n and children, he was the only survivor.
Thus were the Lipans still levying heavy toll for their wrongs!

Toward evening we entered Progreso a village reputed among the natives
to be a nest of thieves and assassins. While Thornton was away buying
meat and I was rearranging our pack, six of the ugliest-looking
Mexicans I ever saw strolled across the plaza, evidently to size up our
outfit. Apparently it was to their liking, for when, twenty minutes
later, we were riding into the ford of the Rio Salado just south of the
town, the six, all heavily armed, loped past us, and when they emerged
from the ford openly and impudently divided, three taking to the brush
on one side of the road, and three on the other, riding forward and
flanking the trail we had to follow. From then till dark their hats
were almost constantly visible, two or three hundred yards ahead of us.
Our horses being so jaded, we were sure they were not the prize sought,
and it remained certain they were after our saddles and arms.

Riding quietly on behind them until it was too dark to see our move or
follow the trail, we slipped off to the westward of the road, and
camped in a deep depression in the plain, where we thought we could
venture a small fire to cook our supper. But the fire proved a
blunder. Before the water was fairly boiling in the coffee pot, Curly
signalled trouble, and we jumped out of the fire-light and dropped flat
in the bush just as the six fired a volley into the camp, one of the
shots hitting the fire and filling our frying-pan with cinders and
ashes. For an hour or more they sneaked about the camp, constantly
firing into it, while we lay close without returning a single shot,
content they would not dare try to rush us while uncertain of our
position. And so it proved, for at length Curly's warnings ceased, and
we knew they had withdrawn.

Waiting till midnight, we saddled and packed and made a wide detour to
the west, striking the road again perhaps four miles nearer Lampasos,
which we reached safely late in the next afternoon; our grand old
camp-guard, Curly, in better condition than either of us.

Curiously, seven months later, in August, 1883, while on another
ranch-hunting trip in Mexico, this time along the eastern slope of the
Sierra Madre in northern Chihuahua at least five hundred miles distant
from Musquiz, I learned the solution of our puzzle as to whether our
last fight in Coahuila was with Lipans or Mexicans.