I 
FOREST AND STR£:AM. 
163 
In Southeastern Texas.— 11. 
A Dismal Night aear the San Jacinto* 
"Well, what do yon think of it?" asked my partner, 
Mr. Talliaferro, as he ceased reading to me a brief he 
had prepared in a suit we had pending in the Supreme 
Court at Galveston. 
"It seems to me to be exactly appropriate; just what 
we are after," I replied. "I'd bolster up that point as to 
the equities of a vendor's lien with an authority or two. 
Day after to-morrow I'll look the matter up and see 
what there is in the books on that head." 
"Day after to-morrow? Why not now? Our time 
limit with the court is about out. I would like to send 
the brief at once for filing." 
"Oh, well," I replied, "there will be plenty of time. I 
am tired to death. This morning's wrestle with the com- 
missioner wore me to a frazzle. I feel actually flabby. 
"You are an old humbug. Long," cried Talliaferro. 
"Talk of being tired. I'll warrant you are at this moment 
expecting that lumbering old tramp, Briscoe, and you 
and he will be ofF hunting." 
"Yes," I admitted, "I am expecting him along pres- 
ently, but — " 
"But, fiddlesticks! You two chumps affecting to be 
tired from jrour work, will get into his old ramshackle 
berry and lablally pine — bordering the San Jacinto. 
Within its shadows, about a mile from the edge of the 
prairie, we came upon the banks of Silver Lake. No 
lake of hill-country character was this of the San Jacinto 
bottom, fed by sisring or catch of surrounding water- 
shed, but only a bit of an old river bed, left long ago in 
some high-water cut-off. Such lakes are familiar land 
features to folk of Western river-bottom experiences. In 
Florida such natural formation would be termed a la- 
goon. While yet a bit of light remained the team was 
ungeared and the four brutes tied up and fed. I made 
coffee and spread a snack. Briscoe filled and trimmed 
two lamps and lectured the boys the white as to how 
they should deport themselves. Supper over, we smoked, 
and Briscoe said: "We'd better ride back to the prairie 
and hunt along the timber's edge to-night. Separating, 
we can ride in opposite directions, each with a boy as 
companion. Certainly, with timber on but one side of 
us, open prairie on the other, a clear sjcy overhead, with 
stars all aglow, we can safely trust to keep our directions. 
Choose your partners, lads, and saddle your own horses." 
"Well, I'm going to stick to you, uncle," cried Hal. 
"Which suits your LTncle Fuller all right," said Joe. 
"Mr. Long and I shall 'ride forth together to arouse the 
wild stag from his native lair and shake the dcwdrops 
from his checkered flank.' No you don't; that's my sad- 
dle with the double girth and big stirrups." 
The pied mare fell again to me. I rubbed her nose, 
then bore away from the timber westerly intoj the prairie^ 
when bang-g-g, came gun roar again. 
"Gracious mel" exclaimed Joe, in an injured tone; 
"Uncle 'Menus is just a-raking 'm. What's the matter, 
that we can't find any?" 
"Hist!" I whispered, as at the moment I descried two 
great luminous disks gleaming ahead of us. The old 
horse saw them, too, and with his nail-keg Of a head 
high in air, he waltzed about, facing me away from my 
find. Rowel and rein fetched him squarely head-on again, 
and ! clearly made out, lying quietly in the grass, scarcely 
.30ft. away, the body of a large deer. So large, lustrous 
and mild was the expression of the reflected eyes that I 
should have deemed them those of a gentle cow; but lying 
within the lighted radius of the lamp I saw the deer -form. 
