13 In Houston’s Camp

Ned and Will could not restrain their impetuosity. They rode forward rapidly and the whole troop swung ahead with them. They saw many fires burning on a prairie and about them men cooking food. Other men were eating or were rubbing down horses or were lying on blankets resting after their tremendous labors of the night and day. Some slept soundly amid all the noise of a camp.

A tall man of middle age stood near one of the fires. His hands were folded behind his back and he was looking thoughtfully into the blaze. He wore an old black coat, through which his shoulders were almost bursting, a waistcoat of faded black velvet and tight pantaloons, snuff in color. His high boots were worn and covered with dried mud. He held in his hand a hat of broad brim, much dilapidated like the rest of his attire. A sword in a silver-plated scabbard hung from his belt, but the scabbard itself was fastened to the belt with strips of buckskin. It was a plain and simple figure but no one interrupted him as he looked into the fire, and, even had he not seen him before, Ned would have known that this was Houston.

Houston looked up when he heard the shoutings and the hoofbeats, disclosing a worn and weary face. The lines running from either side of his nose to the corners of his mouth were sharp and deep and there were networks of fine wrinkles about his eyes. There had been enough in the last few months to age Sam Houston and give him sleepless nights. He carried upon his shoulders the fate of a whole vast region. The Texans were to win or to go to a cruel death, according to his judgment. Hence he had hung back. He had retreated and he had seemed to waver. Used in his early youth to the iron rule of Andrew Jackson he had, perhaps, underrated the desperate valor of the Texans, and had feared their lack of discipline.

His lieutenants had taunted him to his face. They said that their wives and children were left at the mercy of a cruel foe, while he retreated continually before Santa Anna. He had borne it all patiently. But he would bear it no longer, and he had agreed with Rusk that the time for battle was at hand. But his numbers were small, very small. His soul was tortured with fear for the result, and the terrible consequences sure to follow, if they failed.

But when Houston looked up and saw half a hundred new men riding into his camp the whole weary face was illuminated with a smile. He knew these riders of the plains. He knew Ned, the brave and brilliant youth, who had done so much. He knew the Panther, that gigantic figure, strongest of strong men, the hero of a hundred battles. He knew Stump, looking almost as large in the saddle as the Panther himself. He knew Obed White, the long, lean, clever, red-headed man with his cheerful philosophy, and he knew that those who rode behind them were fearless and able, too, a powerful help to his army that was all too small.

Houston stepped forward. All the men sprang from their horses and saluted respectfully. The Panther, holding his horse by the bridle, was the spokesman, as became him.

“We’ve come, Gen’ral,” he said, “to do whatever you tell us to do. We started as fifty-four an’ we come in as forty-eight. But as we’ve had a brush with the Mexican cavalry I reckon we’ve done well to lose only six. I’m not boastin’, sir, but the other forty-eight, if it’s needed, are ready to die in the same way for Texas.”

Houston smiled again. It was a rare, ingratiating smile that warmed the hearts of men. He liked this candid giant, and he liked the help he brought. He and the Panther shook hands warmly, and then Stump and the others were made welcome in the same way. To Ned he said:

“Your very arrival here, my boy, after so many dangers, is a sure omen of victory.”

The Panther and Obed glanced at each other significantly. But Ned did not notice them. He had seen another figure, that of an elderly man, with a cleanshaven face, and a great brow, intellectual and magnificent. Ned ran forward to meet him.

“Mr. Roylston!” he cried.

“Yes, it is I,” said the merchant, taking the eager hand, “I did not think that we should meet again so soon, nor did I dream that we should ever meet under such conditions, but here we are.”

“What made you come?” asked Ned.

“Doubtless the same reason that made you do so. I am a merchant, and it seems strange that I should be here on what promises to be a battlefield, but my feelings and a large part of my business are wrapped up in Texas. Briefly, I could not stay away.”

