SAVED FROM THE HANDS OF A DESPERADO.

The following circumstance is communicated to us by a United States Surgeon: 

“After the close of the Mexican war, and in the year 1849, a train was sent out from San Antonio to establish military posts on the upper Rio Grande, particularly at El Paso.  I was surgeon of the quartermaster’s department, numbering about four hundred men.  While the train was making up, the cholera prevailed in camp, for about six weeks, at first with terrible severity.  On the 1st of June it had so far subsided that we took up the line of march.  After about four days out from San Antonio, the health of the men became very good, and continued so through the whole route, with the exception of occasional cases of prostration from heat, and slight fevers, the Summer being unusually hot.  One evening in July, after coming into camp, I received a call to see a man who had been taken sick on the march.  I found him lying under his wagon.  The wagon was loaded with bacon, in bulk about two tons.  The heat with the pressure had caused it to drip freely.  I asked him to come from under the wagon, that I might examine his case and prescribe, for him.  This he refused to do; but demanded that I should crawl under the wagon to him, which I, of course, would not consent to do.  No persuasion could induce him to change his position in the least.  Becoming satisfied that he was not much, if at all sick, I left him.  His profanity, threats and imprecations were fearful.  Perhaps it would be well to give a short sketch of his life for the three years previous, as I learned it from men who knew him, and had been with him for considerable portion of that period.  He went to Mexico, at the beginning of the war, a soldier in the regular army.  When his term of service expired, he was discharged, and sought employment in the quartermaster’s department, as a teamster.  He had the reputation of being a thief, a robber and an assassin.  In a few months he was ignominiously discharged from the service, and, at the close of the war, he came to Texas, and sought and obtained employment as teamster in the train then organizing for El Paso.  But, to return to my narrative.  On the morning after the occurrence at the wagon, a teamster came to me and said, in a hasty and abrupt manner, ’Doctor, Mc will kill you to-day or to-night.  He is full of rage, and muttering terrible threats.  He was out very early this morning and emptied his six-shooter, and came in and reloaded it and put it in first-rate order.’  I said, ‘Mc, what’s up now?’ He replied, ’I will kill that d——­d old doctor to-day or to-night;’ and he will do it.  I have known him make threats before, and have never known him fail to execute them.  But I must go; he must not know that I have seen you.’  Knowing the man, I realized the danger, and felt that I was powerless, either to resist or avoid it.  I retired within my tent and closed it up.  I prostrated myself before Him who is able to save.  I prayed for deliverance from the hands of the cruel and blood-thirsty man, and that I might not be left in the power of him who was my enemy without cause.  I submitted my cause into the hands of Him who doeth all things well, and prayed for entire submission to his will.  My anxiety subsided; my fear was removed, and I commenced the duties of the day with usual cheerfulness.