The Border Rifles by Gustave Aimard — Read

Using now our privilege as romancer, we will transfer the scene of our narrative to Texas, and resume our story about sixteen years after the events recorded in the prologue.

Dawn was beginning to tinge the clouds with its opaline rays, the stars went out one after the other in the gloomy depths of the sky, and on the extreme blue line of the horizon a bright red reflection, precursor of sunrise, showed that day would ere long appear. Thousands of invisible birds, hidden beneath the foliage, suddenly woke up, and melodiously began their morning concert, while the yells of the wild beasts quitting the watering places, and returning slowly to their unexplored lairs, became gradually more dull and indistinct.