NARROW ESCAPE. 179 - 
had been riding very hard and far to overtake us. He heard 
we were in the country, and endeavoured to persuade some of 
his band to visit us, but they were too lazy, so he determined 
to come alone, and had been six days on our trail, following 
it through a good portion of the Upper Brazos country, 
where, like ourselves, he came near perishing for want of 
water. 
In addition, he gave us the agreeable intelligence, that a 
war party of two hundred and fifty northern Camanches, 
Apaches and Navajoes, had been hovering around us, 
between the Big Witchita and Brazos for two days. 
They were on a foray to the frontier of Mexico, to take 
revenge for some of their bands, shot whilst on one of their 
marauding expeditions last year, and coming across our trail, 
followed it until reconnoitering and finding but thirteen in 
our party, they hesitated to attack us, feeling sure that a 
large command must be in the neighborhood, as they could 
not believe that so small a force of white men would venture 
so far into their fastnesses, unless supported at short 
distance by a large party—so that the order of things was 
reversed, in our case, and in our weakness, we found our 
immunity from annihilation. 
We felt much obliged to them for their forbearance, and on 
questioning him further, found out the night when they were 
nearest us. It was the night when thé gentlemen of the 
party were on guard, and we all had remarked how unusually 
restless our horses and mules were, a sure sign of danger near. 
