ld
fain persuade me to return with him to my own tribe of Shoshones, and
not go in search of what I never should obtain. He was right, but I was
obstinate. He did not let pass this opportunity of giving me a lesson.

"You have now witnessed," said he, "a sample of justice in this
_soi-disant_ civilised country. Two hundred dollars, perhaps, have
cleared a murderer; ten millions would not have done it among the
Shoshones."

"But Texas is not Europe," replied I.

"No," said Gabriel, "it is not; but in Europe, as in Texas, with money
you can do anything, without money nothing."

At that moment we perceived a man wrapt in his blanket, and leaning
against a tree.

He surveyed the group receding to the tavern, and the deepest feelings
of hatred and revenge were working evidently within him. He saw us not,
so intense were his thoughts. It was the plaintiff whose son had been
murdered. Gabriel resumed:

"Now, mark that man; he was the plaintiff, the father of the young
fellow so shamefully plundered and murdered; he is evidently a poor
farmer, or the assassin would have been hung. He is now brooding over
revenge; the law gave not justice, he will take it into his own hands,
and he will probably have it to-night, or to-morrow. Injustice causes
crime, and ninety-nine out of a hundred are forced into it by the
impotency of the law; they suffer once, and afterwards act towards
others as they have been acted by. That man may have been till this day
a good, industrious, and hospitable farmer; to-night he will be a
murderer, in a week he will have joined the free bands, and will then
revenge himself upon society at large, for the injustice he has received
from a small portion of the community."

Till then I had never given credit to my friend for any great share of
penetration, but he prophesied truly. Late in the night the father
announced his intention of returning to his farm, and entered the
general sleeping-room of the hotel to light a cigar. A glance informed
him of all that he wished to know. Forty individuals were ranged
sleeping in their blankets, alongside of the walls, which, as I have
observed, were formed of pine logs, with a space of four or six inches
between each: parallel with the wall, next to the yard, lay the murderer
Fielding.

The father left the room, to saddle his horse. An hour afterwards the
report of a rifle was heard, succeeded by screams and cries of "Murder!
help! murder!" Every o