We also passed by the bodies
of five white men, probably trappers, horribly mangled, and evidently
murdered by some Texan robbers. Towards evening, we crossed a large
fresh Indian trail, going in the direction of the river Brasos, and,
following it, we soon came up with the tribe of Lepans, of which old
Castro was the chief.
CHAPTER XXI.
The Lepans were themselves going northwards, and for a few days we
skirted, in company with them, the western borders of the Cross Timbers.
The immense prairies of Texas are for hundreds and hundreds of miles
bordered on the east by a belt of thick and almost impenetrable forests,
called the Cross Timbers. Their breadth varies from seventy to one
hundred miles. There the oak and hiccory grow tall and beautiful, but
the general appearance of the country is poor, broken, and rugged. These
forests abound with deer and bears, and sometimes the buffalo, when
hotly pursued by the Indians in the prairies, will take refuge in its
closest thickets. Most of the trees contain hives of bees full of a very
delicate honey, the great luxury of the pioneers along these borders.
We now took our leave of the Lepans and our two white friends, who would
fain have accompanied us to the Comanches had there been a chance of
returning to civilization through a safe road; as it was, Gabriel,
Roche, and I resumed our journey alone.
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