Away galloped the Deaf Smith Spy Company, commanded by Henry Karnes the red-head, to scout in advance. The army could always depend upon the Deaf Smith Spies. At slower pace the column followed, plodding wearily and hungrily through the damp timber and the tall prairie grass, cloaked in the chillness of early dawn.
After a march of seven miles, halt was ordered for breakfast at last, in the sunrise. Rations had given out, but several cattle were sighted near, and were driven in and killed. Speedily the soldiers, horse and foot, were grouped about fires, toasting the fresh meat on sticks, regular buccaneer fashion. The cannon horses were unfastened from the traces, and they and the mounts of the cavalry and the field officers industriously grazed. It was a wild and picturesque sight: 700 ragged, bedraggled, whiskered men (not to speak of the boys) squatting around fires, their guns in their laps, and all intently toasting bloody meat. The sun, which had risen above the timber of the crooked Buffalo Bayou, shone peacefully upon them, through the magnolias and live-oaks, and upon the prairie beyond.
This process of breakfast-getting was very slow; and Ernest, with eyes smarting and mouth watering, was manipulating his meat on his stick, trying to hurry it, when an exclamation from Jim interrupted him.
“Aw, shucks! Here come those scouts, lickity-split, as if they had some sort of a big tell! Why can’t they wait till a fellow’s eaten?”
Along the timber edge from the east a squad of the scouts, led by Deaf Smith, were racing back to the army.
“What’s the matter now?” hailed voices, impatiently.
“Saw the enemy. They’re on ahead a short piece. You-all’ll have to hurry.”
Up sprang the camp. The cannoneers leaped for their team, the cavalry for their saddles. Having listened shortly to the report of Deaf Smith, the general roared his orders—repeated briskly by Colonel Burleson and Colonel Sherman, and by the company captains.
“Fall in, men! Fall in!”