Headless Horseman. Captain Mayne Reid
The pretty niece of the commissary smiled admiringly upon him. Some said the commissary’s wife; but this could be only a slander, to be traced, perhaps, to the doctor’s better half — the Lady Teazle of the cantonment.
“Surely,” said Poindexter, after making an examination of the captured mustang, “this must be the animal of which old Zeb Stump has been telling me?”
“It ur thet eyedenticul same,” answered the individual so described, making his way towards Maurice with the design of assisting him. “Ye-es, Mister Peintdexter; the eyedenticul critter — a maar, es ye kin all see for yurselves — ”
“Yes, yes,” hurriedly interposed the planter, not desiring any further elucidation.
“The young fellur hed grupped her afore I got thur; so I wur jess in the nick o’ time ’bout it. She mout a been tuck elswhar, an then Miss Lewaze thur mout a missed hevin’ her.”
“It is true indeed, Mr Stump! It was very thoughtful of you. I know not how I shall ever be able to reciprocate your kindness?”
“Reciperkate! Wal, I spose thet air means to do suthin in return. Ye kin do thet, miss, ’ithout much difeequilty. I han’t dud nothin’ for you, ceptin’ make a bit o’ a journey acrost the purayra. To see yur bewtyful self mounted on thet maar, wi’ yur ploomed het upon yur head, an yur long-tailed pettykote streakin’ it ahint you, ’ud pay old Zeb Stump to go clur to the Rockies, and back agin.”
“Oh, Mr Stump! you are an incorrigible flatterer! Look around you! you will see many here more deserving of your compliments than I.”
“Wal, wal!” rejoined Zeb, casting a look of careless scrutiny towards the ladies, “I ain’t a goin’ to deny thet thur air gobs o’ putty critters hyur — dog-goned putty critters; but es they used to say in ole Loozyanney, thur air but one Lewaze Peintdexter.”
A burst of laughter — in which only a few feminine voices bore part — was the reply to Zeb’s gallant speech.
“I shall owe you two hundred dollars for this,” said the planter, addressing himself to Maurice, and pointing to the spotted mare. “I think that was the sum stipulated for by Mr Stump.”
“I was not a party to the stipulation,” replied the mustanger, with a significant but well-intentioned smile. “I cannot take your money. She is not for sale.”
“Oh, indeed!” said the planter, drawing back with an air of proud disappointment; while his brother planters, as well as the officers of the Fort, looked astonished at the refusal of such a munificent price. Two hundred dollars for an untamed mustang, when the usual rate of price was from ten to twenty! The mustanger must be mad?
He gave them no time to descant upon his sanity.
“Mr Poindexter,” he continued, speaking in the same good-humoured strain, “you have given me such a generous price for my other captives — and before they were taken too — that I can afford to make a present — what we over in Ireland call a ‘luckpenny.’ It is our custom there also, when a horse-trade takes place at the house, to give the douceur, not to the purchaser himself, but to one of the fair members of his family. May I have your permission to introduce this Hibernian fashion into the settlements of Texas?”
“Certainly, by all means!” responded several voices, two or three of them unmistakably with an Irish accentuation.
“Oh, certainly, Mr Gerald!” replied the planter, his conservatism giving way to the popular will — “as you please about that.”
“Thanks, gentlemen — thanks!” said the mustanger, with a patronising look towards men who believed themselves to be his masters. “This mustang is my luckpenny; and if Miss Poindexter will condescend to accept of it, I shall feel more than repaid for the three days’ chase which the creature has cost me. Had she been the most cruel of coquettes, she could scarce have been more difficult to subdue.”
“I accept your gift, sir; and with gratitude,” responded the young Creole — for the first time prominently proclaiming herself, and stepping freely forth as she spoke. “But I have a fancy,” she continued, pointing to the mustang — at the same time that her eye rested inquiringly on the countenance of the mustanger — “a fancy that your captive is not yet tamed? She but trembles in fear of the unknown future. She may yet kick against the traces, if she find the harness not to her liking; and then what am I to do — poor I?”
“True, Maurice!” said the major, widely mistaken as to the meaning of the mysterious speech, and addressing the only man on the ground who could possibly have comprehended it; “Miss Poindexter speaks very sensibly. That mustang has not been tamed yet — any one may see it. Come, my good fellow! give her the lesson.
“Ladies and gentlemen!” continued the major, turning towards the company, “this is something worth your seeing — those of you who have not witnessed the spectacle before. Come, Maurice; mount, and show us a specimen of prairie horsemanship. She looks as though she would put your skill to the test.”
“You are right, major: she does!” replied the mustanger, with a quick glance, directed not towards the captive quadruped, but to the young Creole; who, with all her assumed courage, retired tremblingly behind the circle of spectators.
“No matter, my man,” pursued the major, in a tone intended for encouragement. “In spite of that devil sparkling in her eye, I’ll lay ten to one you’ll take the conceit out of her. Try!”
Without losing credit, the mustanger could not have declined acceding to the major’s request. It was a challenge to skill — to equestrian prowess — a thing not lightly esteemed upon the prairies of Texas.
He proclaimed his acceptance of it by leaping lightly out of his saddle, resigning his own steed to Zeb Stump, and exclusively giving his attention to the captive.
The only preliminary called for was the clearing of the ground. This was effected in an instant — the greater part of the company — with all the ladies — returning to the azotea.
With only a piece of raw-hide rope looped around the under jaw, and carried headstall fashion behind the ears — with only one rein in hand — Maurice sprang to the back of the wild mare.
It was the first time she had ever been mounted by man — the first insult of the kind offered to her.
A shrill spiteful scream spoke plainly her appreciation of and determination to resent it. It proclaimed defiance of the attempt to degrade her to the condition of a slave!
With equine instinct, she reared upon her hind legs, for some seconds balancing her body in an erect position. Her rider, anticipating the trick, had thrown his arms around her neck; and, close clasping her throat, appeared part of herself. But for this she might have poised over upon her back, and crushed him beneath her.
The uprearing of the hind quarters was the next “trick” of the mustang — sure of being tried, and most difficult for the rider to meet without being thrown. From sheer conceit in his skill, he had declined saddle and stirrup, that would now have stood him in stead; but with these he could not have claimed accomplishment of the boasted feat of the prairies — to tame the naked steed.
He performed it without them. As the mare raised her hind quarters aloft, he turned quickly upon her back, threw his arms around the barrel of her body, and resting his toes upon the angular points of her fore shoulders, successfully resisted her efforts to unhorse him.
Twice or three times was the endeavour repeated by the mustang, and as often foiled by the skill of the mustanger; and then, as if conscious that such efforts were idle, the enraged animal plunged no longer; but, springing away from the spot, entered upon a gallop that appeared to have no goal this side the ending of the earth.
It must have come to an end somewhere; though not within sight of the spectators, who kept their places, waiting for the horse-tamer’s return.
Conjectures that he might be killed, or, at the least, badly “crippled,” were freely ventured during his absence; and there was one who wished it so.