The Texan Star Part 37

They could not take much aim, because of the smoke, but their bullets wounded two Texans. Despite the danger Bowie and most of his men were still compelled to work at the fire. The room was full of smoke, and behind them the horses were yet struggling with those who held them.

The Ring Tailed Panther lay down and resting himself on one elbow took aim with his rifle. He was almost clear of the smoke which hung in a bank above him. Ned noticed him and imitated him. He saw a dusky figure outside and when he fired it fell. The Ring Tailed Panther did as well, and Obed joined them. While Bowie and the others were das.h.i.+ng out the fire, three great marksmen were driving back the Comanches who sought to take advantage of the diversion.

"Good! good!" cried Bowie, as they knocked out the last burning plank.

"That ends the fire," said Obed, "and now we've got a hole here which is not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a barn door, but I do not think it will suffice for our friends, the Comanches."

All the men turned their attention to the enemy, and, lying on the ground, they took as good aim as the darkness would permit. The Texan rifles cracked fast and, despite the darkness, the bullets often found the chosen targets. The Comanches had been shouting the war whoop continuously, but now their cries began to die, and their fire died with it. Never a very good marksman, the Indian was no match for the Texans, every one of whom was a sharpshooter, armed with a fine rifle of long range.

The Texans also fired from the shelter of the building, and, as the great cloud was now parting, letting through shafts from the moon, the Comanches were unable to find good hiding in the weeds and gra.s.s. The bullets pursued them there. No matter how low they lay the keen eye of some Texan searched them out, and sent in the fatal or wounding bullet.

Soon they were driven to the shelter of the adobe wall, where they lay, and for a little while returned a scattering fire which did no harm.

After it ceased no Comanche uttered a war whoop and there was silence again, save for the rain which now trickled down softly.

Bowie distributed sentinels at the openings, including the new one made by the fire, and then the Texans took count of themselves. They had not escaped unscathed. One lying on the floor had received a bullet in his head and had died in silence, unnoticed in the battle. Two men had suffered wounds, but they were not severe, and would not keep them from taking part in a renewal of the combat, should it come.

All this reckoning was made in the dusk of the old convent, and with the weariness of both body and soul that comes after a period of great and prolonged exertion. Within the two rooms that they had defended, the odor of burned gunpowder was strong, stinging throat and nostrils.

Eddies of smoke hung between floor and ceiling. Many of the men coughed, and it was long before they could reduce the horses to entire quiet.

They wrapped the dead man in his blankets and laid him in the corner.

They bound up the hurts of the others, as best they could and then, save for the watching, they relaxed completely. Ned, his back against the wall, sat with his friends Obed and the Ring Tailed Panther. He was utterly exhausted, and even in the dusk the men noticed it.

"Here, Ned," said Obed, "take a chew of this. You may not feel that you need it, but it will be a good thing for you."

He extended a strip of dried venison. Ned thanked him and ate, although he had not felt hungry. By and by he grew stronger, and then Bowie called to him.

"Ned," he said, "crawl across the floor again. Be sure you do not raise your head until you reach the wall. Then ring the bell, until I tell you to stop. I've a notion that somebody will come by morning. Boys, the rest of you be ready with your rifles. It was the bell before that brought on the attack."

Ned slid across the floor, and once more pulled the rope with the old fervor, sending the notes of the tune that he could play best far out over the valley of the San Antonio. But no reply came from the Comanches. They did not dare to rush the place again in the face of those deadly Texan rifles. They made no sound while the bell played on, but the Texans knew that they still lay behind the adobe wall, ready for a shot at any incautious head.

Ned rang for a full half hour, before Bowie told him to quit. Then he crept back to his place. He put his head on his folded blanket and, although not intending it, fell asleep, despite the close air of the place. But he awoke before it was dawn, and hastily sat up, ashamed.

When he saw in the dark that half the men were asleep he was ashamed no longer. Bowie, who was standing by one of the doors, but sheltered from a shot, smiled at him.

"The sun will rise in a half hour, Ned," he said, "and you've waked up in time to hear the answer to your ringing of the bell. Listen!"

Ned strained his ears, and he heard a faint far sound, musical like his own call. It seemed to him to be the note of a trumpet.

"Hors.e.m.e.n are coming," said Bowie, "and unless I am far wrong they are Texans. Ring again, Ned."

The bell boomed forth once more, and for the last time. Clear and sharp, came the peal of the trumpet in answer. One by one the men awoke. The light was now appearing in the East, the gray trembling into silver.

From the valley came the rapid beat of hoofs, a rifle shot and then three or four more. Bowie ran out at the door, and Ned followed him.

