Posts
All Comments
Prince Errant, accompanied by his jester, roamed a fantasy world full of griffins, witches, and dragons, in search of a princess to wed. Usually he came to grief at the hands of the various princesses’ fathers. He was a masterful draftsman and one unique quality of the comic was that it was an adventure strip continued from week to week.
STOLEN SKETCH SENT BACK TO CARTOONIST
Los Angeles, April 3, 1930.- (AP)
“Harry Cornell Greening, one of the pioneer comic strip artists, hasn’t lost faith in the world’s honesty.
A few years ago, when Enrico Caruso, the Tenor, was alive, he asked Greening to pose for a crayon sketch. After it was completed, Caruso autographed it and sent it to the artist. Several days after he received the sketch, it disappeared. Years passed and Greening came to California. Yesterday, while opening his mail, out popped the sketch. Someone in New York, without disclosing a name or address, had mailed it to him.”
Barnacle Press has a nice selection of another Greening strip, The Woo Woo Bird, HERE. Time magazine mentions his creation Percy the Mechanical Man HERE.
*TOP, 31 March 1906.
Household Words, 1881 Vol. p. 450
The Editor’s Note Book.
That Mrs. Braddon’s abridgement of Scott’s novels would be speedily followed by other mangled versions of popular books was only to be expected. Charles Dickens, Charles Lever, Lord Lytton and Captain Marryat are to furnish materials for the next series, which is also to deal with Sir Walter, and for the production of which the scissors of Charles H. Ross have been called into requisition.
As to the propriety or good taste of such a manner of dealing with the illustrious dead, I do not think it necessary to express an opinion. The personal interest which I have in the matter might lead some people to suppose that I approached the question with an unfair bias if I were to speak my mind as freely as I should like to speak it, so like the parrot in the story, I must content myself with “thinking a lot.”
But this, at all events, I must say. To publish a garbled version of a novel, and to let it go forth to the public with a title-page calling it “The Story of Oliver Twist, by Charles Dickens,” is nothing more or less than fraud. It should be enough for the publisher that he is able to lay hands on a story, owing to the expiration of the ridiculously short period of copyright with which the English Parliament rewards literary men. But, if we must have this sort of thing at all, the book ought at least to be honestly announced as “Oliver Twist, abridged by Charles H. Ross from the novel by Charles Dickens.”
*Illustration from original 1846 Oliver Twist in Monthly parts.
“Roving Jack the Pirate Hunter, a Romance of the Road and the Ocean,” by Charles Stevens, 40 nos. London: NPC, August 1862.
“Roving Jack the Pirate Hunter” “Boys of England Office” 40 parts.1882.
“Roving Jack, the Pirate Hunter.” Excerpts from; “Our Very Cheap Literature.” from The Contemporary Review, Volume XIV, 1870, by Alexander Strahan.
“Sensational art, however, attains its climax in the coloured illustrations of “Roving Jack.” On the first page Jack is lying in the “Death Hole” in the midst of chained, grinning skeletons - some with rags of red and yellow raiment still clinging to them. A man-of-warsman, with a cutlass in his mouth, and a torch in one hand, lowers himself down a rope by the other to the rescue. But even this impressivetableau appears tame when you turn to the double-page illustration of “Roving Jack’s Attack on the Phantom Captain in the Witch’s Cave.” Roving Jack, a juvenile cross between a stage smuggler and a stage foreign peasant, is coming down the witch’s cave’s rough staircase, at the head of his youthful companions, with his sword in his right hand. He looks horrified, and well he may. The witch, in crimson poncho and somewhat fashionably cut green dress, has a monstrously bloated toad squatting beside her train. A viper writhes round the pitchfork she brandishes in her right hand, another sits upon her shoulder, a third twines round the chain of the cauldron she is adjusting over an open fire, whose flames are rushing towards the opening which ventilates the cave. A bat, about the size of a crow, is hovering in the lilac smoke. Beneath a beam, round which a long, green snake is twisted, stands the Phantom Captain, with a death’s-head and a cross-bones embroidered on the undertaker’s cloak, which hides half of his red kilt and one of his jack-boots. Near him sits, with his red night-capped head between his hands, and his elbows on his knees, a grown-up stage smuggler, grinning in envious rivalry at a skull, through one of whose eye-sockets his twisted rapier is thrust. Between the smuggler and the skull, with her feet in the fire, lies a plump young woman, pinioned down to the ground by a dagger stuck through her right arm. We have inventoried the illustration before reading the text, which we supposed it illustrated. Turning to the letterpress we cannot find any such text. Here, however, is a specimen of the intellectual food supplied in “Roving Jack”:-
Oh! the unutterable horror and despair of that awakening in the pit of death and darkness.
