Time passed away till I and my companions were heartily tired of our inactivity: besides, I was home-sick, and I had left articles of great value at the settlement, about which I was rather fidgety.

So one day we determined that we would start alone, and return to the settlement by a different road.

We left Santa Fe and rode towards the north, and it was not until we had passed Taos, the last Mexican settlement, that we became ourselves again and recovered our good spirits.

Gabriel knew the road; our number was too small not to find plenty to eat, and as to the hostile Indians, it was a chance we were willing enough to encounter.

A few days after we had quitted Santa Fe, and when In the neighbourhood of the Spanish Peaks and about thirty degrees north latitude, we fell in with a numerous party of the Comanches.
It was the first time we had seen them in a body, and it was a grand sight.