e could hardly see the length
of a gun-barrel. Curly's warnings continuing, George and Tomas rolled
out of their blankets and crawled out among and about the horses, and
lay near them an hour or more, till Curly's growls finally ceased.
Then we called them in and all lay down, and finished the night in
peace. Early the next morning, however, a short circle discovered the
trail of three Indians who had crept near to the horses and
reconnoitred our position. Their back trail led due northeast, the
direction we had to follow; and when we had ridden out half a mile from
the Ojo Zacate, we found where their trail joined that of the main
band. The "sign" showed they had been south toward Monclova on a
successful horse-stealing raid, for it was plain they had passed us in
the night with a bunch of at least twenty horses, heading toward a
point of the range only five or six miles west of where we should be
compelled to enter it.

We were in about as bad a hole as could be conceived. Plainly the
Indians knew of our presence in the vicinity. It was equally certain
their scouts would be watching our every move throughout the day, and
there was not one chance in a thousand of our crossing the range
without attack from some ambush of such vantage as to leave small
ground for hope that we could survive it. All but Cress and Thornton
urged me to turn back, although we were all nearly afoot, and had no
food left except two or three pounds of flour, and a little meat.
After very short deliberation I decided to go ahead. The Lipans knew
precisely where we were, and if they wanted us they could (in the event
of a retreat) easily run us down and surround us and hold us off food
and water until we were starved out sufficiently to charge their
position and be shot down. Better far put up a bold bluff and take
chances of cutting through them.

So on we plodded slowly toward the hills, all of us walking most of the
way to save our horses all we could. At 2 p.m. we cut the old trail
Tomas was heading us toward, and shortly thereafter entered the mouth
of a frightfully rough canon, its bottom and slopes thickly covered
with nopal, sotol, and mesquite, and, later, higher up, with pines,
junipers, oaks, and spruces, with here and there groups of great
boulders that would easily conceal a regiment. Two or three miles in,
the gorge deepened until tall mountain slopes were rising steeply on
either side of us, and narrowed until we had to