The rude shock of his fall roused our hero from his state of insensibility.
He lifted his head. He felt blinded, racked with agonizing pain, sick, giddy, faint, bewildered, half-suffocated with that awful stench of corruption.
He was alone in the deep darkness, but where?
He knew not; his mind was a glass darkened and shattered.
He must shake off the wretched incubus that lies like a ton of lead upon his breast; he must awake - awake to the cheerful light; start from his hell-charmed slumber; break through the hag-spell that enthralls his soul with such dark and loathsome conceits.
The boy uttered a wild cry; the echoes laughed like mocking demons.
He raised his hands.
The hard steel clinked, and he found his wrists locked together, and his feet bound !
A twinge of exquisite pain shot through his aching head, and the veins of his brow seemed to swell to bursting.
He felt a clammy, warm trickling down his face.
It was a stream of blood!
By slow and painful degrees he collected his thoughts, and recalled all the dread incidents of that eventful night.
The savage face of the miscreant thief-taker seemed scowling upon him.
The fancy nerved the fierce heart of the fiery young hero to a pitch of desperate anger.
“No, you villain!” shouted Roving Jack, shaking his fettered hands through the darkness as if his enemy was actually before him, “you shall never, never conquer me ! Oh, if I had you alone, armed to the teeth as you are, with just my father’s pure sword in my hand !”
Jack gnashed his teeth with rage.
“I suppose I must die here,” he sighed bitterly, “That is hard, too - so young ! To leave no name behind me! all my bright gleams of glory to perish so soon and miserably ! And mother!”
Jack burst into tears.
“And - and Violet, who loves me so dearly; but there - there, I must not think of them, I cannot bear it!”
Jack dried his eyes and rested his head against the cold, dank wall.
He fixed his thoughts steadily upon holy things, and murmured a prayer.
Jack turned over upon his side, and managed to writhe along for a yard or two. He stretched out his arms.
“Ugh !” gasped Jack, recoiling with a violent shudder. “It is - a skeleton !”
He shook convulsively, and it was a long time before he could control his excited feelings.
“Oh, for one ray of blessed light!” he cried fervently.
Crawling about he laid his hands more than once on round hard skulls, and sharp fleshless bones.
He uttered a fearful cry, his brow exuded a cold clammy sweat, his limbs quivered like reeds in the wind, his lips became parched, his hair roused, and he felt as if he were losing his senses.
He threw himself down against the wall, and buried his face in his hands, crushed by despair and dismay.
At last he roused himself from his stupor, and glared wildly around him.
The stench grew more and more oppressive and the darkness was intense.
All at once there arose from the floor at some distance from him a greenish lambent flame that flickered faintly, and threw a ghastly light upon the awful scene.
Transfixed with awe, our hero glanced around.
The place was a very charnel of dead bones.
But whence that spectral light illumining the ghastly scene ? *
It lapped upon the floor, and in its fantastic waverings resembled the flare of ignited ether.
At last it settled at the feet of a lank and hideously-grinning skeleton propped against the opposite wall. Then it spread about the dread relict of miserable humanity, and flared upwards in an unconsuming blaze, playing round the smooth bare skull and creeping into the hollow eye-sockets.
Presently he was startled by a quick stealthy rustling.
RATS!
Tumbling and squeaking among the rattling bones, a legion of these detestable vermin surged around him.
One darted right across his face, inflicting a sharp bite upon his cheek.
Jack shrieked and staggered on to his feet, supporting himself against the wall.
Goaded to a pitch of madness, he snatched up a skull, and sent it clattering along the ground.
Squeak, squeak! and a terrific scampering.
Jack hurled another skull, and another, and another, till he sank with exhaustion.
He fainted.
His mind wandered, and he feebly muttered his incoherent prayers.
Now, the darkness seems peopled with dusky, yet visible forms, shapeless, yet living; they surrounded him, and seemed to gloat over his dying agonies.
“Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha-a!” the cavern resounds with demoniac laughter.
“Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha-a !” roar the echoes.
A mystic blue light dawns in the place.
The skeletons move!
They rear themselves on their gaunt shanks, and clack their bony hands together.
