y did not get him. Instantly Cress
and Crawford slipped back out of range, made a detour that brought them
to the bench edge within fifty yards of the Lipans' position, and
opened on them a cross fire, while I lay above George and shelled away
at the smoke of their discharge, for not one showed a head after George
potted the jumper. Five minutes after Cress and Crawford opened on
them, the Lipan fire ceased entirely. For an hour we scouted along the
bank trying to locate them, but apparently they had withdrawn.

Then, while the others covered us, George and I slipped through the
bush to investigate his kill, and found a great gaunt old warrior at
least sixty years old, wrinkled of face as if he might be a hundred,
but sound of teeth and coal-black of hair as a youth, his face and body
scarred in nearly a score of places from bullet and machete
wounds,--the sign manual writ indelibly on his war-worn frame by many a
doughty enemy. We carried him to the bench crest, Crawford fetched a
spade and we dug a grave and buried him with his weapons laid upon his
breast, as his own people would have buried him, and then we fired
across his grave the final salute he obviously so well had earned.

More than he would have done for us? Yes, I dare say. But then our
points of view were different. Throughout his long life a terror to
all whites he doubtless had been; upon us he was stealthily slipping,
ruthless as a tiger; but then he and his tribesmen and lands had so
long been prey to the greed of white invaders of his domain that it is
hard to blame him for fighting, according to the traditions of his
race, to the death.

Lying in camp within the thicket that night, naturally without a fire,
Thornton made it plain that his voluntary start for water was
providentially timed. He told us that, while descending the slope to
the timber, he saw the head of a little column of Indians, stealing up
the valley through the brush, saw them before they saw him; but just as
he saw them, he slipped on some pebbles and nearly fell, making a noise
that attracted their attention. Instantly they slid into cover, and
opened fire on him.

Asked by me why he himself had not sought cover, George answered, "No
show to get one except by keeping out in the open on the high ground,
and I _wanted one_!"

It was plain the Lipans had sighted us when too late to lay an ambush
for us in the narrows, had made a short cut through the hills and
dropped d