"Come on, then!" Loyal Heart replied, plunging his spurs into the bleeding sides of his horse. There was something fearful and terrible in the desperate course of these three men who, formed in line, with pale brows, compressed lips, and fiery looks, cleared torrents and ravines, surmounted all obstacles, incessantly urging their horses, which seemed to devour space, while panting painfully, bounding madly, and dripping with perspiration and blood. At intervals Loyal Heart shouted one of those cries peculiar to the Mexican jinetes, and the reanimated horses redoubled their exertions. "My God! my God! save--save my mother!" the hunter kept repeating in a hollow voice, as he rode furiously onward. CHAPTER XIX. THE COUNCIL OF THE GREAT CHIEFS. Notwithstanding the stormy conversation he had had with Eusebio, Eagle Head had continued to treat the prisoners with the greatest kindness, and that extreme delicacy of proceeding which is innate in the red race, and which we should be far from expecting on the part of men whom, without any plausible reason that I am acquainted with, we brand with the name of savages. There is one fact worthy of being noticed, and upon which we cannot too strongly dwell, and that is the manner in which Indians generally treat their prisoners. Far from inflicting useless tortures upon them, or tormenting them without cause, as has been too often repeated, they take the greatest care of them, and appear, in some sort, to compassionate their misfortune. In the circumstance of which we speak, the sanguinary determination of Eagle Head with regard to the mother of Loyal Heart was but an exception, the reason for which was naturally found in the hatred the Indian chief had sworn to the hunter. The separation of the two prisoners was most painful and agonizing; the old servant set off, despair in his soul, in search of the hunter, whilst the poor mother, with a broken heart, followed the Comanche warriors. On the second day, Eagle Head arrived at the _rendez-vous_ appointed by the great chiefs of the nation; all the tribe was assembled. Nothing can be more picturesque and singular than the aspect presented by an Indian camp. When the Indians are on an expedition--whether of war or hunting--on encamping, they confine themselves to erecting, on the spot where they stop, tents of buffalo hides stretched upon poles planted cross-wise. These tents, the bottom parts of which are filled up with mounds of earth, have all a hole at the top, to leave a free issue for the smoke, which, without that precaution, would render them uninhabitable. The camp presented the most animated picture possible; the squaws passed here and there, loaded with wood and meat, or guided the sledges drawn by dogs, which conveyed their wealth; the warriors, gravely squatted around fires lighted in the open air, on account of the mildness of the temperature, were smoking and chatting together.