The second charge was beaten back like the first, and several skirmishers who tried to come anew down the bed of the creek were also put to flight.  Two Mexicans got into the thickets and tried to stampede the horses, but the quickness of Obed and Fields defeated their aim.  One of the Mexicans fell there, but the other escaped in the darkness.

When the second charge was driven back and the horses were quieted the Panther and Obed threshed up the woods, lest some Mexican musketeer should lie hidden there.

Nobody slept any more that night.  Ned, Will and the Panther kept a sharp watch upon the bed of the creek, the moon and stars fortunately aiding them.  But the Mexicans did not venture again by that perilous road, although toward morning they opened a scattering fire from the plain, many of their bullets whistling at random among the trees and thickets.  Some of the Texans, crawling to the edge of the wood, replied, but they seemed to have little chance for a good shot, as the Mexicans lay behind a swell.  The besiegers grew tired after a while and silence came again.

Three of the Texans had suffered slight wounds, but the Panther and Fields bound them up skillfully.  It was still light enough for these tasks.  Fields was particularly jubilant over their success, as he had a right to be.  The day before he could look forward only to his own execution.  Now he was free and victorious.  Exultantly he hummed: 

    You’ve heard, I s’pose, of New Orleans,
      It’s famed for youth and beauty;
    There are girls of every hue, it seems,
      From snowy white to sooty. 
    Now Packenham has made his brags,
      If he that day was lucky,
    He’d have the girls and cotton bags
      In spite of Old Kentucky.

    But Jackson, he was wide awake,
      And was not scared at trifles,
    For well he knew Kentucky’s boys,
      With their death-dealing rifles. 
    He led them down to cypress swamp,
      The ground was low and mucky;
    There stood John Bull in martial pomp,
      And here stood old Kentucky.

“Pretty good song, that of yours,” said the Panther approvingly.  “Where did you get it?”

“From my father,” replied Fields.  “He’s a Kentuckian, an’ he fit at New Orleans.  He was always hummin’ that song, an’ it come back to me after we drove off the Mexicans.  Struck me that it was right timely.”

Ned and Will, on their own initiative, had been drawing all the fallen logs that they could find and move to the edge of the wood, and having finished the task they came back to the bed of the creek.  Roylston, the rifle across his knees, was sitting with his eyes closed, but he opened them as they approached.  They were uncommonly large and bright eyes, and they expressed pleasure.

“It gratifies me to see that neither of you is hurt,” he said.  “This has been a strange night for two who are as young as you are.  And it is a strange night for me, too.  I never before thought that I should be firing at any one with intent to kill.  But events are often too powerful for us.”