James Bowie Travis

“ This is the scientific basis of what is loosely called human magnetism, and it is a factor of incomparable import in the problem of human life.
The one of Forrest's New Orleans friends first to be named is James Bowie, inventor and unrivalled wielder of that terrible weapon for hand-to-hand fights named from him the bowie-knife. ”

“ Bowie's own calculations continually went on beyond the dangers of the road.
"I've got to reach Houston," he said, "and set him at work with those dollars. We can make up a force to come again with. I can trust Crockett and Travis. We can have our pick of men. ”

“ It proved to be so serviceable in hunting, and Rezin came to prize it so highly that for a long time he kept it, when he was not wearing it, locked in his desk.
Then one day Jim Bowie told his brother how his life had been jeopardized by the snapping of a pistol while it was pointed at a man firing on him. After hearing the story and learning how the final reckoning between the enemies was yet to be made, Rezin unlocked the desk, took out his prized personal possession, and handed it to his brother with these words: “Here, Jim, take ‘Old Bowie.’ She never misses fire.” ”

“ But there was no end to Tammie’s tongue.
“Weel,” said he, “speaking o’ the brig, I’ll tell you a gude story about that. Auld Jamie Bowie, the potato merchant, that lived at the Gate-end, had a horse and cart that met wi’ an accident just at the turn o’ the corner yonder; and up cam a chield sair forfaughten, and a’ out of breath, to Jamie’s door, crying like the prophet Jeremiah to the auld Jews, ‘Rin, rin away doun to the Cow Brig; for your cart’s dung to shivers, and the driver’s killed, as weel as the horse!’
“James ran in for his hat ”

“ He saw Richard Travis pitch forward off his horse and slide limply to the ground. He saw him totter and waver and then sit down in a helpless, pitiful way,—then lie down as if it were sweet to rest.
And still the boy stood holding his pistol, stunned, frigid, numbed—pointing at the stars.
Silently he brought his arm and weapon down. He heard only shouts of the mob as they rushed against the jail, and then, high above it, the words of the blacksmith, whom he loved so well: “Stand back—all; Me—me alone, shoot—me! I who have so often killed the law, let me die for it.” ”

“ Col. Bowie (injured by a fall from the platform the day preceding the assault) is seen lying on a couch. Enter Col. Travis and Col. Crockett.
Bowie.
Hail, brave companions, hail! Thermopylae
Has by your valor been eclipsed to-day.
Oh! that your gallant deeds might have been seen
By the admiring gaze of humanity.
Alas! performed here in the western wild,
They will escape the writer's graphic pen!
Yet,—to have saved the land, the rising nation,
That consciousness will ever be your part. ”

“ But, great as Tammas was on religious questions, a pillar of the Auld Licht kirk, the Shorter Catechism at his finger-ends, a sad want of words at the very time when he needed them most incapacitated him for prayer in public, and it was providential that Bowie proved himself a man of parts. ”

“ It is that of the love-lorn Travis watching his inamorata tripping up the marble staircase and turning at its top in the direction of the opposite gallery. His is a timid soul, and anxious as he is to watch her, he is not at all anxious to be detected in the act of doing so. So he slips behind the huge pedestal towering near him, thus causing the whole gallery to appear empty to the eyes of X, now entering it at the other end. This latter has come there with but one idea in his head—to shoot an arrow across the court at the mark I have mentioned. ”

“ Off they went as before, the old pacer hugging the mare's sulky wheels like a demon. Even Travis had time to notice that the old man had done something to [Pg 409] steady the pacer, for how like a steadied ship did he fly along!
Driving, driving, driving—they flew—they fought it out. Not a muscle moved in the old man's body. Like a marble statue he sat and drove. Only his lips kept moving as if talking to his horse, so close that Travis heard him: “It's God's way, Ben Butler, God's way—faith,—the lines of faith—'He leadeth me—He leadeth me'!” ”

