430 WILD SCENES AND WILD HUNTERS. 
let them pass, for he had no fancy to try the hacienda trick 
over again with empty pistols, since he had nothing to load 
them with again. He finally threw them away as so much 
“make-weight,” that was useless to him and embarrassing 
to his mare. 
So he hurried on, not daring to pause a moment to rest or 
obtain food, until the next day, when, in a deep, wild gorge 
among the mountains, his game and gallant mare fell beneath 
him, dead! The ravenous and filthy galapotes, (turkey- 
puzzards,) were gouging at her fawn-like eyes before they 
were fairly glazed, and before her stiffened and staggering 
rider was out of sight. Now came the most terrible part 
of this wild and remarkable adventure. He was totally 
without food, except what little fruit of the cactus he could 
. gather during the day while he was skulking, for he only 
ventured to travel at night now. This was scarcely enough 
to keep body and soul together; while his clothes soon became 
torn to pieces, and hung about his bleeding limbs like broad 
and tattered ribbons. He, however, still continued making 
his way steadfastly in the direction of General Wool’s camp. 
At last, some of his scouts picked the poor fellow up when 
almost speechless with thirst and hunger ;—he was yet feebly 
reeling along like a ghostly and haggard drunkard. 
This affair very properly got him his promotion to a 
captaincy. But strange, perilous, and even wonderful as 
this escape seems, it is only one of many others quite as 
remarkable, by which his most eventful life has been 
checkered. In the Texan war with the Cherokees, which 
was a very bloody business while it lasted, he passed through 
scenes as bad, if not worse than this. Then his adventures 
as a Ranger are very remarkable, for of many of these I 
am myself personally cognizant; and of his cruel sufferings 
and headlong daring during the Meir imprisonment, all the 
country has been, to a certain degree, made aware since the 
publication of General Green’s book. 