Ned surmised that the merchant had furnished a large part of the sinews of war to the Texans. He had heard much from Smith and Karnes of the “Twin Sisters” that had come all the way from Cincinnati, the gift of the people, to help the desperate colonists, and he knew that Roylston’s hand had been largely behind the gift. Presently he saw these famous “Sisters.” They were only little six-pounders, but the Texans had polished them until they were bright and terrible.

Near one of the Sisters Ned found that same Alfonso de Zavala, the sympathetic young Mexican who for a brief space had been one of his jailers in the City of Mexico. Now his father, Lorenzo de Zavala, a Liberal Mexican, with great estates north of the Rio Grande, was vice-president of the new Republic of Texas, and he had come some days before into the Texan camp with eighty men to fight for Texan freedom.

Ned and young Zavala. greeted each other warmly, and after the words of welcome the gallant young Mexican began to laugh heartily.

“I notice that your hair is rather long,” he said. “Isn’t it about time to have it cut again. I remember you best by your lack of appetite at the capital and your long hair. Ah, it was a clever trick, and, as you may now surmise, I am glad that you escaped. My father could not stand the tyranny of Santa Anna and fled for his life. I, too, have come joyfully, and we and some other Mexicans fight side by side with the Texans for liberty. May I present you to my father?”

“I should be glad to see him if he is willing,” replied Ned.

Lorenzo de Zavala, vice-president of Texas, was sitting on some brushwood, but he rose and received Ned most kindly. He was a grave and dignified man, the highest type of Mexican, universally liked and respected by the Texans. He was of absolute integrity and great ability, and they had put him in their second highest office. His calmness, penetration and resolution had already been of great help to them. He had a northern residence and estates near the San Jacinto, and no man of all those present was likely to suffer more than he in case the Texans were defeated. He smiled as he laid a friendly hand upon Ned’s shoulder.

“I have heard of you from my son, Alfonso,” he said. “You are a brave and ingenious lad and I trust that you and he and the youth whom you have with you will be the best of friends here, where we are united so closely by one common bond, that of victory or death.”

He spoke gravely, and with so much fervor that Ned was deeply moved.

“I know, sir, the position in which we stand,” he said, “and I also shall be glad indeed if your son will honor us with his friendship.”

Unconsciously he adopted the courtly style and somewhat precise words characteristic of the high-bred Mexican gentleman. But his feeling was deep, nevertheless. Making a salute to the Vice-President, he went away and wandered through the camp with young Zavala and Will Allen.

It was a rude camp on the wet prairie. There was not much to it except the men who made it, and they were one of the most extraordinary little groups ever gathered in the world’s history. In them all was the spirit of the Alamo, the same spirit that animated the Grecian three hundred when they stood in the pass and faced the millions. They did not speak of odds or the need of caution. They thought of their slaughtered brethren, of broken faith and massacres, and of the desolation that Santa Anna had made where he had passed. He was to them the arch-demon, Satan himself, and now, having made up their minds to measure their last and utmost strength with him, all fear passed. They felt the singular calm that comes when we know things are unalterable.

Yet they were a rude lot to look upon. They were clad mostly in the buckskin of the border, and whether buckskin or not their clothes were old and frayed. They were spattered with the mud through which they had marched so long, but their arms were clean and bright.

Ned found the Texans quiet in manner. They had shot some wandering cattle that morning and they were cooking a late breakfast. He and Will and Zavala were welcomed at the fires, and they ate tender steaks with men whom they had never met before, but who were already comrades for the battle. Ned was asked many questions and the answers were awaited eagerly. He had seen Santa Anna more than once, then how did he look, what was his manner? Was it true that he killed prisoners with his own hand?

While Ned answered as well as he could they heard the faint sound of shots on the horizon. The whole army sprang to its feet and looked off there in the sunlight. The Texans saw light puffs of smoke and many of them ran to their horses. But Houston gave orders at once. He quickly detailed fifty men to ride toward the firing, see what it meant, and do what was needed. Mirabeau Lamar, later on president of the Texan Republic, led the detachment and Ned, Will, Zavala, the Panther, Obed and Stump could not be kept out of it.

