Page:The true story book.djvu/350

 On the 13th, having left Segovia, we climbed a hill which looked like a good place to camp, and we saw opposite us, on a mountain slope from which only a narrow valley divided us, twelve to fifteen hundred horses, which for some time we took for cattle pasturing there. Rejoicing in the prospect of good cheer, we sent forty men to make sure, and when they came back they told us that what we had taken for cattle were horses, ready saddled, and that in the same place they had found three intrenchments a pistol shot from each other, which, rising by degrees to about the middle of the mountain slope, entirely barred the way which we meant to travel the next day. These intrenchments commanded the river which ran the length of the valley, into which it was absolutely necessary for us to descend, there being no other way. They saw a man who, having discovered them, threatened them with a bare cutlass.

This grievous news was a bitter disappointment to us, especially the loss of our supposed cows, for we were perishing with hunger. But we had to take courage and find out how to leave this place and without delay, for the Spaniards, who were assembling from all the country round, would fall upon our little troop, which must be overwhelmed, if we waited for them. The means were not easy to find, and perhaps escape would have seemed impossible, except to our reckless band, who had hitherto succeeded all nearly all our exploits. But ten thousand men could not have crossed that guarded valley without being cut off entirely, both by reason of the number of the Spaniards and the position they occupied.

Men alone could have gone round without crossing the valley, but we could find no way round for the horses and baggage. For the country on each side was nothing but a thick forest, without the trace of a path, all precipices and ravines, and choked with a multitude of fallen trees. And even had we found a way of escape through so many obstacles, it was indispensable to fight the Spaniards sooner or later, if, they were ever to let us alone!

There was only one thing to be done to cross these woods, rocks, and mountains, however inaccessible they seemed, and surprise our enemies, taking advantage of the place by coming upon them from above, where they certainly would not expect us. As to our prisoners, horses, and baggage, since through all our march a troop of three hundred Spaniards had been dogging our