"_Y Libertad!_" was the completion of the signal and war cry from the followers of Gladsden, as they, too, set spurs to their steeds.
Simultaneously, therefore, the two companies burst upon the column of Indians, cutting through and leaving a layer upon layer of pierced mortality like in the track of a tornado. Having crossed, they made a circuit, and, coming out on the road once more, one higher up, and the other lower down the line of the previous charges, completed the surprise of the insurgents.
"Wheel, face forward in chase!" was the next command.
In half an hour, the riders came into the rendezvous agreed upon, having effectually frightened that column, and sent the surviving members reeling and flying in panic through the woods, back whence they came.
Five only of the Mexicans were missing. The wounds received were unimportant. The horses were breathed; the cavaliers allowed to congratulate themselves and their leaders. Oliver had a devoted following now, for these Mexicans are too unused to easy triumphs not to idolise the commander who gluts them with such a feast of vanity.
The collected horsemen rode off, slowly groping, to the appointed place on the open ground where Silvano and the herders were to have secured the semi-wild cattle. It was a little less dark, the false dawn, in fact, and thus Gladsden, though not so accustomed to the night marching as the rest, could see the horsemen of the Tigrero forming a wide circle; in the centre were several strange objects, writhing and beckoning to the stars. They were long-horned, thin, wiry cattle, of the breed of old which never will fatten in Mexican pastures, fleet as antelopes, savage as tigers. By dexterous casts of the lariat, they had been roped, hurled to the ground, and secured there, heels in the air. They were daunted but disdained to bow, mutely protesting by glaring eyes, full of congested blood, and twitching of the tails. A little way off, a heap of resinous wood was formed.
"Prime!" ejaculated the hunter, perceiving all this almost as clearly as by day. "Don Benny shall give you a silver medal, old coon."
He issued instructions which were forthwith carried out with delighted comprehension. The cattle were allowed to rise, but still held, half choked and much hampered with the leather ropes, whilst some active hands bound fat branches to their long horns, so that they soon assumed an apologetic appearance of stags adorned with magnificent antlers, which was amusing. Overcoming their humiliation on being anew on all fours, the beasts began to chafe. Bushes of prickly nopals were made for attaching to the animals' tails and hind quarters, like the pendent goads to the bulls in the arena.