It was a scattered firing, but it continued. There were numerous puffs there on the horizon, where the sun shone so brightly, and the fifty Texans rode fast. It was a rifle fire, increasing in volume, and it might mean that the whole army of Santa Anna was at hand. He was a man of boundless energy—they gave the arch-demon his due—and he was full of surprises.

“Some of our sentinels are scouting in that direction,” said Lamar, “and undoubtedly they have been attacked.”

“An’ there’s nothin’ but Mexicans to attack ’em,” said the Panther. “It’s a Mexican vanguard. It’s bound to be.”

They increased their speed, and the puffs of smoke grew more distinct. They also saw flashes of fire, and then men on horseback withdrawing slowly, but wheeling every minute or two, and firing from long rifles.

“Those are our sentinels,” said Lamar.

“An’ they are givin’ a mighty good account of themselves,” said the Panther. “They can’t be more’n a dozen, but you’d think from the way they was firin’ that they was fifty. An’ you can see off there the puffs of smoke from them that are attackin’. Ned, you’ve got the best eyes, can you make out who they are?”

“I see horsemen, at least a hundred,” replied Ned, “and I catch the sun glinting now and then on an epaulet. They are the Mexican cavalry.”

“Almonte or Urrea, or both,” said the Panther.

“Which means,” said Lamar, “that it is only their vanguard. If Santa Anna is within striking distance he would push forward in full force, instead of having a cavalry skirmish.”

“But that doesn’t keep us from takin’ a hand in the business before us,” said the Panther.

“Not at all,” said Lamar, as they quickened the pace of their horses again, and drew up on a level with their own scouts.

“We were attacked a few moments ago by Mexican cavalry riding out of the forest,” said one of the scouts hastily, “an’ they’re pressin’ us hard. They seem to be a hundred in number, but I don’t know what’s behind ’em.”

“Neither do we,” said Lamar, “but we’ll show ’em what’s behind you. Now, men, turn and we’ll do a little attacking ourselves.”

The Texans formed in a line across the prairie and awaited the Mexican advance. Their long rifles were held parallel with their horses’ heads, and they were ready, on the instant for the command to fire. The Mexicans were not far away, but they halted when they saw the increase in the Texan force, and gathered more closely together.

“I see Urrea!” exclaimed Ned. “Look! He is near the center, the man with the gold epaulets!”

“I see him, too,” growled the Panther. “I wish my rifle would carry a hundred yards further.”

“We’ve no orders to charge them,” said Lamar, “but General Houston told us to do whatever seemed needful, and as a charge looks to me like the right thing now we’ll make it. Forward, boys, and drive ’em away!”

He shouted the command, and the Texans, already eager to get at the foe, uttered a roar. Then they galloped forward in a curving concave line. Before the astonished Mexicans could collect themselves the Texans were within range and firing. But Urrea again showed himself a capable cavalry leader. Although men and horses were falling already he issued quick orders, made his force spread out and return the Texan fire, at the same time retreating slowly.

The combat proceeded wholly on horseback, but the Mexicans, although two to one, were no match for the Texans. Their muskets did not have the range of the Texan rifles, nor were they by any means such accurate marksmen. But they were superb horsemen, and they protected themselves, as far as possible from the bullets with the necks and bodies of their mounts. Sometimes the Texans were forced to shoot the horses themselves, but the Mexicans always leaped lightly away, as agile as bull fighters, and sprang up behind some comrade.

“We’ll drive ’em back on the wood soon,” said Lamar, “and we’d best not follow them there.”

“No,” said the Panther. “We must not run into any ambush. I guess Sam Houston doesn’t want to lose any men now.”

