“It would be hard, Deaf, for even a bad eye to mistake the foremost.”

“Right you are, Hank.  You might comb Texas with a fine-tooth comb an’ you’d never rake out such another.”

“If that ain’t Mart Palmer, the Ring Tailed Panther, I’ll go straight to Santa Anna an’ ask him to shoot me as a fool.”

“You won’t have to go to Santa Anna.”

Smith rode from the covert, put his curved hand to his mouth, and uttered a long piercing cry.  The three horsemen stopped at once, and the giant in the lead gave back the signal in the same fashion.  Then the two little parties rode rapidly toward each other.  While they were yet fifty yards apart they uttered words of hail and good fellowship, and when they met they shook hands with the friendship that has been sealed by common hardships and dangers.

“You’re goin’ toward the Alamo?” said Smith.

“Yes,” replied the Panther.  “We started that way several days ago, but we’ve been delayed.  We had a brush with one little party of Mexicans, and we had to dodge another that was too big for us.  I take it that you ride for the same place.”

“We do.  Were you with Fannin?”

The dark face of the Panther grew darker.

“We were,” he replied.  “He started to the relief of the Alamo, but the ammunition wagon broke down, an’ they couldn’t get the cannon across the San Antonio River.  So me an’ Obed White an’ Will Allen here have come on alone.”

“News for news,” said Smith dryly.  “Texas has just been made a free an’ independent republic, an’ Sam Houston has been made commander-in-chief of all its mighty armies, horse, foot an’ cannon.  We saw all them things done back there at Washington settlement, an’ we, bein’ a part of the army, are ridin’ to the relief of the Alamo.”

“We j’in you, then,” said the Panther, “an’ Texas raises two armies of the strength of three an’ two to one of five.  Oh, if only all the Texans had come what a roarin’ an’ rippin’ an’ t’arin’ and chawin’ there would have been when we struck Santa Anna’s army, no matter how big it might be.”

“But they didn’t come,” said Smith grimly, “an’ as far as I know we five are all the Texans that are ridin’ toward San Antonio de Bexar an’ the Alamo.”

“But bein’ only five won’t keep us from ridin’ on,” said the Panther.

“And things are not always as bad as they look,” said Obed White, after he had heard of the messenger who had come to Houston and Unmet.  “It’s never too late to hope.”

The five rode fast the remainder of the day.  They passed through a silent and desolate land.  They saw a few cabins, but every one was abandoned.  The deep sense of tragedy was over them all, even over young Will Allen.  They rarely spoke, and they rode along in silence, save for the beat of their horses’ hoofs.  Shortly before night they met a lone buffalo hunter whom the Panther knew.

“Have you been close to San Antonio, Simpson?” asked the Panther, after the greeting.