“Their’s must have been a hard and unsatisfactory life--the Comanches are veritable Ishmaelites, their hands being raised against all men, and every man’s hand against them. Literally, “eternal vigilance was the price of liberty” with them, and of life itself. Every night the dreaded surprise was sought to be guarded against; and every copse was scanned for the anticipated ambuscade while upon the march. Did they flount the blood-drabbled scalps of helpless whites in fiendish glee, and assist at the cruel torture of the unfortunate prisoners that fell into their hands? Alas! forgetful of their race and tongue, they were thorough savages, and acted in all particulars just as their Indian comrades did. Memory was stored but with the hardships and the cruelties of the life about them; and the stolid indifference of mere animal existence furnishes no finely wrought springs for the rebound of reminiscence.” * * * * * The year 1846, one decade from the fall of Parker’s Fort, witnessed the end of the Texian Republic, in whose councils Isaac Parker served as a senator, and the blending of the _Lone Star_ with the gallaxy of the great constellation of the American Union;--during which time many efforts were made to ascertain definitely the whereabouts of the captives, as an indispensable requisite to their reclamation; sometimes by solitary scouts and spies, sometimes through the medium of negotiation; and sometimes by waging direct war against their captors,--but all to no avail. * * * * * Another decade passes away, and the year 1856 arrives. The hardy pioneers have pushed the frontier of civilization far to the north and west, driving the Indian and the buffalo before them. The scene of Parker’s Fort is now in the heart of a dense population; farms, towns, churches, and school houses lie along the path by which the Indians marched from their camp at the “water-hole” in that bloody May of 1836. Isaac Parker is now a Representative in the Legislature of the State of Texas. It is now twenty years since the battle of San Jacinto; twenty years since John and Cynthia Ann were borne into a captivity worse than death; the last gun of the Mexican war rung out its last report over the conquered capital of Mexico ten long years ago; but John and Cynthia Ann Parker have sent no tokens to their so long anxious friends that they even live: Alas! time even blunts the edge of anxiety, and sets bounds alike to the anguish of man, as well as to his hopes. The punishment of Prometheas is not of this world! CHAPTER III. The Battle of Antelope Hills. “Brave Colonel Ford the commander and ranger bold, On the South Canadian did the Comanches behold, On the 12th of May, at rising of sun, The armies did meet and the battle begun.”