When Ned awoke the dawn was barely showing, but all the horses, including his own, were saddled and ready.  They ate a brief breakfast, and then they galloped northward over a good country.  They did not trouble to look for the army of Cos, as they knew that it was coming and it was their object to spread the alarm as soon as possible through all the Texas settlements.  Ned, refreshed and strong, was in the center of the troop and he rode with a light heart.  Obed was on one side of him, and “Deaf” Smith on the other.

“To-night,” said Smith, “we water our horses in the Rio Grande.”

“And then ho for Texas!” said Obed.

On they sped, their even pace unbroken until noon, when they made a short rest for food and water.  Then they sped north once more, Bowie, Smith and Karnes leading the way.  They said very little now, but every one in the group was thinking of the scattered Texans, of the women and children in the little cabins beyond the Rio Grande, harried already by Comanches and Lipans and now threatened by a great Mexican force.  They had come from different states and often they were of differing counsels, but a common danger would draw them together.  It was significant that Smith, the New Yorker, and Bowie, the Georgian, rode side by side.

All through the hot sun of the afternoon they rode on.  Twilight found them still riding.  Far in the night they waded and swam the Rio Grande, and the next morning they stood on the soil that now is Texas.

CHAPTER XIV

THE RING TAILED PANTHER

Texas was then a vague and undetermined name in the minds of many.  It might extend to the Rio Grande or it might extend only to the Nueces, but to most the Rio Grande was the boundary between them and Mexico.  So felt Ned and all his comrades.  They were now on the soil which might own the overlordship of Mexico, but for which they, the Texans, were spending their blood.  It was strange what an attachment they had for it, although not one of them was born there.  Beyond, in the outer world, there was much arguing about the right or wrong of their case, but they knew that they would have to fight for their lives, and for the homes they had built in the wilderness on the faith of promises that had been broken.  That to them was the final answer and to people in such a position there could be no other.

The sight of Texas, green and fertile, with much forest along the streams was very pleasant to Ned, and those rough frontiersmen in buckskin who rode with him were the very men whom he had chosen.  He had been in a great city, and he had talked with men in brilliant uniforms, but there everything seemed old, so far away in thought and manner from the Texans, and he could never believe the words of the men in brilliant uniforms.  There, the land itself looked ancient and worn, but here it was fresh and green, and men spoke the truth.