They snapped forward in their saddles as the spurs went home, their rifles at the ready, their advance guard steadily forging ahead, and thundered along the tracks of the fleeing _atejo_. Rounding the little hill with its frowsy cap of brush and scrub timber, they received a stunning surprise; for dropping down the steep bank as if from the sky charged twenty-odd vengeful Texans, their repeating rifles cracking like the roll of a drum. Pedro's exultant face became a sickly yellow, his burning eyes in an instant changed to glass, and his boasting words were slashed across by the death rattle in his throat. Volley after volley crashed and roared as the charging Texans wheeled to charge back again, and as they turned once more on the hillside they pulled up sharply and viewed the havoc of their deadly work. No man was left to carry tales, and Pedro had spoken with prophetic vision, for he had indeed led his warriors to glory--and oblivion. CHAPTER XVII "'SPRESS FROM BENT'S" Circling back to the river so as not to lose its guidance nor stray too far out of the direct course, they reached its desolate banks at nightfall and camped at the base of a low hill on the top of which grew dense masses of greasewood. Zeb had shot a black-tailed deer on their way to the river and their supper that night, so far as the meat was concerned, would have delighted the palate of an epicure. Cooked over the hot, sputtering, short-lived greasewood, which constantly was added, and kept on the windward side of the blaze, the flavor of the meat was very little affected and they gorged, hunter-like, until they could eat no more; and partly smoked some of the remaining meat to have against some pressing need. As the stream dwindled the nature of its banks and of the surrounding country changed, the vegetation steadily becoming more desert-like. White chalk cliffs arose like painted eyebrows from the tops of the banks, where erosion had revealed them; loose and disintegrating sandstone lay about the broken plain in myriads of shapes. Stunted and dead cottonwoods added their touch to the general scene, leaning this way and that, weird, uncanny, ghostlike. The drab sagebrush and the green fan of the palmetto became steadily more common, the latter figuring largely in the daily life of the Mexicans, for its mashed, saponaceous roots provided them with their pulpy _amole_, which was an excellent substitute for soap. Prickly pears, Spanish bayonets, masses of greasewood bushes and scattering fringes of short grama grass completed the carpeting of the desolate plain.