I fired, and there lay kicking, dying, without having 
risen from lair, a great motherly doe, and despite the old 
gelding doing the ground and lofty, in regular broncho 
style, I felt as a roan might who had kicked a woman; an-d 
rammed my mortification into the poor old beast's ribs 
in most manlj' fashion. Knocking out an old doe where 
she lay, in full view, and when T ought to have known 
that it was a doe, I felt to be an achievement not likely 
to pass muster with Briscoe, At any rate, it shan't hap- 
pen again, thought I. Those great, mellow, shining orbs, 
then, are likely to belong to a doe. I «ihall remember 
that. Bleeding and dressing the kill, I soon had it up be- 
hind Joe on the mare, where we made it fa§t, and got 
A ONE-NIGHT STAND. 
Photograph by Dr. Charles D. Smith, Portland, Me. First prize in Class 3 of the Forest and Stream's Amateur Photography Competition. 
road- wagon, go bumping for miles over a hog-wallow 
prairie, stay up all night proging around after deer, 
tramp the coverts all day to-morrow in quest of chicken, 
then gad about to-morrow night again and turn up here 
the next morning, smoked, dirty, red-eyed and tick-bit- 
ten, and declare you are so 'refreshed' and 'reinvigorated.' 
Pshaw! I despise savagery." 
"Try and compose yourself, you inky old pen-wiper, 
^ou are talking excitingly about what you don't know. 
Besides, who was it who, only yesterday, was expatiat- 
ing so enthusiastically to Judge Cook about 'a grand 
run' he had been in after 'an old red' up in Virginia, and 
about 'music of the dogs'?" 
Here we were interrupted by the appearance at our 
open door of a handsome, big-eyed boy, who said: 
"Uncle 'Menus wants Mr. Long to come on. He is in 
the wagon, waiting." 
"All right; I'll be there at once. Good bye, old man." 
I said to Talliaferro. "Cheer up a bit. Put that paper 
away. Borrow Hornburger's terrier, take a cast around 
the block; you may jump a Tom, a real old brindle, in 
the back alley, and — " 
"Oh! go on." And I descended the stair. Below I 
found Briscoe and a youngster, quite as big-eyed and 
older than the one who had summoned me. - • J-^ 
"I was doubtful about coming for you," said Briscoe. 
"These are my nephews, Joe and Hal Baldwin, from 
Alabama; with their mother they are visiting my people. 
Their. grandma has been stuffing them full of accoimts of 
our hunting, and they set their hearts on going with 
me. I fear they'll be a lot of trouble. I have the car- 
riage horses along to mount them. We will — " 
"Make them have a good tinie," I interrupted. "Have 
you ever camped out, boys, and killed deer?" 
"We have never seen a live deer in the woods," said 
Joe, the elder. "We camped out once, up on the Warrior 
River, with papa. We were fishing." 
"Here! climb in," called Briscoe. "I want to get to 
the big timber on the San Jacinto River, if we can, before 
dark. We will camp near Silver Lake. It's getting late; 
let's be off. Won't you drive, please, Mr. Long? I'll 
have to hang on to these two dromedaries, who are none 
too ready at leading, I find." 
We were soon beyond the town. It let old Jim and 
the pied mare have their heads. They soon seemed to 
know our destination, and about dusk we reached and 
entered the belt of timber — past oak, pecan elm, hack- 
stroked her neck and saddled her carefully. As there 
would be no moon, and we would probably make a 
night of it, lamps would need refilling; so to cantle I 
suspended by buckskin thong a bottle of kerosene oil, 
then to the pomel hung a blowing horn, and across the 
seat slung a canvas wallet, in one end of which was a bite 
of lunch, a bottle of water, and in the other end was placed 
pipe, tobacco, matches, twine, pocket compass and a 
hatchet. Around the mare's neck, suspended by a light 
strap, I hung a small sheep bell. This, haging down 
upon heir chest, was jostled, and tinkled as she moved, 
and was intended to excite the curiosity of Hstening deer 
and induce them to stand and peer toward the sound. 
Briscoe was somewhat like accoutered. 
