Boy's Cinema (1939-40)

I had to give up. They'll get paid for this land that they'll have to give up now." Sam Houston surveyed him scoffingly. "They haven't been paid anything," he re- torted, "excepting Government script." "Well, what's the matter with that ?_ Bank- notes are legal tender, aren't they?" "The Cherokecs don't understand anything except honest silver," Sam pointed out. "Why, they've traded off sixty thousand dollars of script to thievin' renegades for whisky—thievin' renegades who take ad- vantage of my scattered Red brothers' ignor- ance and under-state the value of those notes —thievin' renegades who are undermining the Indians with that self-same cursed whisky." Emotion choked him, and he stood before Jackson nnitely, his handsome, rugged face distorted, his big, strong hands clenching and unclenching. " What do you want me to do about it, Sam?" the general interrogated quietly. "Do?" the younger man broke out, finding his voice again. "I want you to take steps to curb'the activities of those dirty renegade whites. And if you're dead set on moving the Cherokees I want you to see tliat they're paid in silver—currency that they can grasp the meaning of." Geneial Jack.son fingered his chin. "I'll do my best to curb the activities of whisky-peddling renegades," he muttered. "But as for paying the Cherokees in silver— .well, that's a matter that requires considera- tion. 'i\Mi,-it would you say if I turned you down on that score, Sam?" "You do, and you'll liave the worst Indian war on your liands that the United States ever saw !" Sam Houston prophesied vehemently. "The U.S. Government has pushed my people to the end of their patience. They've made treaties witii 'em and broken those treaties. And now you want to take away their home- lands again and palm 'em otf with paper- money that means nothing to them. Andy, I'm warniii' yoii that they 11 fight this time— and I'll light with 'em !" " What good would that do—against my superior Army and equipment?" Sam Houston spoke through clenched teeth. His eyes were aflame with fanaticism, and with the bitterness of a man who felt that a people dear to him had been outraged. " Way be it would do no good—in the end," he grated. "But I can organise and lead seven thousand braves. I can fight your troops from behind trees and in swamps. I can retreat and dodge an' feint better than the smartest fox between here an' Arkansas. "I can make it so hot for the United States Army," he went on, his resonant and impres- sive voice climljing to a strident pitch, "I can make it so hot for the United States Army that you'll wish you'd never sicked 'cm on to my adopted people." Towering over the slighter form of the President, he lowered his great head and thru.st his impassioned face close to that of his onc-iiinc commander. "That's what I can do, Andrew Jackson," he said deliberately. "And by the eternal, that's what I will do !" Jackson nodded. "Yes, knowing you, that's what I figured you'd do, Sam." he mused. "So I'll make a deal with \ou." "What kind of a deal?" Sam Houston demanded Mi^piciously. The Piesidont poked a lean forefinger into his one-time protege's chest. "You .sever your relations with the Clierokeo nation and become a white man again," he proposed, "and I'll give your Red brothers everything you ask for them. You're too good a soldier and a statesman to remain an Indian, Sam, and I'd hate to see you use your military skill against your own race. Sam, come hack and servo the country you belong in—the white man's country." "The United States? Oh, no. I'm a marked man in this country. You saw the reception I got in that hall-room out there. Huh, the only future I'd have would be liangln' on the coat tails of Andv Jackson, and that's one thing I won't do." ^^ "You're a hard man, Sam Houston. General Andy Jackson observed, "and a stub- born man when you're riled. But ^o am I. Dccemlier .lOtli, 1939. BOY'S CINEMA Now my offer about the Cherokees still stands. You can take it or leave it." Sam was silent for a space. Then he squared his massive shoulders. "All right," he said. "I'll sever my relations with the Cherokees if that's the only way I can get justice for them. But as for me and the United States—well, you can count me out. I'm goin' to Texas." "Texas?" Sam Houston nodded. "There's an empire to be built down there," he declared. "Texas—northern Mexico—the whole South-West clear through to California may be included in that empire one day." General Jackson eyed him shrewdly. When he had watched the rise of Sam Houston he had seen in him a man of brilliant talents and tremendous vitality —a man who seemed bound to go far. if only a certain streak of wilfulness in his character could be held under restraint. "You know, Sam," he remarked now, a dry inflexion in his voice, "I was under the vague impression that Texas belonged to Mexico." "But I've a notion I might be able to make it an independent State," Sam countered. "How would you like that?" "I wouldn't like it," was the President's response. "I hold that Texas was part of the Louisiana purchase made by this country in 1805, and rightfully belongs to the United States." "And I hold that it's free territory and belongs to the man that's strong enough to take it." Andrew Jackson knitted his brows in a frown. "Now listen," he said, "as long as this country is at peace with Mexico I don't want to assert any aggressive U.S. claim to Texas. But I won't stand by and see that territory fall prey to some power-drunken adventurer like yourself, Sam Houston. Some day I want to see Texas a State—within the United States." Sam's features had become tense. "I want to see it a refuge for freedom," he