Another cannon sounded, and another, and then they heard the rapid reports of musketry from a score of points all along the lines.
"Bad luck!" groaned a ranger.
"They've got 'em!" said another.
"It's good-by, Davy Crockett, I'm afraid," said Bowie, in a voice that was deep with emotion. "We ought not to have let him go."
The expressions of regret for him and Carson were many and sincere, all around, but the cunning old bear hunter had been doing a remarkable piece of what passed with him for fun.
Only about ten minutes before the first alarm gun sounded a pair of shadows had been gliding along on the ground, midway between the two camps that were nearest to the fort gate.
"So far, so good," whispered one of them. "What's best to do next?"
"Straight into the corral," was the reply. "I allers feel at hum among hosses. They're kind o' friendly. Besides, you've got to hev one to travel on."
A very large number of them, of all sorts, had been picketed there, a short distance in the rear of the camps. They were guarded, of course, but they were entirely out of the supposable reach of Gringo thieves from the fort, and the guards were taking things easily. So were the quadrupeds, and not one of them was at all disturbed in his mind when two men who might belong to the same army slipped silently in among them.
"No Greaser kin see through a hoss," remarked one of the adventurers, "but I'll tell you what, my boy, your tightest squeeze is goin' to be in gettin' out on the further side. They're guardin' thar rear more'n they are toward the fort. They're on the watch for anything Sam Houston may let loose on 'em."