Page:Don Coronado through Kansas.djvu/393

376 'ill AJjysm RECK '..issa. ordered to the f roiiltd feel of ttii? eneioir, and.theo for Idle first time it ^ was discovered t^it&ere were onl^ about fifty Ii^diaiis. who were; makiag all the racket; so word was sotm fbrwai;ded back to camp relative to the number o^ the e|i^iQy,.and without furtitier delay the troop were ordered to ;;ehairg;e. Of, course the In- dlaiiis soon observed the onepmizLg cavalry,, and con- cluded to ma^e a run for it, but the fighting blood of the SpaniaMs was up, and woe to the red man who was not able to outrun the ;las|test horses; and for the first time it wil have to be admitted that Alonso felt that awful brutal sensation which impelled him to put more pressure upon the rowels than ever befcfrein his life, and it was so uniisual that poor Babieca nearly went wild, for the sharp things rowling iip his fianks, cutting through the skin, brought the blood and with it a fierceness and recklessness that made the goaded animal spring forward like a tiger, and so there were a pair of them, both the horse and the rider. What made Alonso lose his equilibrium was the attempt to steal his horse, and when he consid- ered how careful the troop had been in its treatment of the natives while ^oing and returning from Qui- vira, it made his Irish-Spanish blood (a bad miMns# boil to murderous heat: so on rushes the second-in- command without judgment or discretion, for his horse was crszy and ran at radrag speed, coming up with the horde of retreating Indians so that Alonso was slashing at Hiem right and left, and he was all alone for the other horses could not make the speed as did Babieca; so our young ,man had become fool- hardy, in fact had lost his usual balance and judg^