Across the meadows the Comanches scurried on their ponies, and a group of white men sent a volley after them. Then the white men galloped toward the convent. Bowie walked forward to meet them.

"You were never more welcome, Fannin," he said to the leader of the group.

The man sprang from his horse, and grasped Bowie's hand.

"We rode as fast as we could, but I didn't know it was you, Jim," he said. "Some of our scouts heard a bell somewhere playing The Star Spangled Banner in the night. We thought they were dreaming, but they swore to it. So we concluded it must be a call for help and I came with the troop that you see here. We lost the direction once or twice, but the bell called us back."

"For that," said Bowie, "you have to thank this boy here, a boy in years only, a man in action, and two men in mind and courage. This is Ned Fulton, Colonel Fannin."

Ned blushed and expostulated, but Bowie took nothing back. Fannin looked about him curiously.

"You seem to have had something of a fight here," he said. "Down in the gra.s.s and weeds we saw several Comanches who will trouble no more."

"We had all we wanted," said Bowie, "and we shall be glad to ride at once with you to camp. I bring some good men for the cause, and there are more behind."

They buried the fallen man in the old flower garden, and then rode swiftly for the Texan camp on the Salado.

CHAPTER XVIII

IN SAN ANTONIO

It was a crisp October morning, and as he galloped through the fresh air, all of Ned's spirits came back to him. He would soon be with the full array of the Texans, marching forward boldly to meet Cos himself and all his forces. The great strain of the fight the night before pa.s.sed away as he inhaled the sparkling air. The red came back to his cheeks, and he felt that he was ready to go wherever the boldest of the Texans led. The Ring Tailed Panther shared his emotions.

"Fine, isn't it?" said he. "Great valley, too, but it oughtn't to belong to the Mexicans. It's been going down under them for a long time. They haven't been able to protect it from Comanches, Apaches and Lipans. The old convent that we held last night had been abandoned for fear of the Indians, an' lots of other work that the Spaniards an' Mexicans did has gone the same way."

The beauty of the country increased, as they rode. Fine springs of cold water gushed from the hills and flowed down into the clear green stream of the San Antonio. The groves of oaks and pecans were superb, but they pa.s.sed more desolate and abandoned buildings and crossed more irrigation ditches choked up with refuse.

Bowie called Ned up to his side, and had him to relate again all that he had seen and heard in Mexico.

"Mr. Austin is at the camp," said Fannin, "and he has been asking about you."

Ned's heart thrilled. There was a strong bond between him and the gentle, kindly man who strove so hard to serve both Texas and Mexico, and whom Santa Anna had long kept a prisoner for his pains.

"When will we reach the camp?" he asked Bowie.

"In less than a half hour. See, the scouts have already sighted us."

The scouts came up in a few moments, and then they drew near the camp.

Ned, eager of eye, observed everything.

The heart of the camp was in the center of a pecan grove, where a few tents for the leading men stood, but the Texans were spread all about in both groves and meadows, where they slept under the open sky. They wore no uniforms. All were in hunting suits of dressed deerskin or homespun, but they were well armed with the long rifles which they knew how to use with such wonderful skill. They had no military tactics, but they invariably pressed in where the foe was thickest and the danger greatest. They were gathered now in hundreds from all the Texas settlements to defend the homes that they had built in the wilderness, and Cos with his Mexican army did not dare to come out of San Antonio.

The Texans welcomed Bowie and his men with loud acclaim. Ned and his comrades unsaddled, tethered their horses and lay down luxuriously in the gra.s.s. Mr. Austin was busy in his tent at a conference of the leaders and Ned would wait until the afternoon to see him. Obed suggested that they take a nap.

"In war eat when you can and sleep when you can," he said. "Sleep lost once is lost forever."

"Obed has got some sense if he don't look like it," chuckled the Ring Tailed Panther. "Here's to followin' his advice."

Ned took it, too, and slept until the afternoon, when a messenger asked him to come to Mr. Austin's tent, a large one, with the sides now open.

Obed was invited to come with him, and, as Ned stood in the door of the tent the mild, grave man advanced eagerly, a glow of pleasure and affection on his face.

"My boy! my boy!" he said, putting both hands on Ned's shoulders. "I was sure that I should never see you again, after you made your wonderful escape from our prison in Mexico. But you are here in Texas none the worse, and they tell me you have pa.s.sed through a very Odyssey of hards.h.i.+p and danger."

Water stood in Ned's eyes. He rejoiced in the affection and esteem of this man, and yet Mr. Austin was very unlike the rest of the Texans.