A half hour’s rest, and remounting he resumed his slow progress by the river.  The rest had been good for both his horse and himself, and the blood felt warmer in his veins.  He moved for some time among trees and thickets that lined the banks, and after a while he recognized familiar ground.  He had been in some of these places in the course of the siege of San Antonio, and the town could not be far away.

It was probably two hours before daylight when he heard a sound which was not that of the Norther, a sound which he knew instantly.  It was the dull clank of bronze against bronze.  It could be made only by one cannon striking against another.  Then Santa Anna, or one of his generals, despite the storm and the night, was advancing with his army, or a part of it.  Ned shivered, and now not from the cold.

The Texans did not understand the fiery energy of this man.  They would learn of it too late, unless he told them, and it might be too late even then.  He pressed on with as much increase of speed as the nature of the ground would allow.  In another hour the snow and hail ceased, but the wind still blew fiercely, and it remained very cold.

The dawn began to show dimly through drifting clouds.  Ned did not recall until long afterward that it was the birthday of the great Washington.  By a singular coincidence Santa Anna appeared before Taylor with a vastly superior force on the same birthday eleven years later.

It was a hidden sun, and the day was bleak with clouds and driving winds.  Nevertheless the snow that had fallen began to disappear.  Ned and Old Jack still made their way forward, somewhat slowly now, as they were stiff and sore from the long night’s fight with darkness and cold.  On his right, only a few feet away, was the swollen current of the San Antonio.  The stream looked deep to Ned, and it bore fragments of timber upon its muddy bosom.  It seemed to him that the waters rippled angrily against the bank.  His excited imagination—­and full cause there was—­gave a sinister meaning to everything.

A heavy fog began to rise from the river and wet earth.  He could not see far in front of him, but he believed that the town was now only a mile or two away.  Soon a low, heavy sound, a measured stroke, came out of the fog.  It was the tolling of the church bell in San Antonio, and for some reason its impact upon Ned’s ear was like the stroke of death.  A strange chilly sensation ran down his spine.

He rode to the very edge of the stream and began to examine it for a possible ford.  San Antonio was on the other side, and he must cross.  But everywhere the dark, swollen waters threatened, and he continued his course along the bank.

A thick growth of bushes and a high portion of the bank caused him presently to turn away from the river until he could make a curve about the obstacles.  The tolling of the bell had now ceased, and the fog was lifting a little.  Out of it came only the low, angry murmur of the river’s current.