“I am mad, mad!” gasps Jack; “oh, horror, horror !”
Now they whirl round him faster and faster and faster, till he becomes dizzy.
One of them is taller than the rest, and seems to be their leader.
He is mantled in a heavy, black velvet pall, fringed with light lawn.
He pauses in the dance, and, approaching the captive, seems to proffer him assistance.
Jack holds out his chained wrists.
The spectre touches them with the hard tip of his bony finger, and an electric thrill darts through the captive’s shrinking veins.
The steel manacles are shattered, and clash to the ground like broken glass.
Jack shouts in mad triumph, and then points to his scorching lips, and sues for drink. The spectre presents a skull into which he has poured some ruby liquid.
Jack takes a greedy draught.
Then, with a horrible scream, he dashes the ghastly chalice to his feet.
His face and hands are smeared - with blood.
“Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha-a !” yell the death spectres, and away they go round again, whirling dizzily, dizzily, deftly, nimbly, tossing up their jointed limbs, and nodding their faceless heads.
A delightful sensation of languid repose now overpowers the captive, and he stretches himself on the ground.
But what strange spell is on him?
Now there is a deep hush; the skeletons depart and he is left alone.
After awhile they return and swathe the living corpse in the garments of the grave and place it upon the bier.
BOOM!
The hollow echoes respond solemnly.
Boom, boom!
The passing knell of the living dead!
The bier is raised on the clacking shoulders of the ribbed spectres.
Boom, boom!
The cavern rings with a grand organ peal - the dirge of the dead alive !
BOOM !
The funeral procession is formed; some of the grizzly skeletons march before, and they scatter fresh flowers that wither to dust ere they reach the ground.
Others of the spectres follow.
The black-mantled leader acts as chief mourner.
Still the enchanted retains perfect consciousness.
A dark grave yawns beneath him.
He is lowered amid the hollow moanings of the skeleton mourners.
Cooped in his narrow cell, still conscious, but dumb and impotent to stir a muscle, the living dead glares up at the black cloud that is descending upon him.
It is the pall!
He feels the mazy velvet folds wrap round his spell-bound limbs, he hears the last grand chorus of the requiem dying away; - then
DARKNESS! OBLIVION!
* It is a well-known fact that dead bodies in advanced stages of composition emit certain foul gases, which occasionally appear in a state of combustion, flickering round the corpse in a faint blue flame. This natural phenomenon will account for many of the strange tales told of “corpse candles” and “death lights” seen glimmering around graves in old and dank churchyards. A similar luminate gas is engendered by miry swamps and marshy fens, and is often descried by the belated traveler dancing before him on his dark path as if luring him to follow, and which is considered by some superstitious country folk to be a certain tricksy fire-sprite, called “Will-o’-the-Wisp,” or “Jack-o’-Lantern.”
“Best for Boys” editions:
1. Cheerful Ching-Ching 11 nos. (sequel to “Handsome Harry.”)
2. Daring Ching-Ching; or, the Mysterious Cruise of the Swallow 18 nos.
3. Wonderful Ching-Ching, His Further Adventures 30 nos.
4. Young Ching-Ching (A Worthy Son of a Worthy Sire)
5. Ching-Ching Yarns No. 1, “Ching-Ching on the Trail.” Further tales in this pocket series were written by Burrage but were not Ching-Ching stories.
Memoir of Mayne Reid,
by R. H. Stoddard
New York January 1st 1889.
No one who has written books for the young during the present century ever had so large a circle of readers as Captain Mayne Reid, or ever was so well fitted by circumstances to write the books by which he is chiefly known. His life, which was an adventurous one, was ripened with the experience of two continents, and his temperament which was an ardent one, reflected the traits of two races. Irish by birth, he was American in his sympathies with the people of the New World, whose acquaintance he made at an early period, among whom he lived for years, and whose battles he helped to win. He was probably more familiar with the Southern and Western portion of the United States forty years ago than any native-born American of that time. A curious interest attaches to the life of Captain Reid, but it is not of the kind that casual biographers dwell upon. If he had written it himself it would have charmed thousands of readers, who can now merely imagine what it might have been from the glimpses of it which they obtain from his writings. It was not passed in the fierce light of publicity, but in that simple, silent obscurity which is the lot of most men, and is their happiness, if they only knew it.
