Page:Our Sister Republic - Mexico.djvu/184

178 and Mr. Burgess, who had accompanied us from Leon, were walking a mile or thereabouts in advance, not suspecting any danger, while I rode forward upon a saddle-horse loaned me by Mr. Burgess. The stage had been delayed by our first upset, which had no more serious consequences than the landing of Mr. Seward's colored servant in a nice, healthy nopal, or prickly-pear plant, the spines of which will stay with him long after his return to the United States, and we were some fifteen or twenty minutes behind time.

Just then we saw a detachment of Mexican cavalry, some twenty-five in number, coming toward us. When they saw the party they ranged themselves in double line to salute. We had almost reached them when one of their number, who had been scouting along in a corn-field, some distance from the road, raised a shout, and in an instant the whole party dashed off into the corn at full gallop, unslinging their carbines ready for action as they went. I rode after them, anxious to find out the cause of this sudden stampede, and saw one of them rise up like a circus-rider and stand upright on his saddle. He descried something in another direction, and with a yell, the squad changed its course and dashed off with redoubled speed. A few minutes later I saw a party of men in dark clothing, running over a high ridge a mile away beyond a ravine, making for a timbered mountain in the south-west, and in five minutes more the white caps of the troops could be seen darting in and out among the mesquite trees in close pursuit.

We watched them until they disappeared in the distance, and then rode on, saying little, but each "thinking a heap." Had the stage not been delayed by the