“Many thanks, señor. I suppose I need not come if I don’t want to.” Then he saluted and retired to his troop. Ernest and Jim and all the other Texans cheered. Thus the matter rested.
“Cracky!” blurted Jim. “Wish they would try to cross. Wouldn’t we pepper ’em!”
“There comes the ferry,” informed Ernest “Maybe we’ll cross, ourselves.”
And sure enough, the ferry was being poled down from the mouth of the slough and was tied on the Gonzales side, ready for business.
But Lieutenant Castañeda did not try to cross. He camped his troop back from the river a short distance, on DeWitt’s Mound, as it was called. ’Twas rumored that he had dispatched couriers to Bejar, for help.
To-day the Gonzales volunteers were drilled in companies under the direction of Colonel Moore, and the cannon was loaded with the pieces of ox chains. Young Almeron Dickinson, who had been appointed a lieutenant, was placed in charge of it.
Everything seemed to be ready. Two hundred volunteers were present; the cannon was pointed at the ford. The next noon the Mexican dragoons were observed to ride away, up the river. The scouts who spied upon them reported that they had camped again, this time on Zeke Williams’s farm, seven miles above, but still west of the river, and were eating all the water-melons! Mr. Williams did not like this.
“What are we going to do now, I wonder?” ventured Ernest, to Jim. “Maybe they’re going back to Bejar without the cannon, and there won’t be any fight.”
“Shucks!” derided Jim, who was older and was supposed to know. “Don’t you believe there won’t be any fight. They’ll just wait for reinforcements. If we’re going to lick ’em we’d better lick ’em right away. You can count on old Colonel Moore to fix ’em plenty. Castañeda’s a republican, though, and against Santa Anna despotism, and like as not he doesn’t want to fight us other republicans. But if he’s under orders to take the cannon he’s got to do his best or else join with Texas.”
“Somebody says Ugartechea told him if we were too strong he’d better retreat and not wait to be licked, for if he was licked, that would hurt Mexico and help the Texan cause,” vouchsafed Ernest.