“ For there on the rug, as naturally as if asleep, lay the only thing he now loved in the world, the old setter, whose life had passed out in slumber.
All animals have the dying instinct. Man, the highest, has it the clearest. And Travis remembered that the old dog had come to his bed, in the middle of the night, and laid his large beautiful head on his master's breast, and in the dim light of the smouldering fire had said good-bye to Richard Travis as plainly as ever human being said it. ”

“ An' the little home the ole 'oman's got, she bought it with her own money, been savin' it all her life an' now”—
“What did you say to her this morning?” asked Travis.
“Oh, I cussed her out good—the old black”—
A peculiar light flashed in Richard Travis' eyes. Never before had the Whipper-in seen it. It was as if he had looked up and seen a halo around the moon.
“To do grand things—to do grand things—like that—negro that she is! No—no—of course you did not understand. Our moral sense is gone—we mill people. It is atrophied—yours and mine and all of us—the soul has gone and mine? ”

“ How would George feel this, if he could know?
This thought was a keen pain. Richard Travis had no belief in the soul's immortality. In his sad creed, as the body went back to dust, the spirit of man was lost in the void, and became, except for its earthly record, as though it had never been. ”

“ After a few moments Travis said:
"Will you take something up to Mrs. Travis? Is there anything I can order for her, anything I can get here, or anywhere, to make her more comfortable?"
"I'll do all I can," Mrs. Sprague answered. "I've made her some chicken soup and jelly, and tried to tempt her appetite a little. But it isn't food nor yet fire that she wants, Mr. Travis."
Then she went out of the room—his supper had been laid in the parlor—and left him to himself.
The air of the place seemed suffocating, the hot mass of coals in the stove throwing out an almost visible heat. ”

“ No. no! I didn’t draw my Bowie-knife and give battle! Of course not! First of all, there wasn’t the time—for remember, the whole thing, from the jarring of the unseen door to the end of the little intermezzo, didn’t take more than two seconds; and, furthermore, what chance is there for a quiet Bostonian with a Bowie—a Bowie he isn’t used to handle, on top of it—against two big, hairy roughs with six yards of curved, razor-sharp steel between them? ”

“ He knew that Harry Travis loved her in a way—a love he was certain would not last, and in the fullness and depths of his sincere nature, he felt as sure of ultimately winning her, by sheer force of strength, of consistency and devotion, as he was that every great thing in life had been done by the same force and would be to the end of time. ”

“ But Bowie did not shrink. He said to himself, "If the Spaniard's hate is so fiendish, why, he shall have his bellyful before we end." All was ready, and a crowd stood by. Bowie may tell the rest himself, as he related it a dozen years after to Forrest, whose blood curdled while he listened:
"We confronted each other with mutual watch, motionless, for a minute or two. I felt that it was all over with me, and a slight chill went through my breast, but my heart was hot and my brain was steady, and I resolved that at all events he should die too. Every fight is won in the eye first. ”

“ If he dies—Richard Travis—remember he died for you ... it tuck both yo' mares to kill him—no—no—don't start—don't turn pale ... you are safe ... I made Col'nel Troup give me his word ... he'd not expose you ... if Ben Butler won an' he saved his money. I knew what it 'ud mean [Pg 412] ... that last heat ... that it 'ud kill him ... but I drove it to save you ... to keep Troup from exposin' yo' ... I've got his word. An' then I was sure ... as I live, I knew that God will touch you yet ... an' his touch will be as quickening fire to the dead honor that is in you ... Go! Richard Travis.... ”

“ Travis felt the great soft peace of deep space close over him. All was right with the world. A clean and sparkling Navel, well-bathed now and almost frighteningly beautiful, sat worshipfully at his feet dressed in a pair of Dahlinger's pajamas. Both Trippe and Dahlinger were regarding him with wonder and delight, and as he sat gazing down at them fondly he recalled with pleasure the outraged faces of the men from Unico, that robber outfit.
"Pat Travis," he chuckled, patting the fat contract in his pocket, "the luckless Pat Travis rides again." He turned an eye on the staring Trippe. ”

“ This was my first sight of Bowie Bushyager. Everybody in Monterey County, and lots of other people will remember what the name of Bowie Bushyager once meant; but it meant very little more than that of his brother, Pitt Bushyager, who got up, grumbling and cursing when Bowie shook him awake. Bowie was say twenty-eight then, and a fine specimen of a man in build and size. ”

