' But we did
not care for we knew it was not true.
"A long time passed away, when the evil spirit of the Cad does whispered
to them to come to the villages of the Comanches while they were
hunting, and to take away with them all that they could. They did so,
entering the war-path as foxes and owls, during night. When they
arrived, they found nothing but squaws, old women, and little children.
Yet these fought well, and many of the Caddoes were killed before they
abandoned their lodges. They soon found us out in the hunting-ground;
and our great chief ordered me to start with five hundred warriors, and
never return until the Caddoes should have no home, and wander like deer
and starved wolves in the open prairie.
"I followed the track. First, I burnt their great villages in the Cross
Timbers, and then pursued them in the swamps and cane-brakes of the
East, where they concealed themselves among the long lizards of the
water (the alligators). We, however, came up with them again, and they
crossed the Sabine, to take shelter among the Yankees, where they had
another village, which was their largest and their richest. We followed,
and on the very shores of their river, although a thousand miles from
our own country, and where the waters are dyed with the red clay of the
soil, we encamped round their wigwams and prepared to conquer.
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