Ned leaped down also, and he saw at once the merits of the position into which Bowie had led them.

They were in a horseshoe or sharp bend of the river, here a hundred yards in width.

The belt of thick timber curved on one side while the river coiled in a half-circle about them and in front of the little tongue of land on which they stood, the bank rose to a height of eighteen feet, almost perpendicular.

It was a secluded place, and, as no Mexicans had been following them in the course of the last hour, Ned believed that they might pass a peaceful night there.

But the Ring Tailed Panther had other thoughts, although, for the present, he kept them to himself.
They tethered the horses at the edge of the wood, but where they could reach the grass, and then Bowie placed numerous pickets in the wood through which an enemy must come, if he came.