Guerrilleros.
The manoeuvre had occupied only a few seconds of time, and the horsemen were yet distant. They had thrown themselves into a formation, and were riding “by twos!”
This movement took us by surprise. The tactics were not Indian: Comanches never march in double file. The horsemen could not be Indians. Who, then?
A sudden hope crossed my mind, that it might be a party of my own people, out in search of me. “By twos” was our favourite and habitual order of march. But no; the long lances and streaming pennons at once dissipated the hope: there was not a lance in the American army. They could not be “rangers.”
Comanches on the war-trail would have been armed with the lance, but clearly they were not Comanches.
“Wagh!” exclaimed Rube, after eyeing them intently. “Ef thur Injuns, I’m a niggur! Ef thur Injuns, they’ve got beards an sombrayras, an thet ain’t Injun sign nohow. No!” he added, raising his voice, “thur a gang o’ yellur-bellied Mexikins! thet’s what they ur.”
All three of us had arrived simultaneously at the same conviction. The horsemen were Mexicans.
It was no great source of rejoicing to know this; and the knowledge produced no change in our defensive attitude. We well knew that a band of Mexicans, armed as these were, could not be other than a hostile party, and bitter too in their hostility. For several weeks past, the petite guerre had been waged with dire vengeance. The neutral ground had been the scene of reprisals and terrible retaliations. On one side, wagon-trains had been attacked and captured, harmless teamsters murdered, or mutilated whilst still alive. I saw one with his arms cut off by the elbow-joints, his heart taken out, and thrust between his teeth! He was dead; but another whom I saw still lived, with the cross deeply gashed upon his breast, on his brow, upon the soles of his feet, and the palms of his hands—a horrid spectacle to behold!
On the other side, ranchos had been ransacked and ruined, villages given to the flames, and men on mere suspicion shot down upon the spot or hanged upon the nearest tree.
Such a character had the war assumed; and under these circumstances, we knew that the approaching horsemen were our deadly foes.