"I know not what I felt on seeing this, or what dizziness seized upon me, but, by a mechanical movement, I raised my rifle and fired; then, rushing into the clearing with loud cries, I discharged my pistols at the men nearest me. An extraordinary thing occurred, which I was far from expecting, and certainly had not foreseen. The Indians, terrified by my three shots, followed by my sudden apparition, believed that help was arriving to their adversaries, and without dreaming of resisting, they began flying with that intuitive rapidity peculiar to Indians, at the first repulse they meet with. "I thus found myself alone with those I came to deliver. It was the first time I had been engaged in a fight, if such a name can be given to the share I took in the struggle, hence I felt that emotion inseparable from a first event of this nature; I neither saw nor heard anything. I was standing in the centre of the clearing, like a statue, not knowing whether to advance or retire, flanked by my two bloodhounds, which had not left me, but showed their teeth with hoarse growls of anger. "I know not who was the first to say that ingratitude was a white vice, and gratitude an Indian virtue; but, whoever he was, he spoke the truth. The Chief I had so miraculously saved, and his comrades, pressed around me, and began overwhelming me with marks of respect and gratitude. I let them do so, mechanically replying as well as I could, in Spanish, to the compliments the Indians lavished on me in their sonorous language, of which I did not understand a syllable. When a little while had elapsed, and their joy was beginning to grow more sedate, the Chief, who had been slightly wounded in the fight, made me sit down by the fire; while his comrades conscientiously raised the scalps of their enemy who had fallen, and he began questioning me in Spanish, which language he spoke clearly. "After warmly thanking me, and repeating several times that I was a great brave, he told me that his name was Nocobotha, that is to say, the Tempest; that he belonged to the great and powerful nation of the Comanches, surnamed the Queen of the Prairies, and was related to a renowned Sachem called Black-deer. Having set out with a few warriors to chase antelopes, he had been surprised by a detachment of Apaches, the sworn enemies of his nation, and if the Master of Life had not brought me to their help, he and his comrades would infallibly have succumbed, an opinion the justice of which I was compelled to recognise. The Chief then asked me who I was, saying to me that he should henceforth regard me as his brother, that he wished to conduct me to his tribe, and that he would never consent to separate from the man who had saved his life.