Many days and nights had gone to the acquiring of a skill that might have been envied by an Indian.
The Rio Grande and its tributaries for the most of their length in Texas ran between wide, low, flat lands covered by a dense growth of willow.
Cottonwood, mesquite, prickly pear, and other growths mingled with the willow, and altogether they made a matted, tangled copse, a thicket that an inexperienced man would have considered impenetrable.

From above, these wild brakes looked green and red; from the inside they were gray and yellow--a striped wall.

Trails and glades were scarce.

There were a few deer-runways and sometimes little paths made by peccaries--the jabali, or wild pigs, of Mexico.

The ground was clay and unusually dry, sometimes baked so hard that it left no imprint of a track.