His awful experience had driven Carlos Martine entirely out of Dan's head, and all the youth thought of now was to rejoin his father and his brother.
"They will worry about us, Poke," he said. "More than likely they will think us dead, for they must know that all of the Texans in and about San Antonio went to the Alamo when Santa Anna appeared."
"You are right, lad; we'll steer for the ranch the first thing in the morning," answered Stover, and this they did, riding two ponies that Mrs. Woodver loaned them.
When the pair reached Gonzales they found the town wild with excitement. The news of the disaster of the Alamo had just come in, and by the deaths of the thirty-two men from Gonzales who had entered the mission shortly before it fell, twenty women were left widows and twice as many children fatherless. One woman went crazy, and rushed about the streets crying for the Mexicans to come and kill her, too. It is needless to add that the Parkers were deeply affected over the loss of Henry.
As Dan and Stover were about to start for the trail leading up the Guadalupe, they met Amos Radbury riding post-haste into Gonzales.
"My son!" cried the father, joyfully. "And Poke, too! I was afraid you were dead!"
"We came close enough to it, father," answered Dan. And then he and the frontiersman told their stories in detail.
"I would have gone with the men from Gonzales," said Lieutenant Radbury, "but I hated to leave Ralph home with nobody but Pompey. These are certainly terrible times. I wonder what Santa Anna will do next?"
"Perhaps he'll march on Gonzales," said the youth. "It looks as if he meant to wipe out everybody in Texas."
"The whole State is aroused now. It must and will be a fight to the finish. If the Texans are whipped, every ranch will go up in flames, and every man will be butchered."