Urrea and his force reached the forest, and, from its shelter, shouted defiance and maintained a heavy fire.

“We’ll let ’em keep that up if it suits ’em,” said Lamar, “and we’ll ride back to camp with the news that we’ve met the Mexican vanguard.”

“They won’t follow us,” said the Panther, looking at the wood. “They’ve seen how we can rip an’ t’ar an’ bite.”

The Panther was right, as the Mexican cavalry remained in the wood, after the Texans began to withdraw, continuing to shout defiance and to fire an occasional shot.

“Let ’em keep it up,” said the Panther with satisfaction. “It don’t hurt us an’ the more powder an’ lead they shoot away the less they’ll have for the big battle that is comin’.”

Now they rode at a fair pace back to their own camp. As only two of their number had been wounded, and they not badly, they felt much encouraged by their success in the skirmish. Houston, Zavala and Rusk were waiting for them.

“It must surely mean that Santa Anna intends to attack us,” said Houston. “Perhaps he is now at the ferry. And if we were mistaken and he should be going to Anahuac for a movement on Galveston he would have to take the same ferry.”

“Then suppose we march at once to the ferry,” said Rusk.

“A wise suggestion,” said Houston. In fifteen minutes the army which had already done so much marching was on the march again for Lynch’s Ferry at the point where Buffalo Bayou and the San Jacinto River united. The men, although not half rested, made no complaint. Those on foot plodded sturdily on, and those on horseback rode by their side in the mud. At intervals infantry and cavalry exchanged places. Houston was near the head of the column, Rusk was in the middle and Zavala at the rear. Now and then these three men so high in office dismounted like the rest and gave their saddles for the while to footmen.

The Twin Sisters, drawn by strong horses, were near the front, side by side. Their wheels cut deep in the mud, and sometimes sank to the hub. Houston once more put his own shoulder to the wheel and pushed with the others, until the gun came from the deep mud with a sticky sigh. Then he plodded on, his snuff-colored trousers thrust into his high boots, the mud flying over him as it flew over everybody.

Ned thought the Mexican horsemen would be watching on the horizon, but he saw none. He concluded that Urrea had merely been making a scout in force, and that he had now withdrawn to join the main body under Santa Anna. But he made no comment, because now the little army had ceased to talk, yet there was plenty of sound, and it was mostly a vast sigh as hundreds of feet were dragged out of the famous, sticky Texas mud.

But the men thought most of the cannon. They loved the Twin Sisters. They handled them carefully, they helped them through the bad places, and they watched, that nothing might interfere with their mechanism of working order. They could not bear to see them muddy all over, even on the march, and when the flying mud struck upon their shining metal barrels somebody always wiped it off.

Ned, Will and young Zavala called it the Muddy March, a name that stuck, but the men were far from unhappy. Action, a sense of an impending great event, keyed them up. After a while, tiring of the human silence, they whistled and sang. The songs were mostly sentimental, like others of the time, and told of their true loves at home, sighing at the windows, until they should come. It is a singular or perhaps a reasonable fact that men going into battle knowing that death may be near grow sentimental.

But the songs dampened their spirits no more than the mud. The steady march went on. Never for a moment did the pace diminish. When the whistling chorus began it increased perceptibly.

“How far away is this ferry?” asked Ned of young Zavala. “I hope it’s not more than a thousand miles.”

“It’s something under a thousand miles,” replied Zavala, “but on such a deep and sticky soil as this I think we should measure by time and not by distance. We ought to get there in two hours.”

But after the next hour Houston ordered a short pause for rest. He did not mean for his troops, when overwhelmed with exhaustion, to meet Santa Anna and his vastly superior numbers. He must take every precaution now, because the last weapon of the Texans was in his hand.

They resumed their rapid march, both horses and men greatly refreshed, and Stump announced to the boys that the ferry was not far away.

“What will we do if we find Santa Anna and his army there?” asked Will.

