Part 21

SIR: This morning we are in preparation to meet Santa Anna. It is the only chance of saving Texas. From time to time I have looked for reinforcements in vain. The convention adjourning to Harrisburg struck _panic_ throughout the country. Texas could have started at least four thousand men. We will only have about seven hundred to march with, besides the camp guard. We go to conquer. It is wisdom, growing out of necessity, to meet the enemy now; every consideration enforces it. No previous occasion would justify it....

“Sounds like business,” approved one of the men, as the note was circulated.

Toward sunset only one boatload of the infantry remained to be ferried. Sion and Leo had gone――they had waved to Jim and Ernest; and balancing, Sion had grinned with glee at the adventure.

“Cavalry’s turn, now, gentlemen,” called Colonel Rusk. “Swim your horses well below the ferry, and don’t crowd.”

“Come on, boys,” bade Colonel Sherman. “Tie up your bridles.”

The bridle lines were tied loosely about the horses’ necks, so that the animals would not entangle their feet, and by companies the horses were led to the water’s edge. Then the men fell back, forming a half circle, to shout and wave their arms and hats, and crowd the horses forward. In plunged the gallant Colonel Sherman, to head his own horse across, and slipping from the saddle, to swim alongside, holding by the mane.

On the bank the front rank of horses were pressed forward by their comrades behind, jostling and snorting to the shouting and waving of the men. Presently in splashed one horse, and another, and another, to launch in the wake of the Colonel Sherman horse. Some disappeared entirely as they took the plunge into the deep water. In went Jim’s horse; in went Duke――practically heels over head; and Ernest watched anxiously for him to break the surface again, for it was well known that if a horse got water in his ears, while swimming, he would drown. But up bobbed Duke’s yellow head; he blew the water from his nostrils, and bravely stuck out along with the procession.

Every horse of the sixty reached the opposite bank without mishap; scrambling out, shook himself violently, and joined his fellows, herded together by the first of the cavalrymen ferried across.

The baggage wagon and the Twin Sisters had been rafted over. Twilight was gathering when the last boatload of men was landed. Colonel Rusk accompanied it. He stepped ashore, and he and General Houston gripped each other’s hands. The camp guard left at the other side cheered.

“Thank God,” uttered the general. And, to the colonels commanding: “Form the ranks.”

Now across Buffalo Bayou, on the Harrisburg and Santa Anna side toiled the little army, at best pace. In the darkness they clattered over a bridge which crossed a branch bayou running north into Buffalo Bayou.

Vince’s Bayou, was this, by report along the column, and Vince’s Bridge of the road from Harrisburg: the road taken by the Mexican army. But presently the column left the main road and diverged to the left, following closer the timber down Buffalo Bayou.

“Great Cæsar!” murmured Jim, dimly seen as he rode at Ernest’s right hand. “If this keeps up all night we’ll reach the mouth at the San Jacinto, and Lynch’s. Can’t go any further then without more ferrying.”

By midnight the infantry were staggering and stumbling, and even the horses moved on leaden feet. But nobody complained. Seven hundred fighting Texans were hot on the hunt for 600 hateful invading Mexicans, and the two trails would meet somewhere close ahead.

At one o’clock by the stars (for the sky had cleared at last) the order to rest for two hours was given. The infantry dropped in their tracks, Ernest and Jim and the other horsemen simply tumbled from their saddles. And here concealed in the fragrant evergreens the little army panted and shivered and dozed.

“After this war’s over,” mused Jim, drowsily, huddling under his wet blanket beside Ernest, “I’m going to change my clothes. A fellow likes a clean shirt and dry socks _once_ in a while! Maybe to-morrow I’ll capture an officer and take his. Those Mexican officers dress fine.”

“Guess Sion and Leo are getting all the action they want, this time,” stammered Ernest, with teeth chattering. “But we’re lucky that none of us had to stay with that camp guard, back at the bayou crossing.”

“Those fellows certainly did hate to stay,” agreed Jim. “They’re liable to have to fight the whole Mexican army, though, if there’s a retreat. Or Cos may attack ’em on his way in.”

Ernest dropped into an uneasy sleep. He dreamed that he was home and that his mother was trying to tuck him in bed with covers which were too short!

