded happened, was equally true of the people who lived in Palos and the surrounding country, at the time of which we write. They were nearly all rich—there was hardly a man among them who could tell how many horses and cattle bore his brand,—but every man and boy of them kept busy at something, and strangers who came to that country, and sported their fine clothes and did nothing, were always objects of suspicion. All the settlers knew that Uncle John and Ned were the brother and nephew of one of the most popular men who had ever lived in the county, but that did not alter the facts of the case. If the newcomers expected to be kindly received and hospitably treated, they must come down from the high position they had assumed and act like other folks.
George mourned in secret over this disagreeable state of affairs, but he knew that it could not be remedied in any way, unless his relatives could be prevailed upon to conform to the customs of the people among whom they lived. When he returned from Palos, after his interview with Hank Short, he waited and watched for an opportunity to give them a little advice, and one morning, at the breakfast-table, the chance was presented.
“I have always heard that Texans were a friendly and hospitable set of people,” said Uncle John, as he pushed his chair away from the table; “but I have learned that they are just the reverse. I have been among them a good many months, and there hasn’t been a person here to see me—not one.”
“They’re a set of boors,” observed Ned. “You and I want nothing to do with them, father. We must live entirely within ourselves, while we stay here, and we’re able to do it.”
“But they won’t let you,” said George.