The young chief of the Comanches remained as in a dream, till the major, with Rosa and the militia, were already far from the estaminet. Suddenly he came bounding after them, and placing himself before Rosa, took her hands, pressed them to his breast, and bowed his head so mournfully, that the witnesses of the scene stood silent, sympathizing with his evident affliction.
"El Sol," whispered he, in a scarcely audible tone, "has seen Rosa: he will never forget her."
And without raising his eyes to her face, he turned away.
"As I live," exclaimed the squire, with some emotion, "the noble savage weeps!"
An hour subsequently to this scene, the party of Indians left the bayou in a canoe, and ascended the Mississippi. Upon reaching the mouth of the Red River, they turned into it, and continued their route up-stream. On the tenth day from that of their departure, they found themselves upon the elevated plain where the western district of Arkansas and Louisiana joins the Mexican territory. To their front were the snowy summits of the Ozark range, beyond which are immense steppes extending towards the Rocky Mountains. The sun sank behind the snow-capped peaks, as the Indians landed at the western extremity of the long table-rock, which there stretches like a wall along the left bank of the Red River. Leaving their canoe, they approached a hill, or rather a mass of rock, that rises not far from the shore in the barren salt steppe, and in whose side exists a cave or grotto, resembling, by its regularity of form, an artificial archway. Here, upon the imaginary boundary line separating the hunting grounds of the Pawnees of the Toyask tribe from those of the Cousas and Osages, they took up their quarters for the night. El Sol ordered a fire to be made; for Tokeah, who had just left the warm climate of Louisiana, shivered with cold. Their frugal meal dispatched, the Miko and his Oconees stretched themselves upon the ground and slept. El Sol still listened to a legend related by one of the Comanches, when he was startled by a distant noise. In an instant the three warriors were upon their feet, their heads stretched out in the direction of the breeze which had conveyed the sound to their ears.
"The dogs!" murmured the young Comanche; "they bay after a foe in whose power it once was to crush them."
The Oconees were roused from their slumber, and the party hurried to the place where they had left the canoe. The Miko and his warriors got in and descended the stream; whilst El Sol and the two Comanches crept noiselessly along the water's edge in the same direction. After proceeding for about half a mile, the canoe stopped, and the young chief and his followers entered it, previously breaking the bushes growing upon the shore, so as to leave unmistakable marks of their passage. They continued their progress down the river to the end of the table-rock, and then, leaving the old man in the boat, El Sol and the four warriors again landed, and glided away in the direction of their recently abandoned bivouac. In its vicinity were stationed a troop of twenty horses. Of the Indians to whom these belonged, ten remained mounted, whilst the remainder searched the cave, and followed the trail left by its late occupants. Crouching and crawling upon the ground, the better to distinguish the footmarks dimly visible in the moonlight, it might almost have been doubted whether their dark forms were those of men, or of some strange amphibious animals who had stolen out of the depths of the river for a midnight prowl upon the shore.
His ear against the rock, and motionless as a statue, El Sol observed each movement of the foe. Suddenly, when the Indians who followed the trail were at some distance from the cave, he made a sign to his companions, and, with a noiseless swiftness that defied detection, the five warriors approached the horses. A slight undulation of the plain was all that now separated them from their enemy. El Sol listened, gazed upwards at the moon's silver disk, just then emerging from behind a snow-charged cloud, raised himself upon his knee, and taking a long and steady aim, nodded to his warriors. The next instant five savages, pierced by as many bullets, fell from their horses to the ground; a terrible yell shattered the stillness of the night; and with lightning swiftness El Sol sprang upon the terrified survivors, who, answering his war-whoop by cries of terror, fled in confusion from the place. It needed all the surprising rapidity and dexterity of the young chief and his followers to secure six of the half-wild horses, whose bridles, so swift and well-calculated had been the movements of the Comanches, might be said to fall from the hands of their slain riders into those of the assailants. The remaining steeds reared in extreme terror, and then, with neigh and snort, dashed madly across the wide waste of the steppe.
Springing upon the backs of the captured animals, the Comanches galloped to the shore. Scarcely had they entered the canoe, astern of which the horses were made to swim, when the bullets and arrows of the pursuing foe whistled around them.