Jim turned quickly in his saddle. The voice had issued from the ranks of a company of infantry standing at ease, about seventy-five yards distant; a figure toward the end of the line waved his hat.
“Sion Bostick, sure as shooting!” exclaimed Jim. Away he galloped, pulled short, in front of the company ranks, sprang from his horse and shook hands vigorously with Sion.
Presently he came loping back.
“That’s Sion, all right, from down near Beason’s. Walked all the way, till his feet are plumb blistered. Had to leave his horse at home for the ploughing. You’ll meet him at camp.”
General Austin evidently had decided to heed the advice of Colonel Bowie, for orders were being given to camp here at Concepcion. A council of war was held at once. It also voted to postpone the attack upon Bejar and the Alamo; for the Alamo alone, according to Colonel Bowie, possessed thirty pieces of artillery, which commanded all the approaches, and against which the two six-pounders, from Gonzales and from Goliad, could do little. As for the captured Mexican four-pounder, it had no ammunition.
As soon as camp was made, and the companies dismissed, Sion looked Jim up, and Ernest was introduced to him. He was a sturdy, tanned and freckled boy of sixteen (same age as Jim) armed with a long, heavy-barrelled Kentucky rifle, as tall as he was. It had been his father’s, he said; but his father had died almost two years ago, so now it was his.
“I joined as soon as my mother’d let me,” he explained. “She finally ’lowed I could come along with Cap’n Splann’s company. I don’t know what this war’s all about, but here I am. The school’s busted up, anyhow. Nigh everybody down our way’s enlisted, and the kids that aren’t big enough to take the war-path have got to work at home. You fellows must have had a toler’bly smart little fight.”
“Well, I should say,” asserted Jim. “That prairie yonder looks like it.”
“The whole army’d have got here before sun-up,” declared Sion, “only that those East Texans went along with the delegates to guard ’em, and when Macomb came in reporting where you fellows all were, two more companies were sent back after the first company, to fetch ’em in, and we had to wait. The two companies came in without the first company, but then it was after sun-up already. If it hadn’t have been for that, we’d have got here in time for the fight, and the whole outfit of those Mexicans would have been captured. Then General Cos in Bejar would have listened to us, I reckon. I tell you what, Steve Austin was right vexed when he heard Bowie was going to stay here instead of obeying orders and turning back. It might have meant the loss of all of you, and that’d have left the army in a pretty pickle, with near a hundred men wiped out.”
“Aw,” answered Jim, bravely, “we stayed and did a good job. Ninety of us walloped four hundred, and we’re ready to do it again.”