The Adventurers by Gustave Aimard

In order to explain to the reader the miraculous disappearance of Rosario, we are obliged to make a few retrograde steps, and return to Curumilla, at the moment when the Ulmen, after his conversation with Trangoil-Lanec, had thrown himself, like a staunch bloodhound, upon the track of the young girl. Curumilla was a warrior as renowned for his prudence and wisdom in council, as for his bravery in fight. Having crossed the river, he left his horse in the care of a peon who had accompanied him, as it would not only be useless to him, but, still further, because it might even be injurious by betraying his presence by the clatter of its hoofs upon the ground. Indians are expert horsemen, but they are indefatigable walkers.

Nature has endowed them with incredible strength of muscles of the legs and hams; and they possess in the highest degree the knowledge of that rising and sinking gymnastic step, which, for some years past, has been introduced into Europe, particularly into France, in the marching of troops. They accomplish with incredible swiftness journeys which horses could hardly perform, always directing their course in a straight line, or as the bird flies, without regard to the difficulties that may arise in their way, no obstacle being sufficient to turn them from their course. This quality renders them particularly formidable to the Spanish Americans, who cannot obtain this facility of locomotion, and who, in time of war, find the redskins always before them at the moment they least expect them, and that almost always at considerable distances from the spots where, logically, they ought to be.