The column crossed a creek north of Victoria and paused while warriors took time to paint themselves and their mounts for battle. The paint carried strong medicine and helped ward off bullets. Buffalo Caller had turned his small captive over to the care of his younger wife, Whippoorwill. While women and children waited, the warriors split to make a circle around the town. Buffalo Caller saw no sign that the raiders’ approach had aroused alarm. That surprised him. He could only surmise that the column had been mistaken for something other than what it was. It was known that members of the Lipan tribe sometimes visited the town for friendly barter, and Mexican horse traders came occasionally with large caballadas to barter or sell.

A shout from one of the chiefs traveled quickly around the circle, picked up and relayed by other voices. The charge began with high-pitched yelling and a thunder of hoofbeats as warriors urged their horses into a run. Not until then did the town’s citizens begin to realize they were under attack. The first resistance was a scattering of gunfire from buildings on the outskirts. That resistance soon mushroomed into desperate firing from the more central part of town. Warriors and horses began to falter and fall. Despite the Texans’ slowness to recognize their danger, they put up a strong and costly defense.

Buffalo Caller brought his horse to a quick stop after a bullet passed his ear, singing like a locust, then whining off the stone wall of a house. He saw his companions beginning to pull back. It seemed prudent to follow. Only someone who had yet to prove his valor or who valued glory above life would willingly plunge into a hailstorm of bullets fired by determined men hidden behind walls that arrows could not penetrate.

He did not have to prove his courage anew. This was not a day he would choose to die. There was yet much he had not seen.

Someone shouted that horses had been found just outside of town. Buffalo Caller withdrew from the siege. Though he had come for blood vengeance on the Americans, he would also be pleased to take their horses.

He was amazed at the number. Mexicans had been loose-herding several hundred on the prairie before recognizing their danger and fleeing into the protection of the town. Buffalo Caller guessed they had brought the horses to trade or sell. He would not have expected this welcome bonanza. With enthusiasm he pitched into the rounding up of these horses and many others from nearby farms. By the time the gathering was done, the horse and mule herd had grown to tremendous proportions. Moving, it raised a towering cloud of dust, like an early-spring windstorm out of the west. Even if the invaders were to turn back now, this had been a most profitable venture.

Others in the band had killed several men unfortunate enough to fall into their path and had stolen a white woman and her baby. After camping along a creek that night, they continued on their way, driving the great band of captured horses and mules. They came upon two men in a wagon, killing one but somehow losing the other despite a diligent search.