ALONE CONFRONTED BY INDIANS.
My feelings might have found utterance as follows: "Well, boy, there is one chance in a thousand for you to get out of this alive—that one chance consists in concealing from them that you are scared nearly to death." Having picked up considerable Spanish during the short contact with the Mexicans, which the border tribes all speak fluently, they were invited to go into camp with me, that we had some nice presents for them, naming such things as were thought most acceptable to them. In the meantime I had dismounted from my steed and advanced to the one supposed to be the leader and offered to shake hands with him. After a little conversation with his fellows, he seized my hand, not so as to give me pain, but with a grip it would have been useless to pull away from had he willed it otherwise. Being right over me on his horse, he looked at me so piercingly that the effect was transmitted to the region of the stomach, where there was a death-like chilliness. My weight being less, perhaps, than 100 pounds, my uppermost thought was, how easy for him to lift me across his saddle and, with his comrades, fly away to the mountains and have a war dance while burning me at the stake. All this while he was telling how good he thought me.
To my surprise the invitation was accepted, and we took up the line of march for camp, one of the yellow devils in the rear and one on each side of the little band of cattle and the badly scared boy who kept jabbering away, afraid to stop lest his knees would give way. They acted on my suggestion to go out and get some horses and mules and bring them in, as we wanted some and would give good prices.