“Pitch right into it,” said Stump. “I’m a timid man myself, but sometimes things drive me right on in spite of myself. Besides, I’ve got to keep with the Texans and do whatever they do.”

“I see water,” cried the Panther, who was a little ahead, “an’ as shore as I’m a livin’ sinner there’s a boat in the stream, too. Mebbe Santa Anna an’ his army are crossin’. No, they ain’t! It’s just one boat, a big flatboat, an’ I see no troops on the shore!”

“Gallop forward and seize the boat!” cried Houston.

A hundred Texans, Ned and Will with them, put their tired horses to the run and in a few moments they were in full view of the deep stream. A dozen Mexicans were trying to row rapidly away a great flatboat, which swayed in the middle of it.

“Spoils! spoils!” cried the Panther. Then he shouted to the Mexicans: “Bring it to the shore if you know what’s good for you!”

When the frightened Mexican oarsmen saw the muzzles of many rifles turned upon them they obeyed as quickly as anyone could wish. The flatboat grounded against the bank, and then the Texans saw that they had in truth taken a prize. Ned, the Panther and others leaped on board, and found that it was loaded with supplies of all kinds.

“Here’s beef!” cried Ned.

“An’ here’s bread, an’ lots of it!” said the Panther.

“An’ here’s a big pile of blankets!” said Stump. “I’m willin’ to sleep under ’em, even if they are made in Mexico.”

“And here are ten barrels of powder!” said Will. “We’ll use it against its owners.”

“And here are medicines,” said Obed White, “and we’re likely to need ’em. Mexicans heal the Texans!”

They also found considerable quantities of lead which they would melt into bullets, further supplies of provisions, including venison, flour, meal and dried fruits, the whole constituting a most valuable capture for the Texan army. The Mexicans meanwhile stood on the bank, under guard, and shivering with fear. They expected to be shot in a few minutes, feeling sure that the Texans would treat them as Santa Anna had ordered all Texan prisoners to be treated. The Panther noticed that their faces were yellower than ever, and that their teeth were knocking together.

“We’re only poor boatmen, señor,” one of them said as the terrific figure loomed over them.

“Yes, I can see that you are boatmen, an’ a pretty poor lot, too,” said the Panther, “but all the same, if I was Santa Anna an’ you was Texan boatmen, no matter how poor, your lives wouldn’t have more than five minutes to run. Now, don’t begin to beg an’ pray. There ain’t no Santa Anna here and we ain’t goin’ to kill you. ’Stead of that we’re goin’ to make you work. Jump right in, help take the stuff out of that boat, an’ then help load it on our horses.”

The prisoners, assured of their lives, obeyed gladly enough. Everything of value was taken from the boat, and put on the horses. While they were engaged in the task Houston and the main army came up, and this little triumph spread a feeling of elation among all the soldiers. Houston learned from the boatmen that the supplies were being held at the ferry for Santa Anna who was now on the same side of the river that Houston was, and who was expected there that day.

The news that Santa Anna was coming, that he might arrive at any moment, spread fast through the little army and it was welcome. All their wrongs, all the massacres, the memory of all their kin and friends, and of all the treacheries crowded upon them. Now they would do or die. There was not a coward among them.

Ned, Will and young Zavala were on foot now, their horses being loaded with the spoils from the boat. As they stood together they saw Houston, the elder Zavala, Rusk and John Roylston draw together for a brief conference. Every one in his turn spoke quickly and earnestly, and Ned noticed that the merchant received equal deference with the others.

Houston presently gave orders and they marched about a half mile to a grove that grew thickly on the banks of the bayou. It was a fine grove, one that drew Ned’s admiring eye, one that he was destined never to forget. It was composed wholly of huge live oaks, from which the weeping Spanish moss hung in great quantities. There was no undergrowth, but instead a carpet of fine clean turf.

