l
feels in poor condition for travelling. But to stay there is to die;
and bracing himself to the effort, he steps out side by side with his
colossal companion.

CHAPTER NINETEEN.

THE DEPARTURE OF THE PLUNDERERS.

On the day after the capture of the caravan the Indians, having consumed
all the whisky found in the waggons, and become comparatively sober,
prepared to move off.

The captured goods, made up into convenient parcels, were placed upon
mules and spare horses. Of both they had plenty, having come prepared
for such a sequel to their onslaught upon the traders.

The warriors, having given interment to their dead comrades, leaving the
scalped and mutilated corpses of the white men to the vultures and
wolves, mounted and marched off.

Before leaving the scene of their sanguinary exploit, they had drawn the
waggons into a close clump and set fire to them, partly from a wanton
instinct of destruction, partly from the pleasure of beholding a great
bonfire, but also with some thoughts that it might be as well thus to
blot out all the traces of a tragedy for which the Americans--of whom
even these freebooters felt dread--might some day call them to account.

They did not all go together, but separated into two parties on the spot
where they had passed the night. They were parties, however, of very
unequal size, one of them numbering only four individuals.

The other, which constituted the main body of the plunderers, was the
band of the Tenawa Comanchey, under their chief, Horned Lizard. These
last turned eastward, struck off towards the head waters of the Big
Witches, upon which and its tributaries lie their customary roving
grounds.

The lesser party went off in almost the opposite direction,
south-westerly, leaving the Llano Estacado on their left, and journeying
on, crossed the Rio Pecos at a point below and outside the farthest
frontier settlement of New Mexico towards the prairies. Then, shaping
their course nearly due south, they skirted the spurs of the Sierra
Blanca, that in this latitude extend eastward almost to the Pecos.

On arriving near the place known as Gran Quivira--where once stood a
prosperous Spanish town, devoted to gathering gold, now only a ruin,
scarcely traceable, and altogether without record--they again changed
their course, almost zigzagging back in a north-westerly direction.
They were making towards a depression seen in the Sierra Blanca, as if
with the intention to c