His reflection is false. She goes farther, but not over the precipice. With another quick pull upon the rein she has changed her course, and rides along the edge of it—so close as to attract the attention of the “Tejanos” below, and elicit from Zeb Stump that quaint exclamation—only heard upon extraordinary occasions—
“Geesus Geehosofat!”
As if in answer to the exclamation of the old hunter—or rather to the interrogatory with which he has followed it up—comes the cry of the strange equestrian who has shown herself on the cliff.
“Los Indios! Los Indios!”
No one who has spent three days in Southern Texas could mistake the meaning of that phrase—whatever his native tongue. It is the alarm cry which, for three hundred years, has been heard along three thousand miles of frontier, in three different languages—“Les Indiens! Los Indios! the Indians!”
Dull would be the ear, slow the intellect, that did not at once comprehend it, along with the sense of its associated danger.
To those who hear it at the jacalé it needs no translation. They know that she, who has given utterance to it, is pursued by Indians—as certain as if the fact had been announced in their own Saxon vernacular.
They have scarce time to translate it into this—even in thought—when the same voice a second time salutes their ears:—“Tejanos! Cavalleros! save me! save me! Los Indios! I am chased by a troop. They are behind me—close—close—”
Her speech, though continued, is no longer heard distinctly. It is no longer required to explain what is passing upon the plain above.
She has cleared the first clump of tree tops by scarce twenty yards, when the leading savage shoots out from the same cover, and is seen, going in full gallop, against the clear sky.