"I am but ill deserving thanks," was his rejoinder, "thus to leave you with a chance of losing your way. But, as I've told you, my time is measured."

The despatch-bearer consulted his watch--as though not a little reluctant to travel alone.

"You are very kind, sir," said Poindexter; "but with the directions you have given us, I think we shall be able to manage. The sun will surely show us--"

"No: now I look at the sky, it will not. There are clouds looming up on the north. In an hour, the sun may be obscured--at all events, before you can get within sight of the cypress. It will not do. Stay!" he continued, after a reflective pause, "I have a better plan still: _follow the trail of my lazo_!"

While speaking, he had lifted the coiled rope from his saddlebow, and flung the loose end to the earth--the other being secured to a ring in the pommel. Then raising his hat in graceful salutation--more than half directed towards the travelling carriage--he gave the spur to his steed; and once more bounded off over the prairie.

The lazo, lengthening out, tightened over the hips of his horse; and, dragging a dozen yards behind, left a line upon the cinereous surface-- as if some slender serpent had been making its pa.s.sage across the plain.

"An exceedingly curious fellow!" remarked the planter, as they stood gazing after the horseman, fast becoming hidden behind a cloud of sable dust. "I ought to have asked him his name?"

"An exceedingly conceited fellow, I should say," muttered Calhoun; who had not failed to notice the glance sent by the stranger in the direction of the carriole, nor that which had challenged it. "As to his name, I don't think it matters much. It mightn't be his own he would give you. Texas is full of such swells, who take new names when they get here--by way of improvement, if for no better reason."

"Come, cousin Cash," protested young Poindexter; "you are unjust to the stranger. He appears to be educated--in fact, a gentleman--worthy of bearing the best of names, I should say."

"A gentleman! Deuced unlikely: rigged out in that fanfaron fashion. I never saw a man yet, that took to a Mexican dress, who wasn't a _Jack_.

He's one, I'll be bound."

During this brief conversation, the fair occupant of the carriole was seen to bend forward; and direct a look of evident interest, after the form of the horseman fast receding from her view.

To this, perhaps, might have been traced the acrimony observable in the speech of Calhoun.

"What is it, Loo?" he inquired, riding close up to the carriage, and speaking in a voice not loud enough to be heard by the others. "You appear impatient to go forward? Perhaps you'd like to ride off along with that swaggering fellow? It isn't too late: I'll lend you my horse."

The young girl threw herself back upon the seat--evidently displeased, both by the speech and the tone in which it was delivered. But her displeasure, instead of expressing itself in a frown, or in the shape of an indignant rejoinder, was concealed under a guise far more galling to him who had caused it. A clear ringing laugh was the only reply vouchsafed to him.

"So, so! I thought there must be something--by the way you behaved yourself in his presence. You looked as if you would have relished a _tete-a-tete_ with this showy despatch-bearer. Taken with his stylish dress, I suppose? Fine feathers make fine birds. His are borrowed. I may strip them off some day, along with a little of the skin that's under them."

"For shame, Ca.s.sius! your words are a scandal!"

"'Tis you should think of scandal, Loo! To let your thoughts turn on a common scamp--a masquerading fellow like that! No doubt the letter carrier, employed by the officers at the Fort!"

"A letter carrier, you think? Oh, how I should like to get love letters by such a postman!"

"You had better hasten on, and tell him so. My horse is at your service."

"Ha! ha! ha! What a simpleton you show yourself! Suppose, for jesting's sake, I _did_ have a fancy to overtake this prairie postman!

It couldn't be done upon that dull steed of yours: not a bit of it! At the rate he is going, he and his blood-bay will be out of sight before you could change saddles for me. Oh, no! he's not to be overtaken by me, however much I might like it; and perhaps I _might like it_!"

"Don't let your father hear you talk in that way."

"Don't let him hear _you_ talk in that way," retorted the young lady, for the first time speaking in a serious strain. "Though you _are_ my cousin, and papa may think you the pink of perfection, I don't--not I!

I never told you I did--did I?" A frown, evidently called forth by some unsatisfactory reflection, was the only reply to this tantalising interrogative.

"You _are_ my cousin," she continued, in a tone that contrasted strangely with the levity she had already exhibited, "but you are nothing more--nothing more--Captain Ca.s.sius Calhoun! You have no claim to be my counsellor. There is but one from whom I am in duty bound to take advice, or bear reproach. I therefore beg of you, Master Cash, that you will not again presume to repeat such sentiments--as those you have just favoured me with. I shall remain mistress of my own thoughts--and actions, too--till I have found a master who can control them. It is not you!"

Having delivered this speech, with eyes flashing--half angrily, half contemptuously--upon her cousin, the young Creole once more threw herself back upon the cushions of the carriole.

