Whatever punishment awaits them, that is not the place where they are to
suffer it. For, soon as getting their prisoners secured, the band is
again formed into files, its leader ordering it to continue the march,
so unexpectedly, and to him satisfactorily, interrupted.

CHAPTER SEVENTY ONE.

A PATHLESS PLAIN.

The plain across which the freebooters are now journeying, on return to
what they call their "rendyvoo," is one of a kind common in
South-western Texas. An arid steppe, or table-land, by the Mexicans
termed _mesa_; for the most part treeless, or only with such
arborescence as characterises the American desert. "Mezquite," a name
bestowed on several trees of the acacia kind, "black-jack," a dwarfed
species of oak, with _Prosopis_, _Fouquiera_, and other spinous shrubs,
are here and there found in thickets called "chapparals," interspersed
with the more succulent vegetation of _cactus_ and _agave_, as also the
_yucca_, or dragon-tree of the Western Hemisphere.

In this particular section of it almost every tree and plant carries
thorns. Even certain grasses are armed with prickly spurs, and sting
the hand that touches them; while the reptiles crawling among them are
of the most venomous species; scorpions and centipedes, with snakes
having ossified tails, and a frog furnished with horns! The last,
however, though vulgarly believed to be a batrachian, is in reality a
lizard--the _Agama cornuta_.

This plain, extending over thirty miles from east to west, and twice the
distance in a longitudinal direction, has on one side the valley of the
San Saba, on the other certain creeks tributary to the Colorado. On one
of these the prairie pirates have a home, or haunt, to which they retire
only on particular occasions, and for special purposes. Under
circumstances of this kind they are now _en route_ for it.

Its locality has been selected with an eye to safety, which it serves to
perfection. A marauding party pursued from the lower settlements of the
Colorado, by turning up the valley of the San Saba, and then taking
across the intermediate plain, would be sure to throw the pursuers off
their tracks, since on the table-land none are left throughout long
stretches where even the iron heel of a horse makes no dent in the dry
turf, nor leaves the slightest imprint. At one place in particular,
just after striking this plain from the San Saba side, there is a broad
belt, altogether without vegetation or soil u