“Thar aint throughout this western nation,
Another like old Hickory
He was bom jest fur his siteation—
A bold leader of the free.”
As night spread her curtain over this wild district, Hoss neared Benton, and as his nag jogged up the principal street, he broke out into a louder strain, repeating the above verse, on hearing which, the “boys,” who were expecting him and Edwards, turned out, and old Hoss was received with a cheer.
“Hello, Jedge!—How are you, Old Hoss?—Give us your paw, Governor!—Here at last, Squire!”—and sundry such expressions of familiar welcome was showered on Allen, by the crowd. “Come in, and git a drink, old fellar,” shouted one of the crowd, and forthwith all hands pushed for the hotel bar room, where sweetened corn juice was pushed about with vast liberality—at the candidate's expense, of course.
“Whar did you leave the new fellar, Jedge Eddards?” was the general inquiry.
“Why, boys, I stopped to rest on the road, and he slid off to git ahead of me—I heered on him at the forks, and expected he was here. It's my opinion, boys, he's seen a bar on the road, and bein' too delicate to make the varmint clar the path, he's taken a long circuit round him!”
This raised a laugh among the crowd, and it was followed up by general inquiries as to what Edwards looked like, but to these Hoss shook his head, remarking, as he raised his hands expressive of how they would be astonished—“jest wait tell you see him yourselves, boys, and then you'll be satisfied.”
Let us return to Judge Edwards, who had easily found his way past the “sapling acre,” and by the aid of Jim's direction progressed into the swamp road, as easy as if it were his destination. Having travelled, as he thought, about ten miles, he began to look out for Benton, and every now and then uttered an expression of surprise, that they had located the town in such a swampy country—every rod he progressed became more and more obscure, the brush more thick and wild in growth, and the ground more moist and yielding. Night, too, that season for the rendezvous of underbrush and tangle-wood horrors, was fast gathering its forces in the depths of the forest, and beneath the shadows of the thick bushes, shrouding, as with a dark mist, each object on the earth's surface, creeping up the trunks of the old trees, and noiselessly stealing away the light in which they had proudly spread their green foliage, while in lieu of their showy garb he clad them in a temporary mourning. The song of the birds became hushed, while the cry of the startled wolf was borne upon the breeze to the ear of the affrighted traveller, interrupted occasionally by the sharp m-e-o-w! of the wild-cat, making together a vocal concert most unharmonious to the ear of the bewildered candidate. To sum up these horrors a myriad of mosquitoes, as musical as hunger and vigorous constitutions could make them, hummed and fi-z-z-zed around him, darting in their stings and darting away from his annoyed blows, with a pertinacity and perseverance only known to the Missouri tribe of insects.