Briefly related, the life of Captain Reid was as follows: He was born in 1818, in the north of Ireland, the son of a Presbyterian clergyman, who was a type of the class which Goldsmith has described so freshly in the “Deserted Village,” and was highly thought of for his labors among the poor of his neighborhood. An earnest, reverent man, to whom his calling was indeed a sacred one, he designed his son Mayne for the ministry, in the hope no doubt, that he would be his successor. But nature had something to say about that, as well as his good father. He began to study for the ministry, but it was not long before he was drawn in another direction. Always a great reader, his favorite books were descriptions of travel in foreign lands, particularly those which dealt with the scenery, the people, and the resources of America. The spell which these exercised over his imagination, joined to a love of adventure which was inherent in his temperament, and inherited, perhaps with his race, determined his career. At the age of twenty he closed his theological tomes, and girding up his loins with a stout heart he sailed from the shores of the Old World for the New. Following the spirit in his feet he landed at New Orleans, which was probably a more promising field for a young man of his talents than any Northern city, and was speedily engaged in business. The nature of this business is not stated, further than it was that of a trader; but whatever it was it obliged this young Irishman to make long journeys into the interior of the country, which was almost a terra incognita. Sparsely settled, where settled at all, it was still clothed in primeval verdure - here in the endless reach of savannas, there in the depth of pathless woods, and far away to the North and the West in those monotonous ocean-like levels of land for which the speech of England has no name- the Prairies. Its population was nomadic, not to say barbaric, consisting of tribes of Indians whose hunting grounds from time immemorial the region was; hunters and trappers, who had turned their backs upon civilization for the free, wild life of nature; men of doubtful or dangerous antecedents, who had found it convenient to leave their country for their country’s good ; and scattered about hardy pioneer communities from Eastern States, advancing waves of the great sea of emigration which is still drawing the course of empire westward. Traveling in a country like this, and among people like these, Mayne Reid passed five years of his early manhood. He was at home wherever he went, and never more so than when among the Indians of the Red River territory, with whom he spent several months, learning their language, studying their customs, and enjoying the wild and beautiful scenery of their camping grounds. Indian for the time, he lived in their lodges, rode with them, hunted with them, and night after night sat by their blazing camp-fires listening to the warlike stories of the braves, and the quaint legends of the medicine men. There was that in the blood of Mayne Reid which fitted him to lead this life at this time, and whether he knew it or not it educated his genius as no other life could have done. It familiarized him with a large extent of country in the South and West; it introduced him to men and manners which existed nowhere else; and it revealed to him the secrets of Indian life and character.
There was another side, however, to Mayne Reid than that we have touched upon, and this, at the end of five years, drew him back to the average life of his kind.We find him next in Philadelphia, where he began to contribute stories and sketches of travel to the newspapers and magazines . Philadelphia was then the most literate city in the United States , the one in which a clever writer was at once encouraged and rewarded. Frank and warm-hearted , he made many friends there among journalists and authors. One of these friends was Edgar Allan Poe, whom he often visited at his home in Spring Garden, and concerning whom, years after, when he was dead, he wrote with loving tenderness.
The next episode in the career of Mayne Reid was not what one would expect from a man of letters, though it was just what might have been expected from a man of his temperament and antecedents. It grew out of the time, which was warlike, and it drove him into the army with which the United States speedily crushed the forces of the sister Republic - Mexico. He obtained a commission, and served throughout the war with great bravery and distinction. This stormy episode ended with a severe wound, which he received in storming the heights of Chapultepec - a terrible battle which practically ended the war.
A second episode of a similar character, but with a more fortunate conclusion, occurred about four years later. It grew out of another war, which happily for us, was not on our borders, but in the heart of Europe, where the Hungarian race had risen in insurrection against the hated power of Austria. Their desperate valor in the face of tremendous odds excited the sympathy of the American people, and fired the heart of Captain Mayne Reid, who buckled on his sword once more , and sailed from New York with a body of volunteers to aid the Hungarians in their struggles for independence. They were too late, for hardly had they reached Paris before they learned that all was over; Gorgey had surrendered at Arad, and Hungary was crushed. They were at once dismissed and Captain Reid betook himself to London.