The easternmost stars were just paling when the camp was aroused by orders to fall in again. Stiffly all obeyed. Ernest had faint recollection of the usual three taps of the drum, from the general’s quarters, as first signal――but he had found it very hard to obey them. However, now the officers were urging――the general’s voice was echoing through the grayness――somebody said that he had slept with the coil of cannon rope for a pillow――and into the cold saddles on the hunched horses must the cavalry climb.

“Hee-yaw!” yawned Jim. “We’re riding, anyhow. Only the cavalry and the high-up officers have horses. That’s tough on some of the officers who’ve been a-straddle all the way from the Colorado.”

“Wonder if we ever eat again,” responded Ernest, who had a woefully hollow feeling.

“Sure thing,” asserted Jim. “The general, he’ll just take us in sight of those Mexicans cooking breakfast――so we can smell the coffee, you know; then he won’t have to give a single order, but you’ll see us charge a-whooping, for the kettles!”

Camp had been made without supper. The march was made without breakfast. Nobody could accuse the general, now, of dilly-dallying!

Away galloped the Deaf Smith Spy Company, commanded by Henry Karnes the red-head, to scout in advance. The army could always depend upon the Deaf Smith Spies. At slower pace the column followed, plodding wearily and hungrily through the damp timber and the tall prairie grass, cloaked in the chillness of early dawn.

After a march of seven miles, halt was ordered for breakfast at last, in the sunrise. Rations had given out, but several cattle were sighted near, and were driven in and killed. Speedily the soldiers, horse and foot, were grouped about fires, toasting the fresh meat on sticks, regular buccaneer fashion. The cannon horses were unfastened from the traces, and they and the mounts of the cavalry and the field officers industriously grazed. It was a wild and picturesque sight: 700 ragged, bedraggled, whiskered men (not to speak of the boys) squatting around fires, their guns in their laps, and all intently toasting bloody meat. The sun, which had risen above the timber of the crooked Buffalo Bayou, shone peacefully upon them, through the magnolias and live-oaks, and upon the prairie beyond.

This process of breakfast-getting was very slow; and Ernest, with eyes smarting and mouth watering, was manipulating his meat on his stick, trying to hurry it, when an exclamation from Jim interrupted him.

“Aw, shucks! Here come those scouts, lickity-split, as if they had some sort of a big tell! Why can’t they wait till a fellow’s eaten?”

Along the timber edge from the east a squad of the scouts, led by Deaf Smith, were racing back to the army.

“What’s the matter now?” hailed voices, impatiently.

“Saw the enemy. They’re on ahead a short piece. You-all’ll have to hurry.”

Up sprang the camp. The cannoneers leaped for their team, the cavalry for their saddles. Having listened shortly to the report of Deaf Smith, the general roared his orders――repeated briskly by Colonel Burleson and Colonel Sherman, and by the company captains.

“Fall in, men! Fall in!”

“By gravy, I don’t leave my meat, you can bet,” scolded Jim, running, with his laden, smoking stick, for his horse. Ernest followed his example. Men were doing the same. The army “chawed” as they went.

The scouts reported that a few miles before they had encountered an advance guard of the Mexican army――had been chased but had escaped. Nobody killed. By all appearances the Mexican army were marching from New Washington north to cross the San Jacinto and the mouth of the bayou at Lynch’s Ferry. Washington had been burned.

Throughout the ranks, afoot and mounted, rifles began to crack. Jim promptly shot into the air, and swiftly reloaded.

“Go ahead. Clean out your gun,” he bade, to Ernest; and Ernest likewise pulled harmless trigger. His little rifle spoke smartly.

The general came riding furiously down the column.

“Stop that firing!” he fairly bellowed.

“No, we won’t, general,” replied somebody, good-naturedly. “Our guns have been loaded over two weeks and we don’t intend to meet the enemy with our powder wet.”

The general drew his sword.

“I’ll run the next man through who fires without orders,” he declared.

“Bang!”

“It won’t do for you to try that game, now, general,” warned the shooter. The ranks laughed. General Houston glared around him for an instant, and with a shrug of his great shoulders clapped his sword back and rode to the front again.

The column lunged forward at best speed. Now indeed it was a race to see which army would be the first to reach the crossing. Colonel John A. Wharton, of the staff, took thirty of the cavalry and dashed away, to reconnoitre the crossing and keep the enemy in play until the army could arrive. Jim and Ernest regretfully watched the advance disappear in the margin of the timber. Only men had been picked, mainly from one company.

