The Queen of the Savannah by Gustave Aimard

As we have seen, Running Water and his comrades attacked Count de Melgosa after White Crow had summoned him to surrender. The unexpected arrival of Dona Emilia had not only foiled the plans of the Comanche chiefs, but also caused such a panic among their warriors that, in spite of the efforts of the sachems to rally them, they were even really themselves carried off and constrained to seek safety in a hurried flight. In a retreat so precipitate as that effected by the redskins, the feeling of terror so rules over all other feelings, that the voice of the chiefs are despised, their orders are unlistened to, and each man running off at a venture, seeks his own safety without troubling himself about the rest. After a mad ride through bush and briar, and not following any settled direction, Running Water, who was involuntarily affected by the general terror, stopped, quite out of breath, and fell at the foot of a Peru tree, which rose alone in the centre of a spacious plain.

The night was still dark and a leaden silence brooded over the desert. The chief, far as his eye could see, did not notice one of his comrades; he was alone, and, as he conjectured from the perfect tranquillity and calmness that reigned around him, in safety for the present. Then he began reflecting; his thoughts were sad, for nothing settled at the council had been carried out; the count had escaped, and the warriors were dispersed, so that it was useless to attempt to rally them in order to give the young chief, his son, the support which the latter had asked for. The sachem was greatly embarrassed, not through the position in which he found himself -- alone, without support, and almost unarmed -- a position which to any other than an Indian accustomed to desert life would have appeared extremely precarious, the more so because the sachem had ridden far into the Mexican territory, and was consequently a long way from his village; but Running Water did not think of that.