The head-gear was equally varied and fantastic. No stiff shakos were to be seen there; but caps of skin, and hats of wool and felt, and straw and palmetto-leaf, broad-brimmed, scuffed, and slouching. A few had forage-caps of blue cloth, that gave somewhat of a military character to the wearers.
In one respect, the troop had a certain uniformity; they were all eager for the fray—burning for a fight with the hated savages, who were committing such depredations throughout the land. When were they to be led against them? This was the inquiry constantly passing through the ranks of the volunteer array.
Old Hickman was among the most active. His age and experience had procured him the rank of sergeant by free election; and I had many opportunities of conversing with him. The alligator-hunter was still my true friend, and devoted to the interests of our family. On this very day I chanced to be with him alone, when he gave proof of his attachment by volunteering a conversation I little expected from him. Thus he began:
“May a Injun sculp me, lootenant, if I can bar the thought o’ that puke a marrin’ yur sister.”
“Marrying my sister—who?” I inquired in some surprise. Was it Gallagher he meant?
“Why, in coorse the fellar as everybody sez is a goin’ to—that cussed polecat o’ a critter, Ary Ringgold.”
“Oh! him you mean? Everybody says so, do they?”
“In coorse—it’s the hul talk o’ the country. Durn me, George Randolph, if I’d let him. Yur sister—the putty critter—she ur the finest an’ the hansomest gurl in these parts; an’ for a durned skunk like thet, not’ithstandin’ all his dollars, to git her, I can’t a bear to hear o’t. Why, George, I tell you, he’ll make her mis’able for the hul term o’ her nat’ral life—that ere’s whet he’ll be sartint to do—durnation to him!”
“You are kind to counsel me, Hickman; but I think the event you dread is not likely ever to come to pass.”
“Why do people keep talkin’ o’t, then? Everybody says it’s a goin’ to be. If it wan’t thet I’m an old friend o’ yur father, George, I wudn’t ha’ tuk sich a liberty; but I war his friend, an’ I’m yur friend; an’ thurfor it be I hev spoke on the matter. We may talk o’ Injuns; but thur ain’t ne’er a Injun in all Floridy is as big a thief as them Ringgolds—father an’ son, an’ the hul kit o’ them. The old un’ he’s clurred out from hyar, an’ whar he’s gone to ’tain’t hard to tell. Ole Scratch hez got hold o’ him, an’ I reck’n he’ll be catchin’ it by this time for the deviltries he carried on while about hyar. He’ll git paid up slick for the way he treated them poor half-breeds on tother side the crik.”