strife. The scene explained what we had heard
while coming up the canon. The fusillade had been no fancy, but a
fearful reality--fearful, too, in its effects, as I was now satisfied by
the testimony of my telescope. The caravan had been attacked, or, more
likely, only a single waggon that had been straggling in the rear? The
firing may have proceeded from the escort, or the armed emigrants?
Indians may have fallen: indeed there were some prostrate forms apart,
with groups gathered around them, and those I conjectured to be the
corpses of red men. But it was evident the Indians had proved
victorious: since they were still upon the field--still holding the
place and the plunder.

Where were the other waggons of the train? There were fifty of them--
only one was in sight! It was scarcely possible that the whole caravan
had been captured. If so, they must have succumbed within the pass? A
fearful massacre must have been made? This was improbable: the more so,
that the Indians around the waggon appeared to number near two hundred
men. They must have constituted the full band: for it is rare that a
war-party is larger. Those seen appeared to be all warriors, naked from
the breech-clout upward, their skins glaring with pigments. Neither
woman nor child could I see among them. Had the other waggons been
captured, there would not have been so many of the captors clustered
around this particular one. In all likelihood, the vehicle had been
coming up behind the others? The animals drawing it had been shot down
in the skirmish, and it had fallen into the hands of the successful
assailants?

These conjectures occupied me only a moment. Mingled with them was one
of still more special import: to whom had belonged the abandoned waggon?
With fearful apprehension, I covered the ground with my glass--
straining my sight as I gazed through it. I swept the whole surface of
the surrounding plain. I looked under the waggon--on both sides of it,
and beyond. I sought amidst the masses of dusky forms I examined the
groups and stragglers--even the corpses that strewed the plain. Thank
Heaven! they were all black, or brown, or red! All appeared to be
_men_--both the living and the dead--thank Heaven! The ejaculation
ended my survey of the scene: it had scarcely occupied ten seconds of
time.

It was interrupted by a sudden movement on the part of the savages.
Those on horseback were seen separating from the rest; and, the