ch bound simultaneously forward, as if stung by hornets or bitten by
gadflys.

But neither brings its rider along. The latter--both of them--stay
behind; not naturally, as dismounted and thrown to the earth; but, like
the cradle of Mahomet, suspended between earth and heaven.

CHAPTER SEVENTY NINE.

AFTER THE EXECUTION.

It is mid-day over the Arroyo de Alamo.

The same sun whose early morning rays fell around the deliberating
lynchers, at a later hour lighting up a spectacle of execution, has
mounted to the meridian, and now glares down upon a spectacle still
sanguinary, though with tableaux changed.

The camp is deserted. There are no tents, no Texans, no horses, nor yet
any mules. All have disappeared from the place.

True, Uraga and his lancers are still there--in body, not in spirit.
Their souls have gone, no one may know whither. Only their clay-cold
forms remain, us left by the Rangers--the common soldiers lying upon the
grass, the two officers swinging side by side, from the trees, with
broken necks, drooping heads, and limbs dangling down--all alike
corpses.

Not for long do they stay unchanged--untouched.

Scarce has the last hoof-stroke of the Texan horses died away down the
valley, when the buzzards forsake their perch upon the bluff, and swoop
down to the creek bottom.

Simultaneously the wolves--grand grey and coyote--come sneaking out from
the thicket's edge; at first cautiously, soon with bolder front,
approaching the abandoned bodies.

To the bark of the coyote, the bay of the bigger wolf, and the buzzard's
hoarse croak, a _caracara_ adds its shrill note; the fiend-like chorus
further strengthened by the scream of the white-headed eagle--for all
the world like the filing of a frame saw, and not unlike the wild,
unmeaning laughter of a madman.

Both the predatory birds and the ravening beasts, with instincts in
accord, gather around the quarry killed for them. There is a grand
feast--a banquet for all; and they have no need to quarrel over it. But
they do--the birds having to stand back till the beasts have eaten their
fill.

The puma, or panther, takes precedence--the so-called lion of America.
A sorry brute to bear the name belonging to the king of quadrupeds.
Still, on the Llano Estacado, lord of all, save when confronted by the
grizzly bear--then he becomes a cat.

As no grizzly has yet come upon the ground, and only two panthers, the
wolves have it almost their own way,