The men entered the grove of live oaks joyously, and the horsemen, dismounting, took their horses to the rear, where they secured them. But Ned returned with all speed to the edge of the grove, and examined the country. Before them lay a prairie that undulated away gently for about two miles. Beyond it were the marshes of the San Jacinto River, which he could mark by the line of tall timber curving away to the south. The prairie was unbroken save by two clumps of trees four or five hundred yards in front of their position, but the grass upon it was exceedingly tall, owing to the heavy and continuous rains. Everywhere the vegetation was full and luxurious, and, now that the sun was shining, it glowed in many brilliant hues.

Ned scanned the horizon long and carefully, but he saw no human being. The vanguard of Santa Anna had not yet appeared. Then he went back into the grove, where the men were quietly placing themselves in order with the deep and broad bayou in their rear. Ned marked the significance of the battleground that Houston had chosen. There could be no retreat. They must win or die. Fugitives would find the unfordable bayou before them. But there would be no fugitives. He saw the spirit of the Alamo shining forth once more in its full glory.

The Twin Sisters under their chief, Neill, were advanced to the edge of the grove, where they were planted with their muzzles pointing across the prairie. Solicitous hands wiped their wheels clear of mud. They must be clean, bright and fresh for the battle. The gunners gathered around them, each detailed to his place, and ready at a moment’s notice.

But there was yet no sign of Santa Anna, and Houston ordered the noonday food to be served to the men. They ate, sitting about the grove in groups, and were calm enough also to lie down on the soft turf, and wait until they should be called. They knew that the scouts at the edge of the wood would see the first advance of Santa Anna.

Ned sat near Stephen Larkin and he saw the man’s lips moving, although he uttered no word. The minister was praying. The harrying of the Texans, the ruthless slaughter had stirred him to the very core of his soul. He was praying God now to make mighty the arms of the Texans that a land might be free.

But Stump was cheerful for such a timid man. He saw both sides of the shield.

“Ned,” he said, “it’s a lot of pleasure to know that all our marchin’ through mud is about done. I was never so tired of anything in my life. Skeered as I am, I’d ruther stop an’ fight Santa Anna an’ have it all over, one way or the other.”

“I feel that way, too,” said Ned.

“The time for runnin’ has passed an’ the time for rippin’ an’ t’arin’ an’ chawin’ has come,” said the Panther sententiously.

“It’s a long lane that has no Mexican at the end,” said Obed White.

Ned left them after a while and went to the edge of the live oaks, where he found John Roylston who was attentively watching the prairie, which still showed nothing but the tall and waving grass. The merchant put his hand upon Ned’s shoulder, and his manner was that of a father to a son.

“Ned,” he said, “the battle is at hand. We cannot doubt it. We must triumph, but in case we should not I am willing to fall with the others. Now I am glad you have joined me here, because I have something to say to you which I shall keep from everybody else. You will guard the secret until after the battle, will you not?”

“Of course,” said Ned, much impressed by the manner of the merchant, who never spoke without cause.

“You are ingenious and brave and you are to be trusted,” said Roylston. “I have, as I have intimated to you before, furnished much of the money for this war. Literally, I have financed the Texans. I have done it for many reasons. Sam Houston and I were friends in boyhood, although I am the older of the two. We were together at the Horse Shoe Bend, when Andrew Jackson fought the great battle with the Creek nation. I helped to nurse Houston back to life. We are knit together by ties that nothing can break. I am bound to help him, now that he is the leader in a war for home and life.

“Moreover, I am deeply interested in the fortunes of Texas. I have risked most of my life’s earnings in its growth and development. If it were subjected again to Mexican rule I should be ruined. And above all, the Texan people have my deepest sympathies. They have been harried and decimated by a cruel and relentless foe. It is the dearest wish of my heart to see them victorious, the few against so many. I have smuggled arms and ammunition for them from New Orleans, and I glory in it. I have come myself, and now after this rather long and perhaps boastful peroration I reach the meat of what I have to say.”

