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Neither the lancer colonel nor his lieutenant has forgotten the terrible havoc made among the Tenawas by the two men who survived that fearful affray, and whom they may expect once more to meet. They know that both have guns the traitor has told them so and that, as before, they will make use of them. Therefore Uraga intends approaching stealthily, and taking them by surprise.
For long ere the Anglo-American colonists came in contact with the Comanche Indians a Spano-Mexican vocabulary had penetrated to the remotest of these tribes. No new thing for the Tenawas to see the predatory birds swooping above them all day and staying near them all night. Not stranger than a wolf keeping close to the sheepfold, or a hungry dog skulking around shambles.
The captives are the wives and children, with sisters and grown-up daughters among them, of Texan colonists. They are from a settlement too near the frontier to secure itself against Indian attack. The captors are a party of Comanches, with whom the reader has already made acquaintance; for they are no other than the sub-tribe of Tenawas, of whom the Horned Lizard is leader.
To be astray in a wilderness of any kind is a perilous predicament for the traveller in one without water it is death. After their affair with the Tenawas, the Texan Rangers directed their course towards the Llano Estacado.
Westart lies the settlement o' the Del Nort; but we mout come on the same Injuns by goin' that direckshun. I'm not sartin they're Tenawas.
All these, delectable in the eyes of the Horned Lizard and his Tenawas, were left to them; while the bearded man, himself selecting, appropriated the silks and satins, the laces and real jewellery that had been designed to deck the rich doncellas of Santa Fe, El Paso, Chihuahua, and Durango. The distribution over, the scene assumed a new aspect.
Luckily, a troop of Rangers, scouting in the neighbourhood, came opportunely along, just in time to join them. Soldiers and settlers united, they are now on the trail of the Tenawas, and have only halted to breathe and water their horses, eat some food themselves, and then on. Not strange their hot haste men whose homes have been made desolate, their kindred carried into captivity.
The tribe of savages with which he had been consorting was now so terribly chastised, so effectually crushed, it was not probable scarce possible they would be encountered again. Certainly not for a season. For weeks there would be weeping and wailing in the tents of the Tenawas. If the renegade had any hope of being rescued from his present captivity, it could not be by them.
No matter the rider is a man. Keenly scrutinising, he perceives it is an Indian, though not one of the wild sort. His garb betokens him of the tamed. Another glance through the glass and his individuality declares itself, Uraga recognising him as one of the messengers sent to the Tenawas' town. Not the principal, Pedrillo, but he of secondary importance, Jose.
"Who do you think they are?" asks Frank Hamersley, the proprietor of the assaulted caravan. "Are they Comanches, Walt?" "Yis, Kimanch," answers the individual thus addressed; "an' the wust kind o' Kimanch. They're a band o' the cowardly Tenawas. I kin tell by thar bows. Don't ye see that thar's two bends in 'em?" "I do." "Wal, that's the sort o' bow the Tenawas carry same's the Apash."
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