“You don’t speak, but your face asks your question, Ned,” he said.  “I hate to say it, but we can’t hold this roof.  I never knew the Mexicans to shoot so well before, and their numbers and cannon give them a great advantage.  Below, lads, as soon as you can!”

They crept down the stairway, and found that the house itself was suffering from the Mexican cannon.  Holes had been smashed in the walls, but here the Texans were always replying with their rifles.  They also heard the steady fire in the house of De La Garcia and they knew that their comrades were standing fast.  Ned, exhausted by the great tension, sat down on a willow sofa.  His hands were trembling and his face was wet with perspiration.  The Ring Tailed Panther sat down beside him.

“Good plan to rest a little, Ned,” he said.  “We’ve come right into a hornets’ nest an’ the hornets are stingin’ us hard.  Listen to that, will you!”

A cannon ball smashed through the wall, passed through the room in which they were sitting, and dropped spent in another room beyond.  Obed joined them on the sofa.

“A cannon ball never strikes in the same place twice,” misquoted Obed.  “So it’s safer here than it is anywhere else in this Veramendi house.  I’d help with the rifles but there’s no room for me at the windows and loopholes just now.”

“Our men are giving it back to them,” said Ned.  “Listen how the rifles crackle!”

The battle was increasing in heat.  The Mexicans, despite their artillery, and their heavy barricades, were losing heavily at the hands of the sharpshooters.  The Texans, sheltered in the buildings, were suffering little, but their position was growing more dangerous every minute.  They were inside the town, but the force of Burleson outside was unable to come to their aid.  Meanwhile, they must fight five to one, but they addressed themselves with unflinching hearts to the task.  Even in the moment of imminent peril they did not think of retreat, but clung to their original purpose of taking San Antonio.

Ned, tense and restless, was unable to remain more than a few minutes on the sofa.  He wandered into another room and saw a large table spread with food.  Bread and meat were in the dishes, and there were pots of coffee.  All was now cold.  Evidently they had been making ready for early breakfast in the Veramendi house when the Texans came.  Ned called to his friends.

“Why shouldn’t we use it!” he said, “even if it is cold?”

“Why shouldn’t we?” said Obed.  “Even though we fight we must live.”

They took the food and coffee, cold as it was, to the men, and they ate and drank eagerly.  Then they searched everywhere and found large supplies of provisions in the house, so much, in fact, that the Ring Tailed Panther growled very pleasantly between his teeth.

“There’s enough here,” he said, “to last two or three days, an’ it’s well when you’re in a fort, ready to stand a siege, to have something to eat.”