It is true that the dismounted trooper might be carried on the croup of one of his comrades’ horses; but all of these were greatly fatigued by a long-continued spell of duty; and it was just doubtful enough whether there was a horse in the cavallada capable of “carrying double.”
While my lieutenant and I were debating this question between us, fate or fortune seemed to have determined on deciding it in our favour.
I have said that the chapparal stretched in to the very confines of the rancheria—holding the little village, as it were, in its thorny embrace.
But the country around was not all of this character. The thicket was far from being continuous. On the contrary, the eye rested upon broad tracts of open pasture-ground, covered with a growth of tufted grass, here and there matted, with clumps of cactus, and plants of the wild agave bristling under their tall flower-stalks, and cymes of strong-scented blossoms.
It was not these curious forms of the botanical world that attracted our attention—we had seen and admired them before—but the hoof-strokes of a galloping horse, ringing, not upon the road that bisected the village, but upon the hard turf, that covered the surface of the soil in the open spaces extending between the copses of the chapparal.
We had scarcely bent our ears to listen to the sounds, when we saw the animal that was causing them—a horse—galloping down the slope of a hill in the direction of the rancheria.
He was saddled; but without bridle, and without a rider!
The animal appeared to be a splendid musténo, of a steel-grey colour; and the gleam of silver upon the mountings of the saddle bespoke him as belonging, or having belonged, to an owner of some consideration—perhaps an officer of rank.
The sight of a saddled but riderless steed, thus scampering across country, was by no means strange—at least to us then and there. More than one had we observed upon our march enjoying a like liberty—whose riders were perhaps, at that moment, coldly asleep upon the field of battle, never more to remount them.
We should scarcely have taken notice of the circumstance, but for the want which just then was making itself so unpleasantly felt. We wanted a horse to remount the lieutenant. Here was one about to offer himself ready saddled, and as if saying, “Come and bestride me!”