reck'n; but cuss the luck, the
yeller-bellies hev got clur off. Wagh!"

CHAPTER FORTY THREE.

A CHAPTER OF EXPLANATIONS.

The fight could not have lasted more than ten minutes. The whole
skirmish had the semblance of a moonlight dream, interrupted by
interludes of darkness. So rapid had been the movements of the forces
engaged, that after the first fire not a gun was reloaded. As for the
guerrilleros, the Indian war-cry seemed to have shaken the pieces out of
their hands, for the ground where they had first broken off was
literally strewed with carbines, escopettes, and lances. The great gun
of El Zorro was found among the spoils.

Notwithstanding the shortness of the affair, it proved sufficiently
tragical to both Mexicans and Indians; five of the guerrilleros had bit
the dust, and twice that number of savage warriors lay lifeless upon the
plain--their bodies glaring under the red war-paint, as if shrouded in
blood. The Mexicans lay near the foot of the mesa, having fallen under
the first fire of the rangers, delivered as they galloped up. The
Indians were farther out upon the plain, where they had dropped to the
thick rapid detonations of the revolvers, that, so long as the warriors
held their ground, played upon them with fearful effect. They may have
heard of this weapon, and perhaps have seen a revolver in the hands of
some trapper or traveller, but, to my knowledge, it was the first time
they had ever encountered a band of men armed with so terrible a power
to destroy; for the rangers were indeed the first military organisation
that carried Colt's pistol into battle--the high cost of the arm having
deterred the government from extending it to other branches of the
service.

Nor did the rangers themselves come unscathed out of the fight; two had
dropped out of their saddles, pierced by the Comanche spear; while
nearly a dozen were more or less severely wounded by arrows.

While Quackenboss was climbing the cliff, Garey and I found time to talk
over the strange incidents to which we had been witness. We were aided
by explanations from below, but without these we had no difficulty in
comprehending all.

The Indians were a band of Comanches, as their war-cry had already made
known to us. Their arrival on the ground at that moment was purely
accidental, so far as we or the Mexicans were concerned: it was a
war-party, and upon the war-trail, with the intention of reiving a rich
Mexican town on the