Read "The Red Track" by Gustave Aimard online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Curumilla, after concealing, with that Indian skill he so thoroughly possessed, the young ladies at a spot where they were thoroughly protected from bullets, had placed himself, rifle in hand, not by the side of the two riders, but, with characteristic redskin prudence, he ambuscaded himself behind the carriage, probably reflecting that he represented the entire infantry force, and not caring, through a point of honour, very absurd in his opinion, to expose himself to a death not only certain, but useless to those he wished to defend.
The horsemen, however, on coming within range of the persons they were pursuing, stopped, and by their gestures seemed to evince a hesitation the fugitives did not at all understand, after the fashion in which they had hitherto been pursued. The motive for this hesitation, which the Frenchman and his companions could not know, and which perplexed them so greatly, was very simple.