The man who rarely smiled smiled now. It was a noble smile, illuminating his broad, stern countenance, and giving to it, for the moment, a wonderful softness. Ned waited in silence.

“As I have told you before,” he continued, “I have great sums of money on deposit in foreign financial institutions in Mexico, which Santa Anna cannot touch, though he would dearly like to do it. But I cannot touch them myself unless I send the proper authority. These authorities are letters of credit and bills of exchange, signed duly. I have them upon my person and if they fall into Mexican hands they could be used, even if those who used them had to resort to clever forgery in order to transfer them. And if I were dead nobody would be interested in disproving or disputing the forgery.”

Ned did not yet understand, but he continued to wait in silence.

“What I want you to do, in case I fall,” continued Roylston, “if you do not fall too, is to secure these papers from my body, and if necessary to destroy them. I brought them with me, because I cannot go back now to New Orleans. I foresaw that I might have to go to one of the British ports in the West Indies to raise money for the Texans, places where I am personally unknown. I suspect that Santa Anna and one or two of his Lieutenants know that I am here and what I have. Therefore since you are ingenious and clever I wish your help to save this money from the dictator. If you were to fall into his hands he might spare you, for a while at least. Be the first to search my body and destroy the letters of credit and bills of exchange.”

“Mr. Roylston,” exclaimed Ned vehemently, “don’t talk of our defeat and your death!”

“I am not expecting them,” he replied calmly. “I am merely taking a precaution. I have your promise?”

“Certainly,” replied Ned.

“Then,” said Roylston, with quiet satisfaction, “I have something more to add. Take this and put it in your pocket where you are sure not to lose it.”

He took from his own pocket a small sealed envelope and handed it to Ned, who put it without a word in the inside pocket of his coat.

“I am glad you have not asked me what it contains,” said Roylston, “but I will tell you. It is my will, a holographic will, but perfectly good. I make you my sole heir, on condition that you carry on my business as soon as you arrive at suitable age. Meanwhile it will be in the hands of capable lieutenants.”

Ned gazed at him too much astonished to say a word.

“Your heir!” he exclaimed at last. “Why do you do this?”

“I have already examined myself on that point,” replied the merchant, “and I have arrived at my conclusion. We come from the same State, and I have discovered that there is a distant kinship between us like the thread that runs through great groups of people in Virginia or Kentucky or Tennessee. Certainly I have no kin closer, but that does not count for so much. You will remember that you saved my life, when no chance seemed to be left. But while I am greatly grateful, that in itself is not the cause, or the chief cause.”

He paused and examined the youth with his slow and thoughtful gaze.

“I have never married,” he said, “but I crave some one to stand in the place of a son to me and to take up my work when I am old. I do not care to heap up money for strangers. I should like to know while I am alive that the enterprises I have founded will go on when I am dead. Although the tie of blood between us is but slender it has seemed to me that nature has chosen you for this position. You have decision, courage and mental grasp, you have also truth and honesty which are powerful weapons in the battle of the world. I have not made any rash choice. I have weighed it, and thought over it long. Nor can you remain a wilderness rover and hunter. When this war is over you must choose a career, and I offer it to you.”

Ned could hardly think what to say. Certainly it was a brilliant position that the merchant painted for him.

“If we survive,” he said at last, “I will go with you. And if I say nothing more now it is because I do not know what to say. But I feel the magnitude of your offer and I hope that my gratitude will be equal to it.”

The merchant smiled.

“Then it is agreed,” he said. “Now I won’t keep you here any longer. Go with your friends. I have something to say to General Houston.”

Ned walked back to his friends, thinking intensely. Amazing things were continually happening to him, but this perhaps was the most amazing of them all. He was very quiet, but as the others were very quiet, too, no one took any notice of his manner. He and his friends were sitting in a group under one of the great live oaks, when a shout from a sentinel at the edge of the grove drew their attention.

