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Several miles beyond the city proper, it was a post tavern in the coaching days, and the huge pair of antlers announced the "Sign of the Buck-horn." It had its brief and glorious day and then passed. Early in 1853 it was torn down to make room for a circus, known as Franconi's Hippodrome, built by a syndicate of American showmen, among whom were Avery Smith, Richard Sands, and Seth B. Howe.
From the sash was suspended an otter skin pouch, containing bullets and patches, nipple wrench and turn-screw, a bit of dry tow, an oiled rag, and all the indispensables for rifle cleaning; while into it were thrust two knives one a broad two-edged implement, with a stout buck-horn haft, and a blade of at least twelve inches the other a much smaller weapon, not being, hilt and all, half the length of the other's blade, but very strong, sharp as a razor, and of surpassing temper.
He held the bread in his left hand and the cheese was placed on it, and kept in its place by the thumb, the grimy dirt on which was shielded by a small piece of bread beneath it from the precious cheese. His plate and dish was his broad palm, his only implement a great jack-knife with a buck-horn handle. He ate slowly, thoughtfully, deliberately; weighing each mouthful, chewing the cud as it were.
In place of the usual deer-skin belt, he wore around his body a tarnished silken sash of the most gaudy colours; the buck-horn haft of his knife was profusely decorated with plates of silver; the marten's fur of his cap was of a fineness and shadowing that a queen might covet; the buttons of his rude and soiled blanket-coat were of the glittering coinage of Mexico; the stock of his rifle was of beautiful mahogany, riveted and banded with the same precious metal, and the trinkets of no less than three worthless watches dangled from different parts of his person.
Thorpe had brought him a deer knife from Detroit; a beautiful instrument made of the best tool steel, in one long piece extending through the buck-horn handle. One could even break bones with it. He had also lent the Indian the assistance of two of his Marquette men in erecting the shanty; and had given him a barrel of flour for the winter.
I might have followed him, but I decided that more could be learned by staying, as, in fact, proved to be the case. This, by the by, is the stick he carried away with him. I took the liberty of fetching it back from Westminster, because I conceive it to be Ritier's property." Hewitt produced the stick. It was an ordinary, thick Malacca cane, with a buck-horn handle and a silver band.
And for Radney, though in his infancy he may have laid him down on the lone Nantucket beach, to nurse at his maternal sea; though in after life he had long followed our austere Atlantic and your contemplative Pacific; yet was he quite as vengeful and full of social quarrel as the backwoods seaman, fresh from the latitudes of buck-horn handled bowie-knives.
One hand was clenched on the helve of an axe, that lay in a line with the right thigh while the other was placed, with a firm gripe, on the buck-horn handle of a knife, that was still sheathed at his girdle. The expression of the face was earnest, severe, and perhaps a little fierce, and yet the whole was tempered by the immovable and dignified calm of a chief of high qualities.
The keen weapon whirled a few times in the air, and its point meeting the naked breast of the impetuous Sioux, the blade was buried to the buck-horn haft. Mahtoree laid his hand on the weapon, and seemed to hesitate whether to withdraw it or not.
Van Rennselaer's fancy, but Franconi's Hippodrome was an historical fact, and the tavern that she remembers was Corporal Thompson's Madison Cottage, where, at the "Sign of the Buck-horn," trotting men gathered. When Fifth Avenue was in its infancy Madison Square still recalled the name of Tieman's, and in the centre there was a House of Refuge for sinful boys.
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