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You Texans, or rather you Americans, because the Texans are Americans, have some of the ruder virtues which we who are of the Spanish and Latin blood now and then lack. You are only a boy, but you have in you the qualities that can make a career. The Texans belong to Mexico. Your loyalty is due to Mexico and to me.
The Texans were near enough to see from some points the buildings of the town, and the veins of the Ring Tailed Panther swelled with ambition. "Ned," he said to the boy who rode by his side, "if Bowie would only give the word we would gallop right into town, smashing through the Mexicans." "We might gallop into it," said Ned, laughing, "but we couldn't gallop out again.
When King fastened one end round his body under his arms the question arose among the engineers, just as it had arisen for Neale, whether or not it was needful to let the lineman down before the surveyor. Henney, who superintended this sort of work, decided it was not necessary. "I reckon I'll go ahaid," said King. Like all Texans of his type, Larry King was slow, easy, cool, careless.
Then everything vanished, and he fell into a long and sound sleep. While Ned and Obed slept, the Texans conferred earnestly. They knew that every word Ned had told was true, and they felt that the trouble between Texas and Mexico had now come to a head. It must be war. They were fully aware of the fearful odds, but they did not believe the Texans would flinch.
The sound of the firing had been heard in the main Texan camp and more Texans were coming by scores. "It's all over now," said Obed. The Texans divided into two forces. One drove the main column of the Mexicans in confusion back upon the town, and the other, containing Ned and his friends, charged into the gully and put to flight or captured all who were hidden there.
"He looks like an American horse," said Obed, with satisfaction, "and maybe he is one, stolen from the Texans. He'll carry one of us over many miles of sand and cactus, and he'll be none the worse for it. But he needs a friend. Horse was not made to live alone. It's my sympathy for him as much as the desire for another mount that drives me to the theft we contemplate."
The whole plain, dewy and fresh, sