General Austin lingered hereabouts for a short time, hoping that the Mexicans would sally out to drive him away; but they did not, so he made camp at the mill.
This had brought Sion Bostick and Ernest and Jim together again. Sion and some men of his company secured permission to try the little Gonzales six-pounder on the Alamo. A squad of them under Captain Poe dragged it on by ropes within 400 yards of the Alamo; and while the army eagerly watched they fired several rounds. The solid balls knocked great puffs of dust from the Alamo walls, and the Alamo cannon replied. No harm was done, by either side, and presently, after a waste of ammunition, the cannon quit.
“We dusted their coats for ’em, anyway,” proclaimed Sion, returning in high glee to Ernest. “And we collected about a dozen of their cannon-balls. Traded more than even.”
So near was the camp to the Alamo that on still nights the Mexican sentinels could be heard crying, shrilly, one to another: “Sentinela alerte! Sentinela alerte! [Sentinel on the watch! Sentinel on the watch!]” This was the custom in the Mexican army. And there was a brass band, whose music, especially at morning and evening, floated across the space into the Texan camp.
Deserters from the town stated that General Cos had sent Colonel Ugartechea south to Laredo, on the Rio Grande River, for reinforcement. General Austin kept cavalry patrols constantly on the move beyond Bejar, in the hope that the reinforcements could be cut off. On November 8, William House of Captain William Austin’s company, on a scout in search of the reinforcements, was chased by Mexican lancers, and fell from his horse and broke his neck. Jim Hill went out with a party of fifty men to bring in the body, and had a story to tell Ernest and Sion of a fight with 250 Mexicans, in which the 250 were well threshed.
Captain Travis’s company of scouts captured thirty horses that General Cos had turned out of Bejar because there was no forage for them.
Sion Bostick’s crowd were given permission again to try the cannon. They put it in an irrigating ditch only 300 yards from the Alamo, and fired away. This appeared to enrage the Mexicans in the Alamo, who replied hotly, and even shot at the camp. Several Mexicans on the walls of the Alamo were killed by Texan sharpshooters; but the cannon on both sides being small, did no more damage than before. Sion and his comrade cannoneers could be seen picking up the Mexican round-shot and loading those that fitted into the cannon in the ditch, and sending them back again.
But all these scoutings and bombardments were not enough for the Texas volunteers. They wanted to take Bejar and be done, and go home to their families and crops. Even Jim grew dissatisfied, although he had agreed with Ernest and Leo to “stick.”
“We didn’t enlist for camp duty and fooling ’round,” he said. “We weren’t even sworn in. We just gathered together and came to drive the Mexican soldiers out of Texas, so we could go home again for Christmas and have a little peace. We aren’t bound to stay here this way waiting. We’ve got enough men to wade right through Bejar. Fannin says that two hundred and fifty men of the proper sort could do the business.”
“Yes, but he said if they were properly drilled. We aren’t drilled much,” answered Ernest. “The men are always making General Austin mad by shooting at marks around camp and by going off home without permission. He says he’s worn out trying to regulate ’em. And Travis says we’re patriotic, all right, but we aren’t much more than a mob.”