San Marcos free press. [volume] (San Marcos, Tex.) 1877-1892, 1882-04-27
The Texas Desperado.
Texas siitings.


Texas sittings
The reputation for lawlessness that
Texas has among the people OF some OF
the Northern and Eastern States, is not
the result of the Sam Bass and Wesley
Hardin sort OF outlaw and their lawless
deeds, but rather the result of the visits
that Texas enjoys from the peaceful but
imaginative young man who comes from
some virtuous Eastern city to spend the
winter, for the benefit of his health, in
Western Texas. Before coming to Tex
as, he has read a good deal of "One.
Eyed Zeke.the. Scout" and "Dick the
Desperate" sort of Literature. Previ-
GUS to the packing of his trunk, he pro.
vides himself with some guns, u few re-
volvers, double.edgea weapon with a
spring back, and the blade like a hay
knife. The latter he proposes using
whenever it may be necessary to cut his
way through the jungle, or when fate
may put it in his power to rescue some
beautiful pale-faced maiden from her
redskin captors. He has rehearsed the
thing so often in his mind, that he
knows exactly how the incidents will
follow each other in rapid succession !;
how he will steal up on the unsuspect.
ing sons of the forest as they are pre-.
pairing to torture their victim; how he
will rush in on the foe and, first cutting
the rawhide't thongs that bind the cap
tive, turn, and, with his trusty knife,
pile up cord or two of dead Indians;
how he will seize the captive maiden,
the beautiful Inez de Gonzales, daugh-
ter of spanish hidalgo, and vaulting
on the back of coal black mustang,
ETC., etc., etc.
He tells the boys at home what he is
going to do, and he promises that he
will bring back scalps, wampum wig
vans, Indian mounds and other bric-a-
brac, and present them to his friends
as mementoes of his sojourn in Texas.
When he arrives inTexas he is disgust
ed to find schools, faro banks, newspa-
pers, church scandals, and other evil
dences of civilization. To the first man
who will buy, he sells some of his re-
volvers, and secretly drops his hay
knife into well. He lives a quiet and
uneventful life at boarding house,
where he eats the best canned goods
that the market and his landlady can
afford for Sc week, and never meets
with any more exciting adventure than
being arrested and fined for carrying
pistol.
When his father sends him money
enough to buy railroad ticket, he goes
back home in the spring, wearing a
broad brimmed hat-which he ostenta-
tiously calls sombrero-and jangling
a huge pair of Mexican spurs at his
heels. This is the time when he devel.
ops into the noted Texas desperate,
about the only desperate Texas can
lay claim to. Before retiring on the
first night of his return home, he asks
his mother to just lay blanket beside
a tree box on the sidewalk, and he will
try and borrow an old saddle or brick
for pillow. He is so accustomed to
sleeping in the open air, he says that
he cannot bear the close confinement
of house. When the boys call around
for the scalps, Indian mounds, and
things that he promised to bring them
from Texas, he tells them how he lost,
in border foray, large Saratoga
trunk filled with scalps, and a grip sack
packed full of wampum and wigwams.
Then he gives them thrilling account
of prairie fire, and how The saved his
life by crawling into the inside OF buff
ralo he had slain, until the fire passed
over and exhausted itself. After this,
he recounts a desperate encounter he
had with stage robber, and gives de-
tailed and hair-curdling description of
a scene at lynching, where he got the
drop on the crowd and rescued the
doomed man. His conversation bris-
ties with profanity and is saturated
with gore. The writer of this has been
ten years in Texas, has been among the
Mexicans on the Rio Grande,
the aesthetic cowboys on the plains,
and the wild and hilarious church mem
bers in the cities, ard has not yet seen
a single pistol fred with intent to in
jure human being, nor has he ever
seen buffalo goring Sunday school
children on the street of any city in
Texas, and the only genuine blood
thirsty desperate he has seen wSs
young man above described. Of course
there are some lawless and desperate
men in Texas, but none of them equal
the tenderfoot from the East, for cold
blooded ferocity-after he gets back
home.