“To make a long story short, about fifteen of the Mexicans were killed and the rest captured. That is, they were all captured except the three men that got across the river. A detachment was sent after them, but they got away. The wagon, empty as a last year’s bird’s nest, and one dead Mexican, were found about a mile and a half away from the river, but the other two had disappeared completely. Burleson rounded up his bunch and his prisoners, and found that he had lost only one man, who had drowned when he got chased off the bluff into the river. He reported to Houston with his prisoners, and that was the end of the expedition.
“As soon as Paw got out of the army, he come back up into this country and settled. His old homestead is about eight mile from here. He used to take me up the river often and show me where the battle took place, where the ferry-boat used to land, and where the cannon was pushed into the river. He used to talk a whole lot about that cannon, and to wonder what the idea was in dumping it into the river. He also wondered a good bit about what was in that wagon that the Mexicans had been so anxious to get across the river with. We never could quite decide why they were so bent on crossing the river with an empty wagon.
“Well, the things that happened in the next few years won’t interest you any. Paw died when I was ten years old, but I remembered all he had ever told me about the fight. When the Civil War broke out, I joined the Confederate Army, fought through the war, then come back to my folks here. About 1875 things begin to happen that made me remember everything I had ever heard about the fight at Boone’s Ferry.
“In or about that year, a slick-haired young Mexican come into the neighborhood and begin nosing around. He didn’t appear to have any particular business here, but seemed to be just looking around for somebody or something. After he’d been here for a [[88]]month or two he come to me one day and says that, as I was the oldest man in these parts, he’d like to make me a proposition. I didn’t get the connection between my age and his proposition, but agreed to listen; so we got down to what he wanted. He had a map that he claimed he got in an old monastery in Mexico, and that map proved to be right interesting. It outlined a piece of country beginning at Nacogdoches and coming due south. The end of the trail marked off was just about a mile and a half across the river, and the crossing was marked ‘Boone’s Ferry.’ I become all eyes and ears at once, specially when he started his story. He asked me if I knew where Boone’s Ferry was, and I says, ‘Sure.’ Then he opened up:
“ ‘My grandfather was with the Mexican band that was defeated by Burleson at this ferry. He was one of the two men that got away. Are you by any chance acquainted with the details of the battle?’
“And I says, ‘Some. My paw was in the fight, and has told me about it many a time.’
“ ‘Did he ever tell you about seeing a cannon shoved off in the river?’
“ ‘Many a time,’ says I.
“ ‘Mr. Clanton, did it ever occur to you to wonder just why that cannon was thrown into the river?’
“ ‘Well,’ I says, ‘I’ve wondered about it lots of times.’