“I always knew I ought to have joined that company, in the first place,” deplored Jim. “Now they’ll find Santa Anna and get all the best clothes!”

But no sounds of a battle were heard――ah, yes, there echoed a rifle shot! And another. The shooting ceased. And when, breathless, dripping, men and horses alike, with perspiration, the army rounded a shoulder of timber, they saw, before, an expanse of flat, marshy ground, inhabited by myriads of piping, screaming wild fowl; eastward still was flashing San Jacinto Bay, with the juncture of the Buffalo Bayou and the San Jacinto River above its upper end――the few scattered houses at Lynch’s Ferry, and the waiting horsemen of Colonel Wharton’s command. Not a Mexican soldier was in sight.

The Colonel Wharton detachment were found at the ferry landing in possession of a fine new flatboat equipped with a sail and loaded with foodstuffs. They said that Captain Hancock and Lieutenant Crain and four others had arrived before the rest, and that a guard of twenty Mexican soldiers had fled south without firing a shot. Had left the flatboat, of course――for which, much obliged to them! Santa Anna had shipped the boat up the bay from New Washington, to be ready for him. Now he could come and get it.

“We won. Hurrah!” cheered Ernest, excitedly. “We beat Santa Anna to the crossing.”

“Yes, sir; and we corralled a flatboat full of breakfast, too,” reminded Jim. “Do you see that big house yonder, across the San Jacinto? That’s Lorenzo de Zavala’s house. He lives here. He and Colonel Lynch and the rest of the bay fellows are right at home.”

General Houston immediately ordered the boat taken up the bayou about three-quarters of a mile, and the army to follow along the bank, out of the flat to the timber.

Camp was made on high ground in the shade of great live-oaks, whose branches were festooned with the drooping Spanish moss. It was a beautiful spot. The bayou, wide, and sluggishly flowing in a curve between green banks, was behind. On the left the San Jacinto River rippled past the bayou’s mouth, and widened into San Jacinto Bay, bordered by salty marshes. On the right, distant about six miles, Vince’s Bayou extended down to Vince’s Bridge in the southwest, at the Harrisburg road. Before, a rolling prairie stretched two miles to the swamps of the inward curving bay. A timbered rise jutted out before the camp; and several hundred yards out on the prairie, were two timber “islands,” or motts; one in front of the camp, the other to the left.

The general lost no time in getting ready for Santa Anna, who could not be more than a couple of miles distant. He planted the Twin Sisters in the edge of the trees on the little rise. Colonel John Neill commanded the battery. Two hundred infantry, including Leo’s company, armed with muskets and commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel Millard of the Texas Regulars, were stationed behind the cannon. Sion and the other riflemen of the First Volunteers under Colonel Edward Burleson were placed on the right wing, the Second Volunteers under Colonel Sidney Sherman on the left wing. The cavalry were back of the Millard musketeers or regulars. The gold and white flag, surmounted by the glove of Colonel Sherman’s bride, floated over the centre.

Now it was noon.

“I reckon if nobody’s coming we might as well eat,” quoth Jim, while for a brief space the army waited, and peered across the prairie beyond the timber. “What do we call it, anyway? Last night’s supper? We’ve got three meals due us. De Zavala ought to invite us all over to his house for a snack.”

De Zavala the patriot did not quite do this; but, as the prairie remained apparently peaceful, presently orders were issued for the men to go ahead with their three meals in one. Fires were lighted, beef was toasted once more――when on a sudden back through the high grass along the timber came galloping once more the Deaf Smith Spies. They had sighted the Mexican army advancing. The camp left its beef and seized its arms.

“Seems as if we didn’t get time for anything any more,” complained Ernest, as he and Jim ran for their saddles. “It’s just up and down, up and down.”

“That’s right,” concurred Jim. “We’ve been wanting to fight, and now we have to fight even to eat!”

XX

“WILL YOU COME TO THE BOWER?”

Almost an hour passed, with the Texan army waiting and ready, and the gold-fringed flag lazily flapping in the sea breeze.

“There they come,” announced a man sitting his horse at Ernest’s left. “If we don’t lick ’em Peggy McCormick will. She lives yonder on the bay and owns a square league of this prairie. They’re treading down her grass.”