The life of Mayne Reid in whom we are most interested - Mayne Reid, the author - began at this time, when he was in his thirty-first year and ended only on the day of his death, October 21, 1883. It covered one third of a century, and was, when compared with that which had preceded it, uneventful, if not devoid of incident. Their is not much that needs to be told - not much , indeed , that can be told - in the life of a man of letters like Captain Mayne Reid. It is written in his books. Mayne Reid was one of the best known authors of his time - diferring in this from many authors who are popular without being known - and in the walk of fiction which he discovered for himself he is an acknowledged master. His reputation did not depend upon the admiration of the millions of young people who read his books, but upon the judgment of mature critics, to whom his delineations of adventurous life were literature of no common order. His reputation as a story-teller was widely recognized on the Continent, where he was accepted as an authority in regard to the customs of the pioneers and the guerrilla warfare of the Indian tribes, and was warmly praised for his freshness, his novelty, and his hardy originality. The people of France and Germany delighted in this soldier-writer. “There was not a word in his books which a schoolboy could not safely read aloud to his mother and sisters.” So says a late English critic, to which another adds, that if he has somewhat gone out of fashion in later years, the more’s the pity for the schoolboy of the period. What Defoe is in Robinson Crusoe- realistic idyll of island solitude - that, in his romantic stories of wilderness life, is his great scholar, Captain Mayne Reid.
R. H. Stoddard.
The Scalp Hunters : or, Romantic Adventures in Northern Mexico. 3 volumes. London : Skeet, 1851. (My review)
The Scalp Hunters resembles another book about the old west, “The Life and Adventures of James P. Beckwourth, Mountaineer, Scout, and Pioneer, and Chief of the Crow Nation of Indians,” the life story of an African American mountain man, dictated to Thomas D. Bonner, a Justice of the Peace in California, and published by Harper and Brothers in 1856. The book was published in England the same year and in French in 1860. The story goes that one of Beckwourth’s miner friends went to San Francisco to buy a copy and came back with the bible instead. He read the story of Sampson and the Foxes aloud to a group of miners. "That'll do!" one of the men cried. "I'd know that story for one of Jim's lies anywhere!"
Edgar Allan Poe was acquainted with boys’ author Captain Mayne Reid and called him a “colossal but most picturesque liar.” Reid may have been influenced by the mountain men’s habits of telling tall tales and whoppers at their yearly rendezvous. Reid’s stories were fiction but were based on his experiences in real life. He went along with the idea that it was all “true,” and Henry Haller of the Scalp Hunters was in reality Mayne Reid.
The Scalp Hunters goes back in time to the events before Mayne Reid’s earlier book The Rifle Rangers. Henry Haller goes to St. Louis “in search of the picturesque.” He has the same horse, Moro, that he had in the Rifle Rangers. He meets Charles St. Vrain (based on Ceran St. Vrain, a partner of the Bents) and goes up the Missouri to Independence and the wild plains.
After a long Reid-like preamble on the physical aspects of the prairie the story begins: “Let us raise the curtain, and bring on the characters.”
The first “Beckwourthian” incident occurs when a herd of buffaloes over runs the camp in the middle of the night, a scene later spoofed by Ernest Warren in “The Skull-Hunters” serial, which ran in the comic periodical Judy, edited by C. H. Ross:
“It was too late to attempt an escape by running. I seized my rifle and fired at the foremost of the band. The effect of my shot was not perceptible. The water of the arroyo was dashed in my face. A huge bull ahead of the rest, furious and snorting, plunged through the stream and up the slope. I was lifted and tossed high in the air. I was thrown rearwards, and fell upon a moving mass. I did not feel hurt or stunned. I felt myself carried onward upon the backs of several animals that, in the dense drove, ran close together. These, frightened at their strange burden, bellowed loudly, and dashed on to the front. A sudden thought struck me, and, fixing on that which was most under me, I dropped my legs astride of him, embracing his hump, and clutching the long wooly hair that grew upon his neck. The animal “routed” with extreme terror, and, plunging forward, soon headed the band.
This was exactly what I wanted; and on we went over the prairie, the bull running at top speed, believing, no doubt, that he had a panther or a catamount between his shoulders.”
Haller eventually sees a Plum Butte ahead and “Untwisting my fingers from his thick fleece, I slipped down over his tail, and without as much as saying “Good-night,” ran with all my speed towards the knoll. I climbed up; and sitting down upon a loose boulder of rock, looked over the prairie.”
It was scenes like this one, and another absurd encounter with quicksand to come, that delighted the Captains readers, scenes he may even have heard as tall-tales around the Mountain men’s campfires and made his own. Reid explained in a footnote that “A “Plum Butte” was a name given to small isolated mountains that rise knoll-like from the plain. The “Plum Buttes” near the “Bend” of the river Arkansas are celebrated landmarks.” While his knowledge of flora and fauna was sound, his understanding of the Navaho and Apache was less than perfect. Once Haller gets to Santa Fe he notices some Navaho, “tall savages in striped serapes,” and says to St. Vrain, “I have heard that the Navajoes are cannibals.”
