Chapter Nine.
The Frontier Fort.
The “star-spangled banner” suspended above Fort Inge, as it flouts forth from its tall staff, flings its fitful shadow over a scene of strange and original interest.
It is a picture of pure frontier life—which perhaps only the pencil of the younger Vernet could truthfully portray—half military, half civilian—half savage, half civilised—mottled with figures of men whose complexions, costumes, and callings, proclaim them appertaining to the extremes of both, and every possible gradation between.
Even the mise-en-scène—the Fort itself—is of this miscegenous character. That star-spangled banner waves not over bastions and battlements; it flings no shadow over casemate or covered way, fosse, scarpment, or glacis—scarce anything that appertains to a fortress. A rude stockade, constructed out of trunks of algarobia, enclosing shed-stabling for two hundred horses; outside this a half-score of buildings of the plainest architectural style—some of them mere huts of “wattle and daub”—jacalés—the biggest a barrack; behind it the hospital, the stores of the commissary, and quartermaster; on one side the guardhouse; and on the other, more pretentiously placed, the messroom and officers’ quarters; all plain in their appearance—plastered and whitewashed with the lime plentifully found on the Leona—all neat and clean, as becomes a cantonment of troops wearing the uniform of a great civilised nation. Such is Fort Inge.
At a short distance off another group of houses meets the eye—nearly, if not quite, as imposing as the cluster above described bearing the name of “The Fort.” They are just outside the shadow of the flag, though under its protection—for to it are they indebted for their origin and existence. They are the germ of the village that universally springs up in the proximity of an American military post—in all probability, and at no very remote period, to become a town—perhaps a great city.
At present their occupants are a sutler, whose store contains “knick-knacks” not classed among commissariat rations; an hotel-keeper whose bar-room, with white sanded floor and shelves sparkling with prismatic glass, tempts the idler to step in; a brace of gamblers whose rival tables of faro and monté extract from the pockets of the soldiers most part of their pay; a score of dark-eyed señoritas of questionable reputation; a like number of hunters, teamsters, mustangers, and nondescripts—such as constitute in all countries the hangers-on of a military cantonment, or the followers of a camp.
The houses in the occupancy of this motley corporation have been “sited” with some design. Perhaps they are the property of a single speculator. They stand around a “square,” where, instead of lamp-posts or statues, may be seen the decaying trunk of a cypress, or the bushy form of a hackberry rising out of a tapis of trodden grass.
The Leona—at this point a mere rivulet—glides past in the rear both of fort and village. To the front extends a level plain, green as verdure can make it—in the distance darkened by a bordering of woods, in which post-oaks and pecâns, live oaks and elms, struggle for existence with spinous plants of cactus and anona; with scores of creepers, climbers, and parasites almost unknown to the botanist. To the south and east along the banks of the stream, you see scattered houses: the homesteads of plantations; some of them rude and of recent construction, with a few of more pretentious style, and evidently of older origin. One of these last particularly attracts the attention: a structure of superior size—with flat roof, surmounted by a crenelled parapet—whose white walls show conspicuously against the green background of forest with which it is half encircled. It is the hacienda of Casa del Corvo.