ago, came across the Atlantic provided with proofs of their virtue—in the casket!
A grand sugar planter of the South is Woodley Poindexter; one of the highest and haughtiest of his class; one of the most profuse in aristocratic hospitalities: hence the necessity of forsaking his Mississippian home, and transferring himself and his “penates,”—with only a remnant of his “niggers,”—to the wilds of south-western Texas.
*****
The sun is upon the meridian line, and almost in the zenith. The travellers tread upon their own shadows. Enervated by the excessive heat, the white horsemen sit silently in their saddles. Even the dusky pedestrians, less sensible to its influence, have ceased their garrulous “gumbo;” and, in straggling groups, shamble listlessly along in the rear of the waggons.
The silence—solemn as that of a funereal procession—is interrupted only at intervals by the pistol-like crack of a whip, or the loud “wo-ha,” delivered in deep baritone from the thick lips of some sable teamster.
Slowly the train moves on, as if groping its way. There is no regular road. The route is indicated by the wheel-marks of some vehicles that have passed before—barely conspicuous, by having crushed the culms of the shot grass.
Notwithstanding the slow progress, the teams are doing their best. The planter believes himself within less than twenty miles of the end of his journey. He hopes to reach it before night: hence the march continued through the mid-day heat.
Unexpectedly the drivers are directed to pull up, by a sign from the overseer; who has been riding a hundred yards in the advance, and who is seen to make a sudden stop—as if some obstruction had presented itself.
He comes trotting back towards the train. His gestures tell of something amiss. What is it?
There has been much talk about Indians—of a probability of their being encountered in this quarter.
Can it be the red-skinned marauders? Scarcely: the gestures of the overseer do not betray actual alarm.
“What is it, Mr. Sansom?” asked the planter, as the man rode up.
“The grass air burnt. The prairy’s been afire.”
“Been on fire! Is it on fire now?” hurriedly inquired the owner of the waggons, with an apprehensive glance towards the travelling carriage. “Where? I see no smoke!”
“No, sir—no,” stammered the overseer, becoming conscious that he had caused unnecessary alarm; “I didn’t say it air afire now: only thet it hez been, an the hul ground air as black as the ten o' spades.”
“Ta—tat! what of that? I suppose we can travel over a black prairie, as safely as a green one?”