It was two o’clock. The Mexican army were in sight at last, advancing from the left, along the marsh of the bay. Their colors flew, bayonets and scabbards occasionally glistened, the officers’ trappings sparkled. Infantry and cavalry they were――yes, and artillery, for there was a cannon drawn by mules.

On they marched, steadily――and their drums were heard beating in cadence. They made a compact mass, as if they did not intend to stop but to proceed right ahead to the ferry crossing.

Ernest’s heart thumped rapidly. No orders issued from the general, who was composedly standing with Colonel Hockley and Colonel Rusk and others of his staff, between the Twin Sisters battery and the Colonel Burleson regiment, and watching the Mexican advance.

“By cracky, they’ll have to fight or swim――or do both!” exclaimed Jim. “What are we here for, anyway, do they think?”

At this moment a bugle call shrilled gaily from the Mexican ranks. Out galloped the artillery mules, dragging the one cannon to the furthest of the timber islands, opposite the Millard infantry. It was a challenge! From the trees puffed a cloud of smoke, and accompanying the heavy report, in among the live-oak branches along the bayou rattled a storm of grape-shot.

But the Twin Sisters were answering. How Colonel Neill and his artillerymen hustled!

“Lie down, men! Lie down!” shouted the regular and riflemen officers. The cavalry, well back in the shelter of the festooned live-oaks, were safe. General Houston still stood erect. The Twin Sisters and the Mexican piece were booming back and forth.

Again sounded the bugle, and again. The Mexican infantry deployed a long line, and ran forward through the grass, firing――halting, firing, loading and running again, making for Colonel Burleson’s regiment. The Twin Sisters were turned on them――the regiment began to fire, “Crack! Crackity crack! Crack-crack-crack!”――and the Mexican soldiers scurried back.

“Neill’s hit! Look at him!” cried Jim. “Thunder!”

Colonel Neill was staggering; down he sank. A grape-shot had struck him in the thigh. But the Mexican troops were charging. They swept out gallantly, along the front of Colonel Sherman’s regiment, and entered some timber curving to the right.

The Mexican skirmish line had retired, though. How the Burleson men yelled!

Colonel Sherman spurred to the general. He talked a few moments, and back he galloped to the cavalry.

“Forward, cavalry!” he shouted. “Follow me. Let’s drive those _vaqueros_ [cowherds] out of that timber.”

Around to the right he dashed, and glad of the chance the cavalry pressed after him――Ernest bending low on Duke’s neck, to avoid the moss and branches, and Jim keeping with him, stride for stride. But the Mexican troops were scarcely sighted. Mexican sharpshooters were there, though, among the trees, and without any fight the cavalry must return again before being cut off. Nobody was hurt.

The army were cheering. All the Mexicans had retired; all but the artillery and cavalry were marching back, toward the mouth of the San Jacinto; the field-piece had been withdrawn further into the timber island. The Twin Sisters were peppering the island, and the rear of the Mexican army, but it was rather blind shooting.

Having arrived at the marshy timber stretch southward against the San Jacinto bay, the Mexican army halted, and appeared to be making camp there, three-quarters of a mile away, on other rising ground.

“Our turn now!” shouted a score of voices, along the Texan lines. “Let’s smoke ’em out.”

Everybody, except the general, was eager to charge, and finish the battle then and there. Some of the officers approached the general and asked him either to lead out or else appoint a leader. The men were wild to avenge the Alamo and Goliad. They did not mind being hungry, and worn with the forced marches by day and by night.

“Santa Anna first, then Cos!” was the cry.

But the general turned a deaf ear. To the officers he shook his head under its big whitish hat.

“No, gentlemen; not yet,” he opposed. “This is not the moment. The loss would be too heavy. I intend to conquer, slay and put to flight the entire Mexican army, and it shall not cost me a dozen of my brave men.”

“That’s right,” sung out a private. “Make it an easy-going fight, general.”

The cannon piece was still in the timber island; and Colonel Sherman begged for permission to go out and take it, with cavalry. The general finally consented that the cavalry should reconnoitre the timber, but not fight.

However, the fiery Colonel Sherman led straight to the island in the prairie. Suddenly the Mexican dragoons issued into the prairie, and out came the Mexican sharpshooters, too.

