Bowie distributed sentinels at the openings, including the new one made by the fire, and then the Texans took count of themselves.  They had not escaped unscathed.  One lying on the floor had received a bullet in his head and had died in silence, unnoticed in the battle.  Two men had suffered wounds, but they were not severe, and would not keep them from taking part in a renewal of the combat, should it come.

All this reckoning was made in the dusk of the old convent, and with the weariness of both body and soul that comes after a period of great and prolonged exertion.  Within the two rooms that they had defended, the odor of burned gunpowder was strong, stinging throat and nostrils.  Eddies of smoke hung between floor and ceiling.  Many of the men coughed, and it was long before they could reduce the horses to entire quiet.

They wrapped the dead man in his blankets and laid him in the corner.  They bound up the hurts of the others, as best they could and then, save for the watching, they relaxed completely.  Ned, his back against the wall, sat with his friends Obed and the Ring Tailed Panther.  He was utterly exhausted, and even in the dusk the men noticed it.

“Here, Ned,” said Obed, “take a chew of this.  You may not feel that you need it, but it will be a good thing for you.”

He extended a strip of dried venison.  Ned thanked him and ate, although he had not felt hungry.  By and by he grew stronger, and then Bowie called to him.

“Ned,” he said, “crawl across the floor again.  Be sure you do not raise your head until you reach the wall.  Then ring the bell, until I tell you to stop.  I’ve a notion that somebody will come by morning.  Boys, the rest of you be ready with your rifles.  It was the bell before that brought on the attack.”

Ned slid across the floor, and once more pulled the rope with the old fervor, sending the notes of the tune that he could play best far out over the valley of the San Antonio.  But no reply came from the Comanches.  They did not dare to rush the place again in the face of those deadly Texan rifles.  They made no sound while the bell played on, but the Texans knew that they still lay behind the adobe wall, ready for a shot at any incautious head.

Ned rang for a full half hour, before Bowie told him to quit.  Then he crept back to his place.  He put his head on his folded blanket and, although not intending it, fell asleep, despite the close air of the place.  But he awoke before it was dawn, and hastily sat up, ashamed.  When he saw in the dark that half the men were asleep he was ashamed no longer.  Bowie, who was standing by one of the doors, but sheltered from a shot, smiled at him.

“The sun will rise in a half hour, Ned,” he said, “and you’ve waked up in time to hear the answer to your ringing of the bell.  Listen!”

Ned strained his ears, and he heard a faint far sound, musical like his own call.  It seemed to him to be the note of a trumpet.