As the Texans crowded forward the other sentinels also gave the alarm, and the whole army gathered at the border of the wood, forming a solid mass to right and left of the Twin Sisters, which were in the center. Ned saw horsemen on the plain, short, thick men under wide sombreros, and he caught the glint of lances. He also saw behind these a solid dark line, extending far across the prairie. His heart began to leap and black specks danced before his eyes. Santa Anna had come and the two armies were face to face at last on the narrow land between the waters. It was then about two o’clock in the afternoon of a bright day, full of sunshine.

All the Texans were now on foot, the horses tethered securely in the rear, and doubtless there was not one heart in all their force that did not throb as Ned’s did. They felt the same thrill, the same eagerness to have it out with the ruthless dictator whose hands were red with so much blood that they held dear.

“It’s the cavalry of Urrea an’ Almonte,” said the Panther. “Ain’t that what you make ’em out to be, Ned?”

“Beyond a doubt, and don’t you see, Panther, the big dark mass behind them? The whole Mexican army is here.”

The Panther’s face glowed and his great form seemed to expand.

“At last! At last!” he said under his breath.

The Texans formed for battle, but the Mexican cavalry stopped and the long line of their infantry advanced very slowly. The Texans said grimly to one another that the Mexicans were in no haste to rush them. They heard the hostile trumpets calling, and they saw their cavalry spread out on the wings, but they saw no sign of a charge. Ned exulted. He told himself that Santa Anna remembered the Alamo and feared the Texan rifles. He began to wonder now in just what way the attack would come. He began to watch Houston, Rusk and Roylston, who were gathered on the highest point at the edge of the grove. They had glasses and were closely watching the Mexican movements. But this was a democratic army, and many of the soldiers crowded around the leaders, anxious to know what they saw, and asking eagerly.

“They’re bringing up cannon and putting them in position, lads,” said Houston. “They’ll open fire on us presently, but don’t you be worried. I doubt whether they could hit the side of a mountain at that distance.”

The soldiers laughed and cheered, and the Panther nodded approvingly.

“Old Sam is right where he belongs now,” he said. “He’s been retreatin’ an’ retreatin’, ’cause he thought it wise to do so, but now he smells the fight, an’ he’s as keen for it as anybody.”

He used the adjective “old” as a compound of affection and admiration, not as implying age—Houston was only forty-three that day. The next moment he uttered in imperious cry:

“Duck, boys, duck!”

He had seen a distant spurt of white smoke, and then a cannon ball crashed into the wood, but hurt nobody. Nevertheless the Mexicans were shooting better than they had expected. The Twin Sisters were silent. They were smaller guns and their range was not so great. Their crews stood around them, silent and attentive.

The Mexicans, aiming with great deliberation, fired more shots which made a great crashing in the wood, but the Texans laughed until one of the balls wounded Neill, the commander of the artillery. That gave them a shock. Some wanted to fire the Twin Sisters, but Houston decided to send forth a hundred mounted riflemen.

Ned rode by the side of the Panther, with Deaf Smith on the other side and they galloped forth with a mighty shout. Two cannon shots were fired at them, but the balls went far astray. Then the riflemen drove back the Mexican cavalry, and, as in the case of Urrea’s siege, began to pick off the gunners around the cannon. The guns were quickly unlimbered, and withdrawn, and then the riflemen rode back. Santa Anna remained out of range, and seemed content with the situation.

“It’s really the middle of the afternoon now,” said the Panther, as he glanced up at the sun, “an’ I guess he don’t mean to attack to-day. I wonder why.”

“Maybe he is waiting for reinforcements,” said Ned. “I think he was expecting a force under Cos or Sesma.”

“Which would make it much worse for us,” said the Panther. “But at the same time, it wouldn’t do for us to leave the wood now an’ attack him. I guess we’ve just got to stand quiet an’ see.”

They were welcomed by Houston who gave them warm words of approval, and then the Texan army sat down to wait.

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