When he had finished, Adjutant-General Johnson called for all those men who would pledge themselves to stay before Bejar until it was taken to step forward. Forward stepped, at once, more than half the army: Jim and Ernest, side by side, and Dick Carroll and almost all the Gonzales and Colorado men; the Brazos companies; and over in the First Division Sion, too (as Ernest wagered with himself), among the others.
Colonel Burleson was immediately elected commander to succeed General Austin. On the morning after the parade and the farewell address General Austin left for his home in San Felipe; thence to report to Governor Smith and proceed with the two other commissioners to the United States.
Everybody had confidence in General Burleson, and he had been unanimously elected. But now the army did not seem to know what they would like. Things were at sixes and sevens. Some of the men still wanted to storm Bejar; others wanted to wait; others wanted to go home until the regulars were organized. Even the volunteers from the United States were dissatisfied, and claimed that Texas had called them in under false pretences—they had been promised fighting and glory, and they were getting nothing of the kind.
To be sure, on the next day, November 26th, there was a smart little battle, by accident. About two o’clock in the afternoon Deaf Smith came at a gallop into camp, with the alarm that he had spied Ugartechea, at last, approaching Bejar from the other side, with a mule train of money for the Mexican soldiers.
Now the camp woke up in a hurry; orders to “Fall in! Fall in!” echoed right and left; there was a great scramble for guns and horses, and everybody yelled “Ugartechea! All out to capture Ugartechea!” Away sped Colonel Bowie with a troop—Deaf Smith guiding; and as fast as they could the main army followed after, the New Orleans Grays and the Mississippians under Captain Peacock being especially eager to show what they could do.
When Ernest and Jim, in the Captain Dickinson company with the main army, arrived near the place told of by Deaf Smith, the firing had begun. Colonel Bowie’s troop already had charged, and the Mexicans were fighting back from an arroyo, or dry stream-bed. A detachment of other Mexicans were hastening out from Bejar, which was only a mile away; and Colonel Bowie had been forced to turn and try to stop them.
It looked like quite a “scrimmage,” as Jim expressed.
“Forward, boys! Don’t let Bowie do it all,” urged young Captain Dickinson.
The horses broke into a gallop; the infantry into a run; and with wild cheers forward raced the Texan army. But the Mexicans in the arroyo had united with the rescuing party, and both were retreating for the town.
“They’ve left their pack-mules and panniers, anyhow,” panted Jim. “We’ll get the treasure. Hooray!”