“Charge those dragoons, boys!” ordered Colonel Sherman. “Empty their saddles for them!”

“It’s a fight!” yelped Jim, gleefully, as the column half wheeled and in company front charged for the dragoons.

Chief Scout Handy was here, spurring on well to the front. So was Mr. Lamar. He had borrowed a horse and joined for the fun of the thing. A number of other riflemen had borrowed horses and volunteered. The dragoons stood their ground. Captain Handy fired; Jim fired; Ernest fired. All the men fired, and dragoons fell. The dragoons charged. The Texas rifles were empty and the long Kentucky rifles of the volunteer horsemen were hard to reload, on horseback. The Mexican infantry were double-quicking forward, and shooting. Alwyn Trask was knocked from his saddle with a broken thigh; Woodliffe was wounded; Walter Lane was cut off and almost surrounded――he was gone――no――see Lamar――see Lamar! He has sped for Lane, shoots a Mexican foot-soldier dead, rides right over a second, reaches Lane’s side, wrests the gun from the hand of another Mexican, and with Lane unharmed gallops back to the troop!

Hurrah! But there are too many Mexican soldiers. Isn’t the general sending reinforcements? No.

“Back to the camp, boys,” shouted Colonel Sherman; and just in nick of time they skirted the timber island and cleared the fast approaching Mexicans.

General Houston was furious. He asserted that Colonel Sherman had tried to bring on a fight, against orders. Colonel Sherman was angry, also. He claimed that the general had left him out there in danger of being cut off.

“That Lamar sure can ride, though, can’t he!” declared Jim. “He’s afraid of nothing, that man!”

“We lost two good men, just the same,” replied Ernest. “Trask will die, the doctor says; and Woodliffe can’t fight any more.”

This night the camp fires of the two armies twinkled at each other in the low mist across the dip of prairie. General Houston posted double pickets, beyond the timber of the bayou, to guard against any surprise.

After a good supper――the first square meal in thirty-six hours――there was a short interval of liberty. Sion and Leo strolled over to the cavalry. The four comrades had not met for several days.

“Hello,” greeted Sion. “Say――why didn’t we fight to a finish to-day? Those Mexicans are fortifying. From our end of the line you can see breastworks going up.”

“Yes; and to-morrow Cos is liable to get here,” added Leo. “To-day we’re about even match.”

He and Sion were thin and ragged, but still game.

“I don’t know,” retorted Ernest, rather irritated, for men were putting the same question, one to another, and again the army were indignant with General Houston. “I suppose he wants to rest us up.”

“Shucks! I’m never too tired out to fight a Santa Anna Mexican,” proclaimed Sion. “That was a toler’bly smart march he put us through, anyway. And you fellows had a nice little scrimmage, while it lasted.”

“It’d have lasted longer if some of you other fellows had come out and backed us up,” accused Jim. “Then we could have gone on and taken Santa Anna and his whole bunch――just like Sherman intended.”

“How could we go out and back you up, when we didn’t have orders?” answered Leo. “One thing’s sure, though: we don’t retreat any more. If Houston wants to retreat, he’ll go alone. We’ve got Santa Anna pocketed and we’re going to put our hands on him while we can.”

But Ernest _knew_ that General Houston had no notion of retreating.

“Young de Zavala’s come into camp,” remarked Leo, as if to end the discussion. “The colonel’s boy. Have you seen him?”

“No,” said Jim. “What’s his kind?”

“He’s all right,” assured Sion. “Smart little lad. He says he could see the battle from the house, but he wants to get a little closer. Brought his gun and fixin’s, and thinks maybe he’ll shoot Santa Anna――if Sam Houston lets us get close enough!”

“You wait till to-morrow. We’ll all be close enough,” prophesied Ernest.

“Listen to that flute,” bade Jim. “Same old tune.”

The flute was piping, and some of the men joined with tenor voices.

Will you come to the bow’r I have shaded for you? Your bed shall be roses bespangled with dew. Will you, will you, will you, will you, Come to the bow’r?

The song drifted sweetly through the great oaks and their drooping mosses.

“Special invitation to General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna,” quoth Leo. “Well, think I’ll go to bed. We musketeers have orders to turn in early. I’ll see you to-morrow, after we-all finish our easy-going fight.”

“Good-night.”