“I now felt safe. The first thing I did war to pull out my huntin’-knife an’ fasten it to my wrist with a piece o’ buckskin; then, drawin’ one o’ my revolvers, I turned in my saddle, an’ thought I would stir up the Greasers a little, when all to onct somethin’ struck me in the face like a club, an’ I war lifted from my saddle clean as a whistle, and the next minit I war bumpin’ an’ draggin’ over the ground in a mighty onpleasant kind of a way. One o’ the Greasers had slipped his lasso over me, an’ war pullin’ me along as fast as his hoss could travel. I fell right flat on my face, an’ every step the Greaser’s hoss tuk plowed my nose in the ground, an’ my eyes war so full o’ dirt an’ blood that I could scarcely see.
“But I war not quite so fast as the Greaser had thought for. The lasso hadn’t gone down round my neck, but had ketched jest above my chin. I hadn’t never been in sich a mighty onpleasant fix afore, but I warn’t long in gettin’ my wits about me. Reachin’ up with my huntin’-knife, I made a slash at the lasso, an’ the next minit wor standin’ on my feet agin. I had hung onto my revolver, an’, drawin’ a bead on the Greaser that had ketched me, I tumbled him from his saddle in a twinklin’. My hoss hadn’t run an inch arter I war pulled off his back, an’ I war soon in the saddle agin.
“I knowed I war safe now, for, as I galloped over the field, I see the Greasers travelin’ down the road as though Gen’ral Taylor’s army war arter ’em. They war three to my one, but didn’t think themselves a match for a single American.”
CHAPTER XV.
Caught at Last.
“
BUT that isn’t all the story,” said the trapper, again filling his pipe. “As soon as the Greasers had got out o’ sight, I galloped back toward the road an’ tuk the back track, intendin’ to find Cap’n Morgan, an’ tell him that the Mexikins were kalkerlatin’ on ketchin’ him, an’ then go on with my dispatches.
“I had paid purty good attention to what the gen’ral had told the women, an’ I knowed exactly what road to take to find the cap’n’s camp; an’ you’d better believe I rid some. Purty soon some one yelled out: