"Not for worlds, Obed!"
Obed White laughed and rolled over in the grass.
"I do believe you mean that, Ned," he said, "and the sentiments that you speak so well are also mine own."
Smith and Karnes went a little distance up the creek, and found some buffalo feeding. They shot a young cow, and in an incredibly short space tender steaks were broiling over a fire. After dinner all but two went to sleep. They understood well the old maxim that the more haste the less speed, and that the sleep and rest through the hours of the afternoon would make them fit for the long riding that was yet before them.
At five o'clock they were in the saddle again, and rode until midnight. The next morning the party separated. The men were to carry the blazing torch throughout the settlements, telling all the Texans that the Mexicans were coming and that they were bringing war with them. But Bowie, "Deaf" Smith and Karnes kept on with Ned and Obed.
"We're taking you to Sam Houston," said Bowie to Ned. "He's to be the general of all the Texan forces, we think, and we want you to tell him what you've told us."
They began now to see signs of settlements in the river bottoms where the forests grew. There were stray little log cabins, almost hidden among the oaks and pecans. Women and children came forth to see the riders go by. The women were tanned like the men, and often they, too, were clothed in buckskin. The children, bare of foot and head, seemed half wild, but all, despite the sun, had the features of the Northern races.
Ned could not keep from waving his hand to them. These were his people, and he was thankful that he should have so large a part in the attempt to save them. But he only had fleeting glimpses because they rode very fast now. He was going to Sam Houston, famous throughout all the Southwest, and Houston was at one of the little new settlements some distance away. He would tell his story again, but he knew that the Texans were already gathering. The messengers detached from the group had now carried the alarm to many a cabin.
Several times at night they saw points of fire on the horizon and they would pause to look at them.
"That's the Texans signaling to one another," said "Deaf" Smith. "They're passing the word westward. They're calling in the buffalo hunters and those who went out to fight the Comanches and Lipans."