Gradually we saw more hills, and among them forests, while a few distant chains of mountains ran from west to east. One afternoon I was riding with Tiger about a mile ahead of our party, in order to have a better chance of approaching game, when we heard two shots behind us. We looked round and saw our friends gathered in a knot on a small knoll, and a swarm of about fifty Indians galloping round them. We gave our horses the spurs and flew back to them, while Tiger raised a hideous yell, in which I supported him to the best of my strength. Our friends now fired a general salvo at the assailants, which knocked over two horses, but their riders were immediately picked up by their comrades. On seeing us the savages took to flight with gruesome yells. We rode up to our companions, who had placed all the animals in the centre to protect them. Königstein had luckily seen some horses' heads over the crest of the next hill which aroused his suspicions, and had employed the time in assuming a posture of defence, or else we should probably have lost our mules. Tiger saw, from the saddles of the shot horses, that they belonged to the Mescaleros, who are considered the most savage tribe in the west, and would certainly not have given up their attack so soon had they not recognised Tiger's war-whoop as that of the Delawares. The number of Mescaleros is not large, and they are constantly at war with many other tribes, so that they do not care to make fresh enemies among their red brothers. This little danger, which we escaped without loss, was not unpleasing to me, as our precautions, which had nearly been forgotten, were aroused once more by it. For about a week we marched through a very pleasant country, and arrived at a rather large river, which Tiger stated to be the Brazos, and which falls into the gulf to the eastward of the Colorado. I had seen it before at San Felipe, and would not have recognised it, for there it moves sluggishly through a thick-wooded bed of heavy clay, and has a dirty red colour, while here it rolls merrily over rocks, and its crystal surface is covered with a snow-white foam. From this point we proceeded to the north-west, as Tiger noticed that we had gone a little too far east, and would have much greater difficulty in crossing the rivers than farther west, where, though the country is mountainous, the streams nearer their sources are smaller and more frequent. The mountains were composed of limestone, and contained exquisite little valleys, where the vegetation was already bursting into new life. All the softer-wooded trees were budding, and the flowers were springing up all over the prairies. We seemed to keep equal pace with the reawakening of the vegetable world northwards, and even to go faster than it.