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Show OEFFROTS TRIALS. 69 " ' Munchos Tejanos !' ( Many Texans !) yelled the other sentinels, as our men rushed upon and disarmed them. '" Si, si, munckos Tejanos quieron los scoupdas!' was the cry, as we sprang to prevent them. The five men named for that duty had secured most of the arms, but a short, sharp struggle ensued, in which five of the Mexicans were killed and as many wounded. But the sur-prise was so complete that most of them fled precipitately toward the pass. It was impossible to secure our prisoners and the captured arms, and collect our horses in time to make the intended attack upon the village before they could have been fully aroused and prepared. We therefore hastily collected the arms and horses of the fugitives, paroled the prisoners, destroyed every thing we could not carry off, and pushed with all speed for the spur by which we might reach the table- lands to the eastward. Reaching, late in the afternoon, a high point in the eastward pass, we thought ourselves beyond pursuit, and halted for a rest. In the general gayety, discipline was relaxed, and the guards stationed with the horses ventured to leave their posts for a few moments and enter camp. In the midst of our meal the shout was heard : ' There go our horses ! ' and all hands sprang up only to witness our noble cavallard under full headway before a body of Mexican horsemen, while at the same instant a brisk fire was opened upon us from flank and rear. For an instant we were paralyzed ; then seized our arms, and, at the word of command, charged upon the enemy on the hill in front. The panic- stricken Mexicans rushed down the opposite slope, leaving three dead upon the ground ; we followed, and soon cleared the field in all directions, till not an enemy was in sight. One of the Mexicans had been holding two mustangs in the rear of the attacking party, and though shot dead, still held the halters tight gripped in his hands. Hurriedly cutting them loose, the St. Louis man and I sprang upon the animals, and, despite the warning cry from Colonel Warfield, dashed after the cavallard, now on the brow of the plateau, two or three miles away, and going at full speed. " It was madness, but we had little time to think. It was death, we considered, to lose our horses in such a place, and to die in an attempt to regain them could not be worse. A gallop of a few miles, without gaining on the cavallard, gave us time to reconsider, and we turned re-gretfully toward the camp. But as we did so, a party of at least fifty Mexican horsemen appeared on the way we had come. A wild yell of triumph rose upon the air, followed by a shower of scoupeta balls, one of which laid my companion's horse dead, leaving its rider senseless upon the ground. One instant I thought of surrender as a prisoner of |