announced grimly. "A refuge for real freedom. A land where I can look an Indian in the eye without being ashamed of my own race." An expression that held a trace of menace took form on the older man's countenance._ "Sam," he rejoined, "you've an unbounded confidence in yourself, and in my opinion ihnt confidence is well founded. I fully appreciate your qualities as a man of action—so much so that I believe you're the only one who could establish an outlaw State in the South-West and make it stick. But I warn you—if you try it the United States Army will string you up for treason, even if I have to lead the hangman's crew myself!" Satn Houston regarded him steadfastly, the set of his chin reminiscent of the structure of a bulldog's jowl. "I'll be honoured to sec you in Texas, sir," he said in a low yet incisive voice. "And if one of us has got to get hanged, let it be he who first betrays the cause of freedom." TEXAS FIESTA A TREATY advantageous to the Cherokecs had boon signed by President Andrew Jackson, and, his mission on behalf of his Indian blood-brothers satisfactorily accom- plished, Sam Houston had taken a south- lionnd coach in company with Lannie Upt-hurch. Margaret Lea and her mother and uncle travelled aboard that coach, and, like Sam and Lannie, transferred from it to a river steamer many days later at Memphis on the Mississippi. And later still, far down in I>ouisiana, the Leas disembarked with Sam Houston and Lannie Utichurch to join up with a wagon- train of immigrants whose goal was Washing- ton-on-the-Brazos, Texas. There ensued a slow and laborious journey overland across prairies and hills, the column moving by day through simmering hazes of heat, camping by night under star-bedizened skies. It was a journey that would have been a sore strain on the patience of Sam Every Tuesday Houston but for Margaret Lea, whose charm lightened the monotony of that trek for him to so great an extent that it was with a sense of profound regret that he at last separated fiom the wagon-train. The Texas border was only ten miles ahead when he left the column with the faithful Lannie by his side, and his reason for cutting adrift from the train was a resolve to avoid swearing an oath of allegiance to the Mexican Government. Mexican officials, posted at the point wher« the trail followed by the column crossed the frontier, would compel the immigrants to take that oath' before allowing them to proceed. Sam and Lannie were therefore bent on enter- ing Texas by a more devious route which would enable them to traverse the border- line unchallenged. Each mounted on a sturdy bronc, they passed into Mexican territory that same night without encountering any difficulties in the process. For a frontier so vast as that of Texas did not permit of an adequate system of patrol. The entire Mexican Army couij not have guarded it effectively against illegal entry. Safely over the border. Sam and Lannie now headed south-eastward, and for two days no incident occurred to mar their progress. But late in the afternoon of their third day in Texas, as they were putting their horse,! at the slope of a barren ridge, they heard a sudden outburst of firing that seemed to come from somewhere on the other side of the liili in front of them. They ascended the ridge, and from the sum- mit of it descried the sinister forms of a num- ber of Redskins skulking among a cluster of boulders away to their left. They were of the fierce Comanche tribe, native to Texas, and. armed with muskets, they were blazing at a cabin that nestled in a valley below. And from the windows of that cabin white men were shooting back at the Indians—white men whose faces were glimpsed luomentarily as they volleyed their antagonists, ducked down to relqad, then rose into view again behind shattered panes to let loose another fusillade. "This must be one o' them there Texas fiestas I've heard tell about," Lannie Upchurch commented facetiously. "Yes," Sam answered. "With the Comanches as unexpected guests. Let's go, Lannie." He clapped his heels to the flanks of his pony and charged down the slope towards the cabin in the hollow, and the old recruiting sergeant of the Thirty-ninth was prompt to follow suit. Their arrival on the hill-top had not been observed by the Redskins, but the Indians became aware of their flying figures ere the two of them had galloped fifty yards down the declivity, and, raising a chorus of blood- curdling yeils, the savages concentrated a hot fire upon them. Leaden slugs whined viciously around Sam and Lannie, and an arrow or two flashed in their direction as well. But the.y rode on un- scathed, and as they gained the shadow of the cabin in the valley the front door was thrown open to them. Dropping from their horses, they blundered into the dv.elling and found themselves in a rocm occupied by two Americans, a handful of Mexicans of the peasant.class and a weeping senora who was bent over the dead body of an elderly don—a man who had apparently been her husband and who had seemingly been the head of the household, to judge by his decent attire. Sam and Lannie had been admitted by one of the Americans present—a heavily built, buckskin-clad individual with a weather-beaten face. This man now closed and barred the door, and as he did so Sam Houston spoke to him tersely. "Looks like you an' your friends rave got a right smart figlit on your hands," he said. " We sure have, stranger." was the reply, "an' the more especially as that bunch of Comaneiies is led by a renegade while man named Bradburn who knows how to get the best out of them as fighters. But allow me to introduce my.'elf. ("rockett is my name— Davy Crockett from Tennessee."