This was an important expedition for Carlos. He carried with him the largest freight he had ever taken upon the prairies. Besides the three carretas with four oxen each, the atajo consisted of five pack-mules, all loaded with merchandise--the carretas with bread, pinole, Spanish beans, Chile peppers; and the packs were made up of serape blankets, coarse woollen cloth, and a few showy trinkets, as also some Spanish knives, with their pointed triangular blades. It was his bold luck on the day of the fiesta that had enabled him to provide such a stock. In addition to his own original onza and the two he had won, the young ranchero, Don Juan, had insisted upon his accepting the loan of five others towards an outfit for this expedition. The little troop, having safely forded the Pecos, headed towards the "ceja" of the Llano Estacado, that was not far distant from the crossing of Bosque Redondo. A sloping ravine brought them to the top of the "mesa," where a firm level road lay before them--a smooth plain without break or bush to guide them on their course. But the cibolero needed no guide. No man knew the Staked Plain better than he; and, setting his horse's head in a direction a little south of east, the train moved on. He was striking for one of the head branches of the Red River of Louisiana, where he had heard that for several seasons past the buffalo had appeared in great numbers. It was a new route for him--as most of his former expeditions had been made to the upper forks of the Texan rivers Brazos had Colorado. But the plains around these rivers were at this time in undisputed possession of the powerful tribe of Comanches, and their allies, the Kiawas, Lipans, and Tonkewas. Hence, these Indians, uninterrupted in their pursuit of the buffalo, had rendered the latter wild and difficult of approach, and had also thinned their numbers. On the waters of the Red River the case was different. This was hostile ground. The Wacoes, Panes, Osages, and bands from the Cherokee, Kickapoo, and other nations to the east, occasionally hunted there, and sanguinary conflicts occurred among them; so that one party or another often lost their season's hunt by the necessity of keeping out of each other's range; and the game was thus left undisturbed. It is a well-known fact that in a neutral or "hostile ground" the buffalo, as well as other game, are found in greatest abundance, and are there more easily approached than elsewhere. With a knowledge of these facts, Carlos the cibolero had determined to risk an expedition to the Red River, whose head-waters have their source in the eastern "ceja" of the Llano Estacado, and _not_ in the Rocky Mountains as laid down upon maps.