The interrogation as it escaped my lips, was half involuntary, and needed no reply. Garey’s glance guided me; and following its direction, I observed a string of horsemen just debouching from behind the mesa, and spurring forward upon the plain.
Both my companions had drawn bridle, and halted. I followed their example; and all three of us sat in our saddles, scanning this sudden apparition of mounted men. A dozen had now cleared themselves from behind the mesa, and were riding towards us.
We were yet nearly a mile from them; and at that distance it is difficult to distinguish a white man from an Indian—I should rather say impossible. Even at half the distance, the oldest prairie-men are sometimes puzzled. The garments are often not very dissimilar, and sun-bronze and dust confound the complexions.
Although Garey, at first sight of them, had pronounced the horsemen to be Indians—the most probable supposition under the circumstances—it was but a random conjecture, and for some time we remained in doubt.
“If they’re Injuns,” suggested Garey, “they’re Comanche.”
“An if thur Kimanch,” added Rube, with ominous emphasis, “we’ve got to fight. If thur Kimanch, thur on the war-trail, an thur’ll be mischief in ’em. Wagh! Look to yur flints an primin!”
Rube’s counsel was instantly followed. Necessity quickened our precautions. All of us well knew, that, should the approaching horsemen turn out to be Comanches, we had no alternative but fight.
This warlike nation occupies the whole western area of Texas, ranging from the Rio Grande on the south, to the Arkansas on the north. They are to-day, with their kindred tribes, the most powerful Indian alliance on the continent. They affect the ownership of all prairie-land, styling themselves its “lords,” though their sovereignty towards the north is successfully disputed by the Pawnees, Sioux, Blackfeet, and others as warlike as they. From the earliest times, they have been the fiend of the Texan settler; and a detailed account of their forays and pillaging expeditions would fill a score of volumes. But from these they have not gone back unscathed. The reprisals have outnumbered the assaults, and the rifle of the border-ranger has done its work of vengeance.
In Mexico they have found less puissant defenders of the hearth and home; and into the north-eastern provinces of that unhappy country, the Comanches have been for the last half-century in the habit of making an annual expedition of war and plunder. In fact, plunder has become the better part of their subsistence, as they usually return from these rieving incursions laden with spoil, and carrying with them vast droves of horses, mules, horned cattle, and captive women!
For a short time, these dusky freebooters were at peace with the Anglo-American colonists of Texas. It was but a temporary armistice, brought about by Houston; but Lamar’s administration, of a less pacific character, succeeded, and the settlers were again embroiled with the Indians. War to the knife was declared and carried on; red and white killed each other on sight. When two men met upon the prairie, the colour of the skin determined the relations between them! If they differed in this, the were enemies without parley, and to kill the other was the first thought of each. The lex talionis was the custom of the hour.