he affray,
but I saw the Comanche chief cleaving the skull of Captain Hunt with
his tomahawk.

Before their onset, the Indians had secured almost all the enemy's
waggons and horses, so that flight to many became impossible. At that
particular spot the prairie was undulatory and bare, except on the left
of the encampment, where a few bushes skirted the edge of a small
stream; but these were too few and too small to afford a refuge to the
Texans, one hundred of whom were killed and scalped. The remainder of
the night was passed in giving chase to the fugitives, who, at last,
halted at a bend of the river, in a position that could not be forced
without great loss of life; so the Indians left them, and, after having
collected all the horses and the booty they thought worth taking away,
they burnt the waggons and returned to their own camp.

As we quitted the spot, I could not help occasionally casting a glance
behind me, and the spectacle was truly magnificent. Hundreds of barrels,
full of grease, salt pork, gin, and whisky, were burning, and the
conflagration had now extended to the grass and the dry bushes.

We had scarcely crossed the river when the morning breeze sprung up, and
now the flames extended in every direction, gaining rapidly upon the
spot where the remaining Texans had stood at bay. So fiercely and
abruptly did the flames rush upon them, that all simultaneously, men and
horses, darted into the water for shelter against the devouring element.
Many were drowned in the whirlpools, and those who succeeded in reaching
the opposite shore were too miserable and weak to think of anything,
except of regaining, if possible, the southern settlements.

Though protected from the immediate reach of the flames by the branch of
the river upon the shore of which we were encamped, the heat had become
so intense, that we were obliged to shift farther to the west. Except in
the supply of arms and ammunition, we perceived that our booty was worth
nothing. This Texan expedition must have been composed of a very
beggarly set, for there was not a single yard of linen, nor a miserable
worn-out pair of trousers, to be found in all their bundles and boxes.

Among the horses taken, some thirty or forty were immediately identified
by the Comanches as their own property, many of them, during the
preceding year, having been stolen by a party of Texans, who had invited
the Indians to a grand council. Gabriel, Roche, and I, of course, w