On a hot August day many years ago a squad of four Texas Rangers out on patrol set up camp at the mouth of a small canyon fronting the Nueces River. Two of their number went into the water to cool off after stripping themselves and the horses.

A sudden surprise attach by a group of Indians caught everyone off guard and none were able to get to their weapons to put up a fight or even defend themselves.

The two in the water flung themselves up onto their panicky mounts and hurried out of the line of fire. At the first volly of rifle fire, they had seen one of the men in camp fall and as they fled they heard intense firing and assumed that both men had been killed.

Continuing southeast they rode all the way to San Antonio over a hundred and five miles away. The painful ride took two days and both men suffered severe skin burns from above and abrasions from below, while riding that distance bareback.

The two men abandoned in camp were wounded but survived the ordeal by scampering out into the river and hiding under huge piles of driftwood logs and debris. Later, each thought the other dead, they walked that long tedious distance to San Antonio alone over a period of six days.

This story can be found in Sowells 'Indian Depredations in Texas'.

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