My first impulse was to communicate the discovery to my companions; but I forbore for a while—in order to satisfy myself that the person who had made this daring attempt had actually succeeded in reaching the summit.
Twilight was on, and I could get only an indistinct view of the gorge at its upper part; but I saw enough to convince me that the attempt had been successful.
What bold fellow had ventured this? and with what object? were the questions I naturally asked myself.
Vague recollections were stirring within me; presently they grew more distinct, and all at once I was able to answer both the interrogatories I had put. I knew the man who had climbed that cliff. I only wondered I had not thought of him before!
Among the many odd characters in the piebald band, of which I had the honour to be chief, not the least odd was one who answered to the euphonious name of “Elijah Quackenboss.” He was a mixture of Yankee and German, originating somewhere in the mountains of Pennsylvania. He had been a schoolmaster among his native hills—had picked up some little book-learning; but what rendered him more interesting to me was the fact that he was a botanist. Not a very scientific one, it is true; but in whatever way obtained, he possessed a respectable knowledge of flora and sylva, and evinced an aptitude for the study not inferior to Linneus himself. The more surprising was this, that such inclinations are somewhat rare among Americans—but Quackenboss no doubt drew his instinct from his Teutonic ancestry.
If his intellectual disposition was odd, not less so was his physical. His person was tall, crooked, and lanky; and none of those members that should have been counterparts of each other seemed exactly to match. His arms were odd ones—his limbs were unlike; and all four looked as if they had met by accident, and could not agree upon anything. His eyes were no better mated, and never consented to look in the same direction; but with the right one, Elijah Quackenboss could “sight” a rifle, and drive in a nail at a hundred yards’ distance.
From his odd habits, his companions—the rangers—regarded him as hardly “square;” but this idea was partially derived from seeing him engaged in his botanical researches—an occupation that to them appeared simply absurd. They knew, however, that “Dutch Lige”—such was his sobriquet—could shoot “plum centre;” and notwithstanding his quiet demeanour, had proved himself “good stuff at the bottom;” and this shielded him from the ridicule he would otherwise have experienced at their hands.
Than Quackenboss, a more ardent student of botany I never saw. No labour retarded him in the pursuit. No matter how wearied with drill or other duties, the moment the hours became his own, he would be off in search of rare plants, wandering far from camp, and at times placing himself in situations of extreme danger. Since his arrival on Texan ground, he had devoted much attention to the study of the cactaceae; and now having reached Mexico, the home of these singular endogens, he might be said to have gone cactus-mad. Every day his researches disclosed to him new forms of cactus or cereus, and it was in connexion with one of these that he was now recalled to my memory. I remembered his having told me—for a similarity of tastes frequently brought us into conversation—of his having discovered, but a few days before, a new and singular species of mamillaria. He had found it growing upon a prairie mound—which he had climbed for the purpose of exploring his botany—adding at the same time that he had observed the species only upon the top of this mound, and nowhere else in the surrounding country.
This mound was our mesa. It had been climbed by Elijah Quackenboss!
If he, awkward animal that he was, had been able to scale the height, why could not we?