JACKSON'S NOVELS.
THE SILENT RIFLEMAN!
A TALE OF THE TEXAN PRAIRIES.
CHAPTER I.
THE HORSE AND THE RIDER.
It wanted an hour or two of sunset on a lovely evening in the latter part ofSeptember, when a single horseman might have been seen making his way to thewestward, across the high dry prairie land, which lies between the upper portionof the river Nueces and the Bravo del Norte.
He was a small, spare man, of no great personal power, but of a figure whichgave promise of great agility and capability of enduring fatigue, the most remarkablefeature of which was the extraordinary length of his arms.
His countenance, without being in the least degree handsome, was pleasingand expressive.
A short, heavy English rifle, carrying a ball of twelve to the pound, was slungby a black leather belt across his shoulder, the braided strap which supported hislarge buffalo-horn powder flask and bullet pouch of otter skin crossing it on hisbreast. From a leather girdle, which was buckled about his waist, he had hunga long, straight, two-edged sword in a steel scabbard with a silver basket hilt onthe left side, which was counterbalanced by a long, broad-bladed hunting knifewith a buck-horn hilt, resting upon his right hip. There were holsters at thebow of his large Mexican saddle, containing a pair of fine duelling pistols withten inch barrels; and in addition to these, there was suspended from the pummela formidable hatchet with a bright steel head and a spike at the back, like anIndian tomahawk, but in all respects a more ponderous and superior instrument.
On the croupe of his horse, and attached to the cantle of the saddle, he carrieda small valise of untanned leather, with a superb Mexican blanket of blue andscarlet strapped upon it, and a large leathern bottle with a horn drinking-cupswinging from it on one side; while to the other was fastened a portion of theloin of a fat buck, which had fallen in the course of the morning by the rifle of thetraveller.
The horse which carried this well-appointed rider was a dark-brown thorough-bred.
At length, when the sun was no longer above three times the width of his owndisc from the level line of the lowest plain, he set his spurs to his horse, and puthim from the high slashing trot which he had hitherto maintained, into a longslinging gallop, which carried him over the ground at the rate of some sixteenmiles the hour.
After he had ridden at this rate for thirty or forty minutes, he reached thebrow of one of the low rolling waves of earth, which constitute the surface ofthe prairie, and thence saw the land falling away in a long gentle slope for somesix miles toward the west, at which distance it was bounded by a long continuousline of hills, whose range seemed interminable. At the base of this range appeareda dense line, looking sombre enough at that distance, but which the2experienced eye of the horseman well knew indicated a heavy growth of timber—perhapsa deep forest, and, within its shadowy depths, a wide and never-failingstream.
A short half-hour brought them to the forest just as the sun was setting.
Through this wild paradise the mighty river rolled its pellucid waves, rapid,and deep, and strong, and as transparent as th