Baking the fire, we mounted our respective nags and 
rode away together, lamps a-crown, along the road, 
through timber to prairie, followed by two wonderfully 
excited boys. Separating at the edge of grassy plain, 
Briscoe and Hal rode nortliwaixi, while Joe and I 
trooped away to the south. "Good luck to you, and may 
the old Parker do you proud," 1 shouted. "Thanks; 
same luck to you," he called back, and presently the 
Texan's rnoving lamp was a mere wabbling speck, or 
spark, against the curtain of the night. 
There is a certain nervous alertness, a watchful eager- 
ness of discrimination, attending this riding afield in the 
night, which, coupled with the absolute silence, necessar-. 
ily maintained, is a bit gruesome, or at least awesome, 
and engenders a highly wrought sense of intense pur- 
pose that is exciting m the extreme. 
After riding but a short way Joe's, old horse, separated 
from his mate, grew restive and began to neigh and gen- 
erally misbehave. The little man from the Coosa coun- 
try was no experienced horseman, and I discovered by 
a trem.or in his repeated ''Whoa, sir," that he was get- 
ting rattled. Fearing I should have to turn back on his 
account I determined to exchange mounts with him. 
The appendages of my saddle were many, and to avoid 
loss of time in shifting gear I merely altered the length 
of the stirrup leathers, placed him on the mare, and 
mounted the old gelding myself. As we again made 
head there came the report of a guo from a mile away 
northward. "There barked the Parker," I cried, "and 
that old Texas kinsman of yours doubtless leads us a 
good head of bones." 
A little way on, finding no eyes, I took the sheep bell 
from the mare's withers and hung it a:t my saddle bow. 
under way again. Joe was evidently disappointed at the 
absence of horns. "Shucks!" he ejaculated: "I wonder 
if those Uncle 'Menus has shot were sows, too." 
The grass began to be taller and coarser, the ground 
surface was gradually falling away, anci had become quite 
moist. Slightly changing our direction to the northward, 
to regain dryer ground, I suddenly caught a glimpse oi 
something— ej^es of some sort, surely. A living, moving 
thing of some description, with as much chick and get-up 
in them as I could well imagine. It was only a glimpse 
I had of them, and they were gone. Nothing big, or 
round, or soft about those blinkers; only two little, blue 
sulphurous prongs, set close together, diverging out- 
ward at the top; but how wonderfully "piert" and full of 
character. Instinct, for I had never seen the like before, 
assured me that I had looked squarely into the face of 
a knowing old monarch of a herd. The will to have him 
seized me body and soul, and my gun came into ready 
position, whereat the cowardly heart of the old town 
brute I bestrode began to quake; he wheeled away and 
made ready for more circus business. I at once dis- 
mounted, passed the reins over my right shoulder, and 
faced quickly toward where had been those wonderfully 
knowing, shining glints. Instantly, a little further away, 
flashed the strangely intelligent glance. My gun came 
up, a finger twitched, and nine leaden pellets went whort- 
ling out into the night. A confused sense only of what 
transpired in the next half minute has ever stayed with 
me. 
The rank grass, high as my shoulder, was damp, the 
undertread wet. A great puffed outspread of white sul- 
phurous smoke rolled over the prairie growth. Like a 
monstrous snowslide it convalved and spread, gleaming 
in the lamp's light like a great bubbling bank of molten 
silver. The abominable old beast at my elbow crouched 
trembling and walled his bleared eyes at the sight until 
they seemed to stick out like those of a crah. An in- 
stant more, a light breeze set the sulphurous cloud rolling 
toward us, and out of it came rearing a great antlered 
head of branching horns. I jumped aside to avoid a" 
rush so dangerous. The frenzied old Conestoga did like-T 
wise, but he went the other way. The , attached reins 
snatched me heels over head, my gun was' ya.nked off in 
the dark, while the lamp and headgeaf sail clattering into 
the high grass, and then the larnp went out. With fu- 
rious snort of utter dem.oralization the beggarly brute 
broke away from me and, cut with might an^ Wain across 
