rest;
before going down to drink, the eyes of both were directed, with
instinctive caution, along the banks, and into the timber.

Close to where we had halted, I observed a crossing, where numerous
tracks of animals formed in the soil a deep, well-beaten path. Rube's
eyes were upon it, and I saw that they were glistening with unusual
excitement.

"Told 'ee so!" cried he, after a short survey: "yanner's thur
trail--_war-trail_, by the Eturnal!"

CHAPTER SEVENTY FIVE.

THE "INDIOS BRAVOS."

You may be asking, what the trapper meant by a war-trail? It has been a
phrase of frequent occurrence with us. It is a phrase of the frontier.
Even at the eleventh hour, let me offer its explanation.

For half a century--ay, for three centuries and more--even since the
conquest itself--the northern frontier of Mexico has been in, what is
termed in old-fashioned phraseology, a "disturbed state." Though the
semi-civilised Aztecs, and the kindred races of town-dwelling Indians,
easily yielded to the sword of the Spanish conquerors, far different has
been the history of the wild tribes--the free hunters of the plains.
Upon those mighty steppes that occupy the whole central area of the
North American continent, dwell tribes of Indians--nations they might be
called--who neither know, nor ever have known, other rule than that of
their own chieftains. Even when Spain was at her strongest, she failed
to subjugate the "Indios bravos" of her frontiers, who to the present
hour have preserved their wild freedom. I speak not of the great
nations of the northern prairies--Sioux and Cheyenne--Blackfeet and
Crow--Pawnee and Arapahoe. With these the Spanish race scarcely ever
came in contact. I refer more particularly to the tribes whose range
impinges upon the frontiers of Mexico--Comanche, Lipan, Utah, Apache,
and Navajo.

It is not in the annals of Spain to prove that any one of these tribes
ever yielded to her conquering sword; and equally a failure has been the
attempt to wheedle them into a fanatical civilisation by the
much-boasted conquest of the _mission_. Free, then, the prairie Indians
are from white man's rule, and free have they been, as though the keels
of Columbus had never ploughed the Carib Sea.

But although they have preserved their independence for three centuries,
for three centuries have they never known peace. Between the red Indian
and the white Iberian, along the frontier of Northern Mexico, a
war-borde