We were also often visited, during the night, by rattlesnakes, who liked amazingly the heat and softness of our blankets. They were unwelcome customers, to be sure; but yet there were some others of which we were still more in dread: among them I may class, as the ugliest and most deadly, the prairie tarantula, a large spider, bigger than a good-sized chicken egg, hairy, like a bear, with small blood-shot eyes and little sharp teeth.
One evening, we encamped near a little spring, two miles from the Brasos. Finding no wood to burn near to us, Fitzgerald started to fetch some. As I have said, his was a small wild horse; he was imprudent enough to tie to its tail a young tree, which he had cut down. The pony, of course, got angry, and galloped furiously towards the camp, surrounded by a cloud of dust. At this sight, the other horses began to show signs of terror; but we were fortunate enough to secure them all before it was too late, or we should have lost them for ever.
It is astonishing to witness in the prairies how powerfully fear will act, not only upon the buffaloes and mustangs, but also upon tame horses and cattle. Oxen will run farther than horses, and some of them have been known, when under the influence of the estampede, or sudden fright, to run forty miles without ever stopping, and when at last they halted, it was merely because exhausted nature would not allow them to go further. The Texan expedition, on its way to Santa Fé, once lost ninety four horses by an estampede. I must say that nothing can exceed the grandeur of the sight, when a numerous body of cattle are under its influence. Old nags, broken by age and fatigue, who have been deserted on account of their weakness, appear as wild and fresh as young colts. As soon as they are seized with that inexplicable dread which forces them to fly, they appear to regain in a moment all the powers of their youth; with head and tail erect, and eyes glaring with fear, they rush madly on in a straight line; the earth trembles under their feet; nothing can stop them--trees, abysses, lakes, rivers, or mountains--they go over all, until nature can support it no more, and the earth is strewed with their bodies.
Even the otherwise imperturbable horse of our savant would sometimes have an estampede after his own fashion; lazy and self-willed, preferring a slow walk to any other kind of motion, this animal showed in all his actions that he knew how to take care of number one, always selecting his quarters where the water was cool and the grass tender. But he had a very bad quality for a prairie travelling nag, which was continually placing his master in some awkward dilemma. One day that we had stopped to refresh ourselves near a spring, we removed the bridles from our horses, to allow them to graze a few minutes, but the savant's cursed beast took precisely that opportunity of giving us a sample of his estampede. Our English friend had a way, quite peculiar to himself, of crowding upon his horse all his scientific and culinary instruments. He had suspended at the pommel of the saddle a thermometer, a rum calabash, and a coffee-boiler, while behind the saddle hung a store of pots and cups, frying-pan, a barometer, a sextant, and a long spy-glass. The nag was grazing, when one of the instruments fell down, at which the beast commenced kicking, to show his displeasure. The more he kicked, the greater was the rattling of the cups and pans; the brute was now quite terrified; we first secured our own steeds, and then watched the singular and ridiculous movements of this estampedero.
He would make ten leaps, and then stop to give as many kicks, then shake himself violently and start off full gallop. At every moment, some article, mathematical or culinary, would get loose, fall down, and be trampled upon. The sextant was kicked to pieces, the frying-pan and spy-glass were put out of shape, the thermometer lost its mercury, and at last, by dint of shaking, rolling, and kicking, the brute got rid of his entire load and saddle, and then came quietly to us, apparently very well satisfied with himself and with the damage he had done. It was a most ludicrous scene, and defies all power of description; so much did it amuse us, that we could not stop laughing for three or four hours.
The next day, we found many mineral springs, the waters of which were strongly impregnated with sulphur and iron. We also passed by the bodies of five white men, probably trappers, horribly mangled, and evidently murdered by some Texan robbers. Towards evening, we crossed a large fresh Indian trail, going in the direction of the river Brasos, and, following it, we soon came up with the tribe of Lepans, of which old Castro was the chief.
CHAPTER XXI.
The Lepans were themselves going northwards, and for a few days we skirted, in company with them, the western borders of the Cross Timbers. The immense prairies of Texas are for hundreds and hundreds of miles bordered on the east by a belt of thick and almost impenetrable forests, called the Cross Timbers. Their breadth varies from seventy to one hundred miles. There the oak and hiccory grow tall and beautiful, but the general appearance of the country is poor, broken, and rugged. These forests abound with deer and bears, and sometimes the buffalo, when hotly pursued by the Indians in the prairies, will take refuge in its closest thickets. Most of the trees contain hives of bees full of a very delicate honey, the great luxury of the pioneers along these borders.
We now took our leave of the Lepans and our two white friends, who would fain have accompanied us to the Comanches had there been a chance of returning to civilization through a safe road; as it was, Gabriel, Roche, and I resumed our journey alone. During two or three days we followed the edge of the wood, every attempt to penetrate into the interior proving quite useless, so thick were the bushes and thorny briers. Twice or thrice we perceived on some hills, at a great distance, smoke and fires, but we could not tell what Indians might be there encamped.