The sight of the Mexican force in the afternoon became absolutely tantalizing. Although it was early autumn the days were still very hot at times and Castenada's men were certainly taking their ease. Ned could see many of them enjoying the siesta, and through a pair of glasses he saw others lolling luxuriously and smoking cigarettes. It was especially irritating to the Ring Tailed Panther, who grew very red in the face but who now only emitted growls between his shut teeth.
It was evident that the Mexicans were going to make no demonstration just yet and the night came, rather dark and cloudy. Now the anxiety in Gonzales increased since the night can be cover for anything, and, besides guarding the fords, several of the defenders were placed at intermediate points.
Ned took a station with Obed in a clump of oaks that grew to the very edge of the Guadalupe. There they sat a long time and watched the surface of the river grow darker and darker. The Mexican camp had been shut from sight long since, and no sounds now came from it. Ned appreciated fully the need of a close watch. The Mexicans might swim the river on their horses in the darkness, and gallop down on the town. So he never ceased to watch, and he also listened with ears which were rapidly acquiring the delicacy and sensitiveness peculiar to those of expert frontiersmen.
Ned was not warlike in temper. He knew, from his reading, all the waste and terrible passions of war, but he was heart and soul with the Texans. He was one of them, and to him the coming struggle was a fight for home and liberty by an oppressed people. With the ardor of youth flaming in him he was willing for that struggle to begin at once.
Night on the Guadalupe! He felt that the darkness was full of omens and presages for Texas and for him, too, a boy among its defenders. His pulses quivered, and a light moisture broke out on his face. His prescience, the gift of foresight, was at work. It was telling him that the time, in very truth, had come. Yet he could not see or hear a single thing that bore the remotest resemblance to an enemy.
The boy stepped from a clump of trees in order that he might get a better look down the river. There was a crack on the farther shore, a flash of fire, and a bullet sang past his ear. He caught a hasty glimpse of a Mexican with a smoking rifle leaping to cover, and he, too, sprang back into the shelter of the trees.
It was the first shot of the great Texan struggle for independence!
Ned felt all of its significance even then, and so did Obed.
"You saw him?" asked the Maine man.
"I did, and I felt the breath of his bullet on my face, but he gained cover too quick for me to return his fire."