The next afternoon Mr. Carroll pointed ahead.
“San Felipe on the Brazos,” he announced. “First American town founded in Texas, headquarters of Steve Austin’s colony, and sort of capital for the whole outfit of us. We’ll stop there to-night, and at Burnam’s on the Colorado to-morrow night, and day after we’ll push on through to Gonzales.”
San Felipe was a straggling little town, with scattered houses of logs and of thick, rough-sawed siding like clapboards, and dusty but wide streets, centering about two public squares or plazas. There was a tavern, run by a settler named Whitesides, and a double log house where lived Stephen Austin himself, the “Father of Texas.” He was away from town, just now, on business. Mr. Carroll thought that at least 1500 people formed the population of the San Felipe neighborhood. The farms were said to be the most prosperous in Texas.
This night’s lodging was at the house of another friend—Mr. R. M. Williamson, one of whose legs was bent at the knee, so that he moved by help of a crutch. He had been alcalde, or mayor, of San Felipe, and was called “Three-legged Willie.” He seemed to be a fine man, of quick, decisive action.
What he and Mr. Carroll talked upon, late into the night, Ernest did not know—he did not stay awake to hear.
“Thirty miles to-day,” quoth the Texan, as in the morning he and Ernest ambled out of San Felipe. “Fifty to-morrow, and then we’re there.”
The trace continued into the west. And again it was a rather lonesome trail, save for the very few ranches, and an occasional traveller by horse—now and then an American in buckskins or coarse cloth, and now and then a swarthy Mexican enveloped in a blanket. If there were 20,000 Americans settled in Texas, they must be settled at great intervals; and this Ernest soon learned was true.
“Yon’s the Colorado,” informed Mr. Carroll, toward evening, as they jogged slowly, saving their horses for the longer ride to-morrow. “The Burnams live across on the west bank. Hope the captain’s at home. Want you to meet him. He’s four-square. One of the original Austin settlers, he is. Came out hereabouts from East Texas along in ’22. Took sick in the War of 1812, and he was the porest man in Texas, I reckon. Born pore, in fact—and when he married, in Tennessee, his wife had to sell her stockings to get plates to eat off of. But he’s getting ahead, now, and he’s a powerful Injun fighter. That’s the kind of stuff we have in Texas, to make a state; and it’s the right stuff, too.”
Burnam’s Crossing was a ford at the Colorado River, but a ferry was operated here, also, in high water. From the east bank, where another settler lived, the Burnam ranch could be seen, opposite: a log house built like a block-house, and several out-structures. Ernest and his guide plashed through the water.
Yes, Captain Burnam was at home, for when they drew up before the hitching rail in front of the ranch yard a bearded man hastened from the corral to greet them.