oned
camps, the course of arrival and departure, the number of horses,
indicating who and what they were, war or hunting parties--everything
apparently simple and plain as an alphabet to these plainsmen. Around
the camp-fire at night the chronicle of the Comanche tribe for the
last thirty years was reviewed, and their overbearing and defiant
attitude towards the people of Texas was discussed, not for my
benefit, as it was common history. Then for the first time I learned
that the Comanches had once mounted ten thousand warriors, had
frequently raided the country to the coast, carrying off horses
and white children, even dictating their own terms of peace to the
republic of Texas. At the last council, called for the purpose of
negotiating for the return of captive white children in possession of
the Comanches, the assembly had witnessed a dramatic termination. The
same indignity had been offered before, and borne by the whites, too
weak to resist the numbers of the Comanche tribe. In this latter
instance, one of the war chiefs, in spurning the remuneration offered
for the return of a certain white girl, haughtily walked into the
centre of the council, where an insult could be seen by all. His act,
a disgusting one, was anticipated, as it was not the first time it had
been witnessed, when one of the Texans present drew a six-shooter and
killed the chief in the act. The hatchet of the Comanche was instantly
dug up, and had not been buried at the time we were crossing a country
claimed by him as his hunting ground.

Yet these drovers seemed to have no fear of an inferior race. We held
our course without a halt, scarcely a day passing without seeing more
or less fresh sign of Indians. After crossing the South Fork of the
Brazos, we were attacked one morning just at dawn, the favorite hour
of the Indian for a surprise. Four men were on herd with the cattle
and one near by with the remuda, our night horses all securely tied to
the wagon wheels. A feint attack was made on the commissary, but
under the leadership of Goodnight a majority of us scrambled into our
saddles and rode to the rescue of the remuda, the chief objective
of the surprise. Two of the boys from the herd had joined the horse
wrangler, and on our arrival all three were wickedly throwing lead at
the circling Indians. The remuda was running at the time, and as we
cut through between it and the savages we gave them the benefit of our
rifles and six-shooter in pass