He informed us that, after we had parted from them, they put their horses into a quick trot, to escape as soon as possible into a more agreeable-looking sort of country.  They suspected some vagabond Indians were hovering about, and as the ground they were travelling over afforded too many opportunities of concealment to gentry of their character, they were anxious to reach a more open district.  Their road lay, for several miles, over a succession of small hills, intersected by valleys covered with stunted oak trees, and with here and there a solitary pine.  Just at a point, when they were winding round a ridge of hills, which they imagined separated them from the Sacramento Valley, having a small skirting of timber on their left hand, he, Don Luis, being slightly in advance of Bradley and Malcolm, happened to turn his head round, when he saw a horseman stealthily emerging from the thicket, at a point a short distance in their rear.  In a very few moments another horseman joined the first, and before Don Luis could give an alarm, the second rider, who, it seems, was an Indian, had risen in his saddle and had flung out his lasso, which, whizzing through the air true to its aim, descended over Malcolm’s head and shoulders.  Don Luis, who saw all this, immediately jumped from his horse, and, placing his finger on the trigger of his rifle, fired just as the Indian was galloping away.  The ball entered his horse’s head, when the beast was brought to a stand, and, in a second of time, rolled over with its rider beneath it, just as the noose had tightened, and Malcolm was being drawn off his horse to the ground.  Bradley, who only knew of the danger they were in by hearing the lasso whirl through the air, immediately dismounted, and, like Don Luis, sheltered himself behind his horse, while he took aim and fired.  His never-failing rifle brought down one of their enemies, a swarthy-looking man in the usual Mexican sombrero, off his horse to the ground.  In the twinkling of an eye they led their horses behind some boulders of granite which afforded them cover, and from behind which they saw four men come charging down upon them.  But Bradley and Don Luis, skilled in this kind of warfare, had already stooped down and reloaded.  Don Luis was the first to let fly at the advancing party, but without success.  His shot was answered by a discharge of rifles from the enemy, which whistled over his and Bradley’s heads.  Crack went Bradley’s rifle again—­“And you would have thought,” said Don Luis to us, “that the ball had split into four pieces, and had given each man a tender touch, for they wheeled round their horses in an instant, and galloped off, driving Malcolm’s horse before them, which we never saw again.”