CHAPTER XIV
THE RING TAILED PANTHER
Texas was then a vague and undetermined name in the minds of many. It might extend to the Rio Grande or it might extend only to the Nueces, but to most the Rio Grande was the boundary between them and Mexico. So felt Ned and all his comrades. They were now on the soil which might own the overlordship of Mexico, but for which they, the Texans, were spending their blood. It was strange what an attachment they had for it, although not one of them was born there. Beyond, in the outer world, there was much arguing about the right or wrong of their case, but they knew that they would have to fight for their lives, and for the homes they had built in the wilderness on the faith of promises that had been broken. That to them was the final answer and to people in such a position there could be no other.
The sight of Texas, green and fertile, with much forest along the streams was very pleasant to Ned, and those rough frontiersmen in buckskin who rode with him were the very men whom he had chosen. He had been in a great city, and he had talked with men in brilliant uniforms, but there everything seemed old, so far away in thought and manner from the Texans, and he could never believe the words of the men in brilliant uniforms. There, the land itself looked ancient and worn, but here it was fresh and green, and men spoke the truth.
They rode until nearly noon, when they stopped in a fine grove of oaks and pecans by the side of a clear creek. The grass was also rich and deep here, and they did not take the trouble to tether their horses. Ned was exceedingly glad to dismount as he was stiff and sore from the long ride, and he was also as hungry as a wolf.
"Lay down on the grass, Ned, an' stretch yourself," said Karnes. "When you're tired the best way to rest is to be just as lazy as you can be. The ground will hold you up an' let your lungs do their own breathin'. Don't you go to workin' 'em yourself."
Ned thought it good advice and took it. It was certainly a great luxury to make no physical exertion and just to let the ground hold him up, as Karnes had said. Obed imitated his example, stretching himself out to his great thin length on the soft turf.
"Two are company and twenty are more so," he said, "especially if you're in a wild country. My burden of care isn't a quarter as heavy since we met Jim Bowie, and all the rest of these sure friends and sure shots. This isn't much like San Juan de Ulua is it, Ned? You wouldn't like to be back there."
The boy looked up at the vast blue dome of the heavens, then he listened a moment to the sigh of the free wind which came unchecked a thousand miles and he replied with so much emphasis that his words snapped: