f brush and timber creeping down along its
bottom, but stopping just short of the open plains. Scouting was
useless. If there were any Indians about, we certainly had been seen,
and they lay in ambush for us in a place of their own choosing. We
must have water, and to get it must enter the canon. So straight into
the timber that filled the mouth of the gorge we rode at a run, riding
a few paces apart to avoid the possible potting of our little bunch,
and a hundred yards within the outer fringe of timber we reached the
water our animals so badly needed.

And right there, all about the "sink" of the Alamo, where the last
drops of the stream sank into the thirsty sands, the bottom was covered
thick with fresh moccasin tracks, and in a little opening in the bush
near to the sink smouldered the embers of that morning's camp-fire of a
band of Lipans. Apparently we were in for it and seriously debated a
retreat. Our position could not be worse. Tomas told us that the
trail of the Lipans led straight up the valley, and for eight miles the
canon was never more than three hundred yards wide, and often no more
than fifty, with almost perpendicular walls rising on either side two
hundred or more feet in height, so nearly perpendicular that we would
for the entire distance be in range from the bordering cliff crests,
while any enemy there ambushed would be so safely covered they could
follow our route and pick us off at their leisure. To be sure, the
brush along the stream afforded some shelter, but no real protection.
However, out now nearly fifty miles from Musquiz and well into the
country we had come to see, we pushed ahead. Cress, Thornton, and
Manuel prowling afoot through the brush a hundred yards in advance,
Crawford, Tomas and myself bringing up the rear with the horses. And
so we advanced for nearly half a mile when the Lipan trail turned east,
toward Musquiz, up a crevice in the cliff a goat would have no easy
time ascending. Thus we were led to argue that the Lipans had left
their camp before discovering our approach, and by this time were
probably miles away to the east.

Mounting, therefore, we made the beat pace our pack animals could stand
up through the eight miles of the narrows, riding well apart from each
other, the only safeguard we could take, all craning our necks for view
of the cliff crests ahead of us. But no living thing showed save a few
deer and coyotes, and two mountain lions that, alarmed