ese them. The Rangers go down the river; the savages up stream. Of
all Apaches, of all Indians, the Jicarillas are the most contemptible
cowards. Dastards to the last degree, the young "braves" who mutilated
the slain lancers will return to their tribe to tell of scalps fairly
taken in fight!

And while they are boasting, the wolves, eagles, and vultures will be
back among the dead bodies, strip them of their flesh, and leave nought
but their bones to bleach white; in time to become dust, and mingle with
the earth on which they once moved in all the pride of manhood and
panoply of war!

CHAPTER EIGHTY.

TRANQUIL SCENES.

The last act of our drama is recorded, the last sanguinary scene. All
red enough, the reader will say, while the keenly susceptible one may
deem them too red. Alas! the writer is not answerable for this. He but
depicts life as it exists on the borderland between Mexico and Texas.
Those who doubt its reality, and would deem him drawing upon
imagination, should read the Texan newspapers of that time, or those of
this very day. In either he will find recorded occurrences as strange,
incidents as improbable, episodes as romantic, and tragedies of hue
sanguinary as any recorded in this mere romance.

Not always with such a satisfactory termination. Fortunately for our
tale and its readers, Nemesis, in dealing out death and meting
vengeance, has necessarily allied herself with Justice. The fallen
deserved their fate--all, save the teamsters of the caravan, and those
Texans who on Pecan Creek succumbed to the Comanche spears.

These victims, like stage supernumeraries, living nameless and dying
unknown, though their fate may stir our sympathy it does not appeal to
the painful depths of sorrow. More easily can it be borne, reflecting
on the brighter fate of the survivors.

It can give no painful sensation to tell that Colonel Miranda and his
sister accompanied Frank Hamersley on his return to the States, Don
Prospero and the New Mexican damsel, Conchita, being of the party, which
had for escort across the plains Captain Haynes and his company of Texan
Rangers, their old comrade, Walt Wilder, travelling along, and, with Nat
Cully, narrating around their nightly camp fires many a strange "scrape"
of the mountains and prairies. Two subsequent scenes alone seem worthy
of record, both fairly deserving it.

The first occurs in a little country church in the celebrated "Blue
Grass district" of