“But the steed? the white steed?”
“Bill hyur grupped him in the gully. A leetle further down it’s stopped up wi’ big rocks. We knowd thet, for we’d been over this groun’ afore. We knowd the hoss kudn’t a got over the rocks, an Bill went arter an foun him, on a ledge whur he hed clomb out o’ reech o’ the flood; an then he lazooed the critter, an fotched ’im up hyur. Now, young fellur, you’ve got the hul story.”
“An the hoss,” added Garey, rising from his recumbent position, “he’s yourn, capt’n. Ef you hadn’t rid him down, I couldn’t a roped him so easy. He’s yourn, ef yu’ll accept o’ him.”
“Thanks, thanks! not for the gift alone, but I may thank you for my life. But for you, I might never have left this spot. Thanks! old comrades, thanks!”
Every point was now cleared up. There was mystery no longer, though, from an expression which Garey had dropped, I still desired a word with him in private.
On further inquiry, I learned that the trappers were on their way to take part in the campaign. Some barbarous treatment they had experienced from Mexican soldiers at a frontier post, had rendered both of them inveterate foes to Mexico; and Rube declared he would never be contented until he had “plugged a score of the yellur-hided vamints.” The breaking out of the war gave them the opportunity they desired, and they were now on their way, from a distant part of prairie-land, to take a hand in it.
The vehemence of their hostility towards the Mexicans somewhat surprised me—as I knew it was a recent feeling with them—and I inquired more particularly into the nature of the ill-treatment they had received. They answered me by giving a detailed account of the affair. It had occurred at one of the Mexican frontier towns, where, upon a slight pretext, the trappers had been arrested and flogged, by order of the commanding officer of the post.
“Yes–s!” said Rube, the words hissing angrily through his teeth; “yes–s, flogged!—a mountain-man flogged by a cussed monkey of a Mexikin! Ne’er a mind! ne’er a mind! By the ’tarnal God!—an when I say thet, I swar it—this niggur don’t leave Mexiko till he hes rubbed out a soger for every lash they gin him—an that’s twenty!”
“Hyur’s another, old hoss!” cried Garey, with equal earnestness of manner—“hyur’s another that swars the same oath!”
“Yes, Billee, boy! I guess we’ll count some in a skrimmage. Thur’s two a’ready! lookee thur, young fellur!”