The closing curtains admonished the ex-officer, that further conversation was not desired.

Quailing under the lash of indignant innocence, he was only too happy to hear the loud "gee-on" of the teamsters, as the waggons commenced moving over the sombre surface--not more sombre than his own thoughts.

CHAPTER THREE.

THE PRAIRIE FINGER-POST.

The travellers felt no further uneasiness about the route. The snake-like trail was continuous; and so plain that a child might have followed it.

It did not run in a right line, but meandering among the thickets; at times turning out of the way, in places where the ground was clear of timber. This had evidently been done with an intent to avoid obstruction to the waggons: since at each of these windings the travellers could perceive that there were breaks, or other inequalities, in the surface.

"How very thoughtful of the young fellow!" remarked Poindexter. "I really feel regret at not having asked for his name. If he belong to the Fort, we shall see him again."

"No doubt of it," a.s.sented his son. "I hope we shall."

His daughter, reclining in shadow, overheard the conjectural speech, as well as the rejoinder. She said nothing; but her glance towards Henry seemed to declare that her heart fondly echoed the hope.

Cheered by the prospect of soon terminating a toilsome journey--as also by the pleasant antic.i.p.ation of beholding, before sunset, his new purchase--the planter was in one of his happiest moods. His aristocratic bosom was moved by an unusual amount of condescension, to all around him. He chatted familiarly with his overseer; stopped to crack a joke with "Uncle" Scipio, hobbling along on blistered heels; and encouraged "Aunt" Chloe in the transport of her piccaninny.

"Marvellous!" might the observer exclaim--misled by such exceptional interludes, so pathetically described by the scribblers in Lucifer's pay--"what a fine patriarchal inst.i.tution is slavery, after all! After all we have said and done to abolish it! A waste of sympathy--sheer philanthropic folly to attempt the destruction of this ancient edifice-- worthy corner-stone to a 'chivalric' nation! Oh, ye abolition fanatics!

why do ye clamour against it? Know ye not that some must suffer--must work and starve--that others may enjoy the luxury of idleness? That some must be slaves, that others may be free?"

Such arguments--at which a world might weep--have been of late but too often urged. Woe to the man who speaks, and the nation that gives ear to them!

The planter's high spirits were shared by his party, Calhoun alone excepted. They were reflected in the faces of his black bondsmen, who regarded him as the source, and dispenser, of their happiness, or misery--omnipotent--next to G.o.d. They loved him less than G.o.d, and feared him more; though he was by no means a bad master--that is, _by comparison_. He did not absolutely take delight in torturing them. He liked to see them well fed and clad--their epidermis shining with the exudation of its own oil. These signs bespoke the importance of their proprietor--himself. He was satisfied to let them off with an occasional "cow-hiding"--salutary, he would a.s.sure you; and in all his "stock" there was not one black skin marked with the mutilations of vengeance--a proud boast for a Mississippian slave-owner, and more than most could truthfully lay claim to.

In the presence of such an exemplary owner, no wonder that the cheerfulness was universal--or that the slaves should partake of their master's joy, and give way to their garrulity.

It was not destined that this joyfulness should continue to the end of their journey. It was after a time interrupted--not suddenly, nor by any fault on the part of those indulging in it, but by causes and circ.u.mstances over which they had not the slightest control.

As the stranger had predicted: the sun ceased to be visible, before the cypress came in sight.

There was nothing in this to cause apprehension. The line of the lazo was conspicuous as ever; and they needed no guidance from the sun: only that his cloud-eclipse produced a corresponding effect upon their spirits.

"One might suppose it close upon nightfall," observed the planter, drawing out his gold repeater, and glancing at its dial; "and yet it's only three o'clock! Lucky the young fellow has left us such a sure guide. But for him, we might have floundered among these ashes till sundown; perhaps have been compelled to sleep upon them."

"A black bed it would be," jokingly rejoined Henry, with the design of rendering the conversation more cheerful. "Ugh! I should have such ugly dreams, were I to sleep upon it."

"And I, too," added his sister, protruding her pretty face through the curtains, and taking a survey of the surrounding scene: "I'm sure I should dream of Tartarus, and Pluto, and Proserpine, and--"

"Hya! hya! hya!" grinned the black Jehu, on the box--enrolled in the plantation books as _Pluto Poindexter_--"De young missa dream 'bout _me_ in de mids' ob dis brack praira! Golly! dat am a good joke--berry!

Hya! hya! hya!"

"Don't be too sure, all of ye," said the surly nephew, at this moment coming up, and taking part in the conversation--"don't be too sure that you won't have to make your beds upon it yet. I hope it may be no worse."