“ Travis expressed the feeling of it when he said, quickly:
"You are young, Ysabel, your trouble has come early—but you have almost all your life before you still. Yes, you don't believe it now, but it is so, I hope. You ought to be happy yet! So long as there is something to live for. . . . I thought a little while ago—a few hours ago—that there was nothing more for me. And now there is something—and you have given it to me, Ysabel! . . . If there is anything that I can ever do to make you happier, I will do it."
She rose, and he put the shawl about her and went with her to the door. ”

“ Slowly, surely, Travis was going down in the scale of degeneracy. Slowly the loose life he was leading was lowering him to the level of the common herd. A few years ago he would not have thought of drinking with his own mill hands. To-night he was there, the most reckless of them all. Analyzed, it was for the most part conceit with him; the low conceit of the superior intellect which would mingle in infamy with the lowest to gain its ignorant homage. For Intellect must have homage if it has to drag it from the slums.
Charley Biggers was short and boyish, with a fat, round face. ”

“ Shade of Alexander Pope
, Mathias again attacks him as "Dogmatic Bardolph in his nuptial noose." Porson's wife died shortly after their marriage. His controversial method was merciless. Of his
Letters to Archdeacon Travis
, Green (
Lover of Literature
, p. 213) says that
"he dandles Travis as a tyger would a fawn: and appears only to reserve him alive, for a time, that he may gratify his appetite for sport, before he consigns his feeble prey, by a rougher squeeze, to destruction."
return
List of Letters
41 — To John Hanson
Trinity College, Cambridge, Novr. ”

“ Dr. Travis is one of those mortals whose feet touch the earth and whose head is in the clouds; Mrs. Travis is a cultured, beautiful woman with a look in her eyes as though she was always afraid of something—just behind. And then Jerry—like them both and not a bit like 'em—her head in the clouds, all right—a girl who sees beauty and a promise and a vision in everything—a girl of dreams! You can imagine almost any sort of a story about her."
As Mrs. Allan had done, Mrs. Westley laughed at her brother-in-law's enthusiasm. ”

“ During the five years following the signing of the will father came frequently to New York, and became, not only intimate with Travers, but so much impressed with the other's cleverness and ability that he kept putting more and more of his business into Travers' hands. At the end of that five years, we moved to New York, and father, who was then quite an old man, retired from all active business, and turned over a great many of his personal affairs to Travers to look after for him, giving Travers power of attorney in a number of instances. So much for Travers. Now about my uncle. ”

“ While the noted Clay Allison “of the Washita,” one of the swiftest, boldest, most bizarre and [59] humorous gunfighters of the Southwest, was in Texas along in the early 1870’s he became embroiled, so old-timers tell, with a neighboring ranchman. The two men agreed to fight it out, and the coolness and originality that Clay Allison displayed in planning the details of the fight would have delighted Jim Bowie.
“It was agreed,” Maurice G. Fulton relates the story, “that a grave should be prepared of the usual length and width, but to the exceptional depth of seven or eight feet. ”

“ Those spare apprehensions had somehow, it was true, suddenly been elbowed out of his path by richer ones; but he obeyed his old habit. "She can leave him, my dear; that's what she can do,—and not, you may well believe, to come back to us."
"If she will come I'll take her,—even now," said Jane Traffle; "and who can ask of me more than that?"
He slid about a little, sportively, on his polished floor, as if he would have liked to skate, while he vaguely, inaudibly hummed. "Our difficulty is that she doesn't ask the first blessed thing of us. ”

“ Jim Travers lived alone with his father, who was in fair circumstances. His mother had died in his infancy; and his only sister, Maggie, was his playmate for a few years longer, when she departed to join the loved one that had preceded her. The husband and father became a lonely and bowed man, whose years were far less than they seemed. Although a farmer in a small way, he committed the sad error of engaging in stock speculations, more with a view of diverting his mind from his gnawing grief than with the hope of bettering his fortune. ”