“It is true. Look at them this minute! See how they gloat upon that chubby little fellow, who seems instinctively to fear them. Lucky for the urchin it’s broad daylight, or he might get chucked under one of those striped blankets.”
This might be passed off as just a device to make the story most interesting, but we also find that the reason for their unholy hunger is unknown, “Whether as a sacrifice to the fiery god Quetzalcoatl, or whether from a fondness for human flesh, no one has as yet been able to determine.” Reid mistakes Arizona natives for Aztecs.
Another companion of Haller’s is Gode, also referred to as “Old Northwest” or just “the Canadian.” His comments on the cannibals should illustrate his character:
“C’est vrai, monsieur. I vas prisonnier in le nation; not Navaugh, but le cussed Apache - moch de same - por tree mons. I have les sauvauges seen manger - eat- one - deux - tree- tree enfants rotis, like hump rib of de buffles. S’est vrais, messieurs, c’est vrai.”
I like that “le cussed Apache.” Canadians are a funny people. Hell, Mayne Reid is a funny writer !
Haller attends a fandango and meets up with the mysterious Seguin the Scalp Hunter. A brawl begins and a “greaser” stabs Haller in the back for mauling his wife. He is left behind but chomps at the bit and heads for Socorro with the “Canadian” to catch up with his companyeros. A mule is stolen but they shrug it off and embark into the desert known as the Jornada del Meurte, or “Journey of Death,” where they encounter a ferocious sandstorm, where Haller loses Gode and his water-skin. He finds water but it is briny, the horse and dog will not drink it. He dismounts and begins to hallucinate and rave, driven mad by his “slakeless” thirst
“Who is Tantalus? Ha! Ha! Not I; not I! Stand back, fiends! Do not push me over! Back! Back I say! Oh!”
He awakens to a female voice, singing along to the accompaniment of a Spanish harp. He wakes up in a room with a middle aged woman, a German botanist, and twelve year old Zoe, whom he immediately falls in love with. He sleeps but is awakened by footsteps in the hall.
“The footsteps entered the room, and approached the bed. I started, as I looked up. The Scalp-hunter was before me!”
To win the hand of Zoe, Haller agrees to a trip into Navaho and Apache land to rescue Adele, the scalp-hunter’s other daughter, missing for twenty years. The band includes an Oxford educated Indian, La Sol and his uneducated sister Luna, a German botanist and two realistic mountain men, Bill Garey and Rube Rawlings who has been scalped and had his ears cut off. Gode, the courier de bois, boils a mess of bullfrogs, La Sol plays William Tell with a fruit precariously placed on his sister’s head, and Rube shoots his mule in the ear, causing wild amusement as it kicks its way through the camp.
In 1843 Reid had known real mountain men and trappers, mostly French Canadians, on his trip From St. Louis to Fort Union. Too bad he didn’t take the time to get to know the Indians better. His books were praised for the realism of his geology and geography, but much of that could have been learned from books. Reid was reviewed in Bentley’s Miscellany, the Athenaeum, and Chambers Journal, which noted that the Scalp Hunters was “as original in its faults as in its excellences.” It says something for his melodramatic romances that he should be reviewed favorably in the literate journals.
The Skull Hunters.
A Tale of the Prairie.
By Captain Rayne Meade.
Author of “The Prairie Pumpkin,” “The Indian Thief,” “The Possum Chief,” “The Kitchen Rangers,” “The Mouse Trappers,” “The War-whoop of the Ojabberaways,” “The Humbug of the Rocky Mountains,” “The Mosquito Hunters,” “The Flea Hunters,” “The Wholeman Hunters,” &c., &c., &c.
From Judy; or, the London Serio-comic Journal, May 22 1867. The real author was Ernest Warren.
Chapter I.
A Prairie Ride.
Land of Anahuac ! Region of Montezuma! How often on my Brazilian barb have I bounded over thy boundless snow-capped prairies and grass-grown mountains, in pursuit of ‘possums, hyaenas, boa-constrictors and polar bears? How often have I been gored by buffaloes, kicked by ‘coons, and chawed up by wildcats in thy magnificent territory? How often have I partook of gin-sling, pumpkin pie, and brandy cock-tail, in the splendid locations that abound in thy vast dominion! Sweet land of Mexico! Glorious realm of Montezuma! Land of bowie-knives, skull-hunting and plunder. Shall I ever forget thee? Not if I know it!
