The Queen of the Savannah by Gustave Aimard

Ordinarily Indians do not travel by night, and it required circumstances imperious as the present for the chief to resolve thus to infringe the customs of the redskins. In truth, Don Melchior's flight caused him great anxiety about the success of his expedition, and he was anxious to cross the Indian border, as he felt persuaded that once he had passed the river which served as the limit of the Spanish possessions, and trod his native heath in a country all whose hiding places were familiar to him, he would be comparatively safe from the pursuit which would not fail to be begun so soon as the abduction of the two ladies was known, and that would not be long first if, as he feared, Don Melchior had succeeded in escaping.

The Indians galloped the whole night through in the direction of the river, whose yellow waters at length became visible at sunrise. Without even stopping to breathe the horses, tired by so long a gallop along difficult and scarcely marked tracks, the chief ordered his warriors to ford the river immediately.