The Mexican women refused to fly; they were afraid of being captured and tortured; they thought they would be spared, and taken to the wigwams of the savages, who, we then learned, belonged to the tribe of the Cayugas.  They told us that thirteen Indian prisoners had already been eaten, but no white people.  The Comanche prisoners armed themselves with the lances, bows, and arrows left in the camp, and in an hour after the passage of the buffaloes, but two of the twelve Indians were alive; these, giving the war-whoop to recall their party, at last discovered that their comrades had been killed.

At that moment the prairie became animated with buffaloes and hunters; the Cayugas on horseback were coming back, driving another herd before them.  No time was to be lost if we wished to save our scalps; we gave one of our knives (so necessary an article in the wilderness) to the Comanches, who expressed what they felt in glowing terms, and we left them to their own cunning and knowledge of the localities, to make their escape.  We had not overrated their abilities, for some few days afterwards we met them safe and sound in their own wigwams.

We galloped as fast as our horses could go for fifteen miles, along the ravine which had impeded our journey during the preceding day, when we fell in with a small creek.  There we and our horses drank incredible quantities of water, and as our position was not yet very safe, we again resumed our march at a brisk trot.  We travelled three or four more miles along the foot of a high ridge, and discovered what seemed to be an Indian trail, leading in a zigzag course up the side of it.  This we followed, and soon found ourselves on the summit of the ridge.  There we were again gratified at finding spread out before us a perfectly level prairie, extending as far as the eye could reach, without a tree to break the monotony of the scene.

We halted a few minutes to rest our horses, and for some time watched what was passing in the valley we had left, now lying a thousand feet below us.  All we could perceive at the distance which we were, was that all was in motion, and we thought that our best plan was to leave as much space between us and the Cayugas as possible.  We had but little time to converse with the liberated Comanches, yet we gained from them that we were in the right direction, and were not many days from our destination.

At the moment we were mounting our horses, all was quiet again in the valley below.  It was a lovely panorama, and, viewing it from the point where we stood, we could hardly believe that, some hours previous, such a horrible tragedy had been there peformed.  Softened down by the distance, there was a tranquillity about it which appeared as if it never had been broken.  The deep brown skirting of bushes, on the sides of the different water-courses, broke and varied the otherwise vast extent of vivid green.  The waters of the river, now reduced to a silver thread, were occasionally brought to view by some turn in the stream, and again lost to sight under the rich foliage on the banks.