* * * * *
One day (ah! it is long, long ago !) I was mounted, as usual, on my matchless steed, bounding over the vast expanse of the prairie, which was now gleaming in the brilliant setting sun that heralded the approach of dawn. Far in the distance was seen the mighty range of the Sierra de Needella, or Needle Mountains, whose sharp points pierced the sky till it looked like perforated zinc. All was gay, bright and serene. wolves were howling, panthers growling, boa-constrictors hissing, and all other delightful sounds that could be imagined greeted the listening ear, in a sweet and soothing harmony.
I was attired in the usual costume of a Mexican hunter. My legs were encased in moccasins made of the skin of the laughing jackass, which material, however, is naturally rather inclined to split. Round my waist was a lasso about two hundred feet long, in which was stuck no end of bowie-knives, pistols and other offensive weapons. I was tattooed all up my back in fast colours on an entirely new pattern, just invented by that ingenious tribe the Squatchet Maguri Indians, while, to complete my equipment, my unrivalled rifle, which could carry any distance in creation, was slung behind me.
Thus equipped, I had ridden for hours, clearing the Prairie of wild beasts as I went along, and feeling within me that delight and ecstasy which is only known to those whose lives are passed in a continual state of danger and excitement.
Suddenly a dark figure, a tremendous distance off, loomed before me.
“Who’s that?” I asked myself. “Whoever he is he must die !” and with that I raised my telescope (30 miles range) in one hand, and my revolver in the other, as is customary with us hunters when firing, and pointed them towards the figure.
“Jee-hosophat!” I exclaimed as I dropped the pistol and telescope like a couple of red-hot icicles, “it’s a woman! I can see her as well as possible and can plainly distinguish the maker’s name on her crinoline - THOMSON’S PATENT.”
At this discovery I rode on still faster, till I arrived within about half-a-mile of the figure, when a voice which I should probably have recognized had I ever heard it before, cried out -
“Oh, don’t kill me, please, I am a woman!”
This exclamation startled me with its truth and loudness.
“So I perceive, fair senora,” I answered, “and do not fear me, for I make it a rule never to kill anyone unless there is something to be gained by it.”
As I approached her I could perceive through her dark and thick mantilla (or rather womantilla) that she possessed the usual amount of beauty which falls to the lot of all Spanish ladies born in Mexico, or elsewhere.
“My name,” she observed, in reply to an observation which I was about to make, “is Isabella Maria Elvira Serafina Inez de Fandango, daughter of Don Fernando Carlos Juan Bartolomeo Esteban Pomposo de Fandango, governor of Santa Vera Compostella Par de Puebla. I am on my way to New Orleans to purchase a new dress, and shall be very glad of your company and protection on my journey through this vast and dangerous prairie.”
To leap off my horse, kneel before her, kiss her hand and express to her the solemn promise of my protection, and then to regain the back of my flying steed, was but the work of a second.
I was about to commence a conversation of an interesting character, when I was interrupted by a warm current of air behind my back, and on looking round, saw my worst anticipations confirmed.
The Prairie was on fire!
And not only this, but tremendous herds of wild beasts, driven by the flames, were rushing towards us!
“Onward, onward, quick!” I exclaimed to the lady, “or we shall both be everlastingly obliterated!”
Motionless with terror, she rode on as quick as possible, while I followed at a still faster pace.
But we had scarcely galloped a few inches, when on looking towards the east, a frightful yell, like that of a million of infuriated baboons, greeted my ears. I knew it but too well. It was the war-cry of the Prawnee Indians.
They appeared on the horizon; they were rushing towards us. Their name was Legion !
“Jee-roosalem!” I exclaimed, “This is indeed unlucky! These savages are on our trail. However we shall easily be able to get away from them, if” - here I turned my eyes towards the opposite direction and saw - O horror! ANOTHER host of yelling savages making their way towards us. I knew at a glance that they were that bloodthirsty and ferocious tribe, the Sawnees. They too, to the number of thousands on thousands were on our trail.
Chapter II.
The Indians.
