I was somewhat astonished by this singular circumstance—the effect of a simple chase. But I was a hundredfold more surprised on perceiving the true cause of the sanguinary extravasation, when I saw the feathered end of an arrow protruding out from under the wing-coverts of the turkey.
I had scarcely time to reflect on this singular appearance, when I heard a “swishing” noise in the air above me.
I looked up. A looped cord was descending over my head, which the instant after had settled upon my shoulders. At the same instant a wild yelling filled my ears; and I saw running towards me a score of human forms, whose naked, bronze-coloured skins, clouted thighs, and vermillion faces, proclaimed them to be Indians.
I perceived at once that I had fallen into the hands of a party of Comanches—on the war-trail, too—as their scant dress and painted faces proclaimed.
They had been bivouacking on the other side of the ridge; and seeing only the turkey as it came upon the crest, some one of them had taken advantage of the pause which the bird had made on perceiving them, and sent an arrow into its side.
When I said just now that I had fallen into their hands, I spoke figuratively. It had not gone quite so far as that; though, had I been without the bowie-knife habitually carried in my belt, such most certainly would have been my fate—and I should, perhaps, never have had an opportunity of recording this adventure.
But the keen blade proved my preserver. In an instant it was out of its sheath; and the lazzo that had fallen over my shoulders—and in another second of time would have entangled my arms—lay, with its loop cut open, idly trailing upon the grass.
I never took to the saddle with greater celerity; and if my mustang had been allowed to lag a little while ascending that prairie slope, he made amends for the delay in going down again.
He needed neither voice nor spur to urge him to his utmost speed. The sight of the Indians, to say nothing of their wild yelling—well understood, and dreaded, by the mustang—had given him an impetus that carried him across the plain like a streak of lightning.
Fortunately, the Indians were afoot, and I was not followed; but this knowledge did not hinder me from continuing my gallop until I had retraced the ground gone over in the turkey chase, and rejoined my friends—still engaged with the gobblers they had pursued in the opposite direction.