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