Vicksburg and other towns along the Lower Mississippi furnished him with many victims, till, at length, he made a final settlement in the state of Arkansas, at that time only a territory, and, as such, the safest refuge for all characters of a similar kind. The town of Helena became his head-quarters. In this grand emporium of scamps and speculators there was nothing in Dick Tarleton's profession to make him conspicuous. Had he confined himself to card-playing, he might have passed muster among the most respectable citizens of the place or its proximity, many of whom, like himself, were professed "sportsmen." But, Dick was not long in Helena until he began to be suspected of certain specialities of sport, among others, that of _nigger-running_. Long absences unaccounted for, strange company in which he was seen in strange places--both the company and the places already suspected--with, at times, a plentiful supply of money drawn from unknown sources, at length fixed upon Dick Tarleton a stigma of a still darker kind than that of card-playing or even sharping. It became the belief that he was a _negro-stealer_, a crime unpardonable in all parts of planter-land--Arkansas not excepted. Along with this belief, every other stigma that might become connected with his name was deemed credible, and no one would have doubted Dick Tarleton's capability of committing whatever atrocity might be charged to him. Bad as he was, he was not so bad as represented and believed. A professed "sportsman," of wild and reckless habits, he knew no limits to dissipation and common indulgence. Immoral to an extreme degree, it was never proved that he was guilty of those dark crimes with which he stood charged or suspected; and the suspicions, when probed to the bottom, were generally found to be baseless. There were few, however, who took this trouble, for from the first Dick Tarleton was far from being a favourite among the fellows who surrounded him. He was of haughty habits, presuming on the superiority of birth and education, and--something still less easily tolerated--a handsome personal appearance. One of the finest looking men to be seen among the settlements, he was, it need hardly be said, popular among the fair sex--such of them as might be expected to turn their eyes upon a _sportsman_. One of this class--a young girl of exceeding attraction, but, alas! with tarnished reputation--was at the time an inhabitant of Helena. Among her admirers, secret and open, were many young men of the place and of the adjacent plantations. She could count a long list of conquests, numbering names far above her own rank and station in life. Among those were Planter Brandon, the lawyer Randall, and, of lesser note, the horse-dealer, Buck. None of these, however, appeared to have been successful in obtaining her smiles, which, according to general belief, were showered on the dissolute but handsome Dick Tarleton.