He secured it in his belt, and then his old butcher-knife was contemptuously transferred to a place among the fringes of his leggings. The Texans were not using up their horses, but no halt was made. They went steadily forward for several miles of winding way, and then the chaparral began to change its character. Instead of mere bushes there was heavy timber with much undergrowth, and the land grew rugged and rocky instead of sandy. Tetzcatl was continually several yards in the advance. He now turned and beckoned, spurred his mule, and seemed almost to vanish. "Forward, men!" shouted Bowie. "I know what he means! I've been bothered by that very ravine more than once. It runs almost to the Nueces River. Hurrah! Great Bear won't run his braves into such a death-trap as that is. Come on!" A number of fine old oak-trees stood like sentries grouped around the mouth of a kind of chasm, with rocks on either side. There was a descent at once, and the ravine grew deeper as the rangers rode farther into it. Tetzcatl was ahead of them, but the mule plodded on without waiting for anybody, while his rider turned and put a finger on his lips. Not a shout was uttered, therefore, to tell how glad they all were to get into that ravine, and Bowie almost instantly exclaimed, in a low voice, to the long-legged Texan who was riding near him,-- "Jim Cheyne! Look! That's what he means. That head, up there at the cliff-edge, among the rosin weeds. Can you fetch him? Long range, but I'll try. One of us may hit." "Ready! Together!" answered Jim, and in a few seconds more the two rifles cracked almost like one. Tetzcatl had watched the marksmen, and now he nodded approvingly and rode on, but no one climbed to the upper level to inquire whether one bullet or two had cut short the scouting of the imprudent brave, whose eagle feather had betrayed his weedy lurking-place. It was, nevertheless, another proof that Great Bear was a great chief and that he knew that country, for he had sent his scouts in the right direction before trying to close in upon the Texans at the pond. He had even guessed correctly at one of their possible lines of escape. He could not have calculated beforehand that a feather and a head with a bullet in it should give so complete a confirmation. "He won't go back to tell," said Bowie, "but we shall be followed all the way." CHAPTER VIII. THE CAMP AT THE SPRING. "Crockett, there isn't any use talking. We've an awful tough job cut out." The old bear-hunter had stuck his coonskin cap upon the muzzle of his rifle, and he stared up at it for a moment. "Reckon we have," he said; "but we kin skirmish around the corners of it somehow. I've been in tight places before now, but I allers crawled out or fought out." "We'll have to fight out this time," said the large, determined-looking man he was talking with. "But what on earth are we to do for money?"