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kins! thet's what they ur." All three of us had arrived simultaneously at the same conviction. The horsemen were Mexicans. It was no great source of rejoicing to know this; and the knowledge produced no change in our defensive attitude. We well knew that a band of Mexicans, armed as these were, could not be other than a hostile party, and bitter too in their hostility. For several weeks past, the _petite guerre_ had been waged with dire vengeance. The neutral ground had been the scene of reprisals and terrible retaliations. On one side, wagon-trains had been attacked and captured, harmless teamsters murdered, or mutilated whilst still alive. I saw one with his arms cut off by the elbow-joints, his heart taken out, and thrust between his teeth! He was dead; but another whom I saw still lived, with the cross deeply gashed upon his breast, on his brow, upon the soles of his feet, and the palms of his hands--a horrid spectacle to behold! On the other side, ranchos had been ransacked and ruined, villages given to the flames, and men on mere suspicion shot down upon the spot or hanged upon the nearest tree. Such a character had the war assumed; and under these circumstances, we knew that the approaching horsemen were our deadly foes. Beyond a doubt, it was either a scouting-party of Mexican lancers, a _guerrilla_, or a band of robbers. During the war, the two last were nearly synonymous, and the first not unfrequently partook of the character of both. One thing that puzzled us--what could any of the three be doing in that quarter? The neutral ground--the scene of _guerrilla_ operations--lay between the two armies; and we were now far remote from it; in fact, altogether away from the settlements. What could have brought lancers, guerrilleros, or robbers out upon the plains? There was no _game_ in that quarter for any of these gentry--neither an American force to be attacked, nor a traveller to be plundered! My own troop was the extreme out-picket in this direction, and it was full ten miles off. The only thing likely to be met with near the mesa would be a war-party of Comanches, and we knew the Mexicans well enough to be convinced that, whether soldiers or freebooters, they were _not_ in search of that. Such reflections, made in double-quick time, occurred to us as we scanned the advancing troop. Up to this moment, they had ridden directly towards us, and were now nearly in a line between us an
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