I had incurred the resentment of these hostile tribes in two different ways. Having stopped once for three months at the Prawnee wigwams, I bade them an affectionate farewell and departed, but had scarcely ridden a hundred miles, when I discovered, on looking into my tobacco-pouch, that I had taken by mistake half a quarter of an ounce of bird’s eye belonging to an aged chief. I did not think it worthwhile to ride back and return it ; but the tribe never forgave me, nor desisted in their endeavors to accomplish my capture and punishment.
My cause of quarrel with the Sawnees was somewhat different. Having made a magnificent and original joke to a child of the tribe, aged three years, I became so irritated at his not being able to see it, that I told him I believed the Sawnees were so-called, on account of the narrowness of their mental capacities. He told all the tribe, and they vowed the most deadly vengeance. I fled for my life, and had as narrow an escape as was ever known. A shot grazed my head as I rode away, and I am thankful to say, got clear off. Some months had elapsed since these events, and I had almost forgotten about them, but when I saw the two tribes pursuing me from opposite directions, I knew at once how matters stood. They had both chosen this as their settling day to pay off old scores, and visit with condign punishment the unlucky individual who had offended them. I particularly did not want to fall into the hands of the Prawnees, who had a way of pickling their dead enemies, and selling them to the captains of English vessels for preserved beef, which was anything but agreeable.
Determined not to be taken alive, I urged on my steed to his quickest pace, and my companion did the same. On, on we went, so quickly that our horses’ hind legs frequently rode over their front ones, but my impatience even outstripped them, and I frequently rode quicker than my steed, so that I found myself, saddle and all, on his neck, and was obliged to wait until he advanced, to get back to my proper position.
Miles and miles we flew like lightning, and in less than an hour we flattered ourselves that we were out of danger, when - horror of horrors ! we found that the sun had set the prairie on fire at the OTHER end, and another vast troop of wild animals were rushing towards us from the northward.
Thus, north, south, east and west, we were hemmed in by the most pressing dangers. If we went on it would be at the cost of our lives; if we rode back we should be killed; to turn to the right would be certain death; to the left, inevitable destruction; while to stay where we were would be utter annihilation.
Under these trying circumstances, it is not to be wondered at, that, though a hunter of many years standing (or rather riding ), and therefore well accustomed to danger, my heart sank within me, on beholding our desperate situation, and, even while whispering encouraging words to the lady, I could not help saying to myself - “Washington Busterville, my buoy, I guess you’re in a tarnation fix !”
Nearer and nearer came our enemies, each moment was precious; what should we do ?
Donna Isabella’s horse, on perceiving our terrible position, was so overcome by terror and affliction, that unable any longer to contain himself, he fell down, as those noble animals sometimes will, and died on the spot. My steed, by good chance, was a Brazilian, and of stronger nerve, so he was able to stand his ground firmly.
“Jump up behind me, quick!” I exclaimed to my companion, “it is your only chance of life.” She obeyed, almost before the words had reached my lips.
Nearer and nearer! We could hear the roaring of the fire and the wild animals, the yelling of the Prawnees and the howling of the Sawnees, in one wild unison.
The foremost herd of buffaloes were approaching at a furious pace : in a few seconds they would be upon us.
Our position was fearful - hopeless; not the faintest chance of escape, from any quarter, could we discern. Resistance was unavailing.
We stopped short in dismay and terror, and in an agony of desperation, waited the approach of our deadly foes and our own inevitable doom.
On, On they came!
The suspense was terrible!!
One moment more would decide our fate!!!
(TO BE CONTINUED.)
“There was another contributor to the Boys of England whose name I never heard, and am not sure that it was even known at the office. Before I had ever seen him, or heard anything concerning him, I was one day asked my opinion of a story which had been commenced two or three weeks previously, without the author’s name.
“There are some good characters in it, and some of the incidents are told with great force,” I replied. “But the plot is too intricate for me to follow it. I cannot understand.”
“I am not surprised at that,” rejoined my interlocutor. “The author does not understand it himself. He is mad.”
The next time I visited his office, I found in the ante-room to the proprietor’s sanctum, besides Townsend and Hildyard, a tall, gaunt individual who sat apart from the others in silence, enveloped in the stained and worn cloak of a trooper of the Life Guards. His throat was destitute of collar or necktie, and when a movement disarranged the ample folds of his capote, I caught a glimpse of a bare and hirsute chest, rendered visible by the absence of a vest and the fact that his not over-clean shirt was minus all the buttons. I never saw him again and never could learn anything concerning him. No one knew who or what he was, or where he lived. That was the mad author.”
