g, and hardened
to the recital of brutalities and crimes of the most indescribable
enormity. Men talked of their evil doings, their deep, revolting guilt,
with the most impudent freedom, and laughed and chuckled over them as
though they were the best jokes in the world!

It was in one of the Texan settlements, in this rude, wicked tract of
country, that an incident came to my knowledge, quite by accident,
which I will relate. The settlement contained some seventy to eighty
people, men, women, and children, white and black. I was taking a stroll
with one of the settlers among the cabins and huts, he being familiar
with the occupants of each, their habits and history. When we passed a
spot worth notice, he gave me the character of the owner, his wealth,
&c., and although all about the settlement wore an appearance of the
most abject poverty, I was surprised to find the wealth which many of
the inhabitants of so desolate, dreary, and forbidding a place
possessed. We finally came to a small log cabin, at the extreme end of
the settlement, apparently about twenty feet in length by eighteen deep,
a story and a half high.

"Who lives here?" said I.

"The widow ----," replied my guide, whose name was Edmonds--"the widow
of ----, but--yes--the widow of Dr ----, who was killed a few days ago."

I was struck with my companion's pauses, and thought there was something
singular in them, especially as his countenance at the time seemed to
change slightly. I soon mustered resolution to ask him who were the
murderers of Doctor ----, but his reply was simply that he did not know.

"I should like to see the widow," said I; "will you introduce me?"

He declined, stating that he must then leave me, and go along some half
a mile further, where some men were at work, chopping down a bee-tree.

"Very well," said I; "I will step in and introduce myself. You have
awakened some little curiosity in my mind to know more about the murder
of this man."

He left me without making any reply, and I entered the cabin, the door
of which was standing ajar. I found, seated near the fire on a rude
bench, a female, perhaps thirty years old, whose countenance wore a look
of deep dejection, but at the same time betrayed strong evidence of
having been once quite attractive. A little girl sat in her lap--two
boys of the ages of perhaps seven and eleven occupied a bench at her
right--an infant of, I should think, three months old, slept in the
cradle, wh