"SCARY" PROSPECTIVE.—A STAMPEDE.                 107
five thousand warriors, which would give four or five times this number.
It will, of course, be perceived that it is no joke, this undertaking of ours, to penetrate the fastnesses of a country which, however extensive, is yet peopled in such formidable numbers by mounted warriors.
From the rapidity with which they move, it will be easy for them in a few days to concentrate hundreds, or even thousands, of fighting men to overwhelm our little handful; and we may fairly expect that this will be done so soon as they get hold of any hint or suspicion that our destination is for the mountain of their sacred metal.
The prospect is almost sufficient to make one quail, and look back over the distance we have placed between ourselves and rescue, before we push on yet further into the profound dangers ahead.
But the die is cast. Rangers can never turn back; at least before they have fairly tested whether there be really such a word as impossible necessary to their vocabulary. "We have repudiated the word long since ; now we must bide the consequences.
We had been in camp some ten days, when the monotony of our life was suddenly broken up in most serio-comic manner.
On this evening the hunting parties had all come in, and the picket-guard was slowly driving up our horses before them for the night. They were in full view, when we suddenly observed an extraordinary commotion among the loose animals, and in another moment they started in full gallop right for the camp.
We all sprang to our feet; and Old Hicks, shouting, "A stampede !" glided behind the trunk of a huge tree. We all, without knowing the reason why, involuntarily did the same thing, and were just in time to save ourselves being trampled under the hoofs of our frightened horses, who tore madly past us, and were only brought up by the steep banks of the two rivers ; and such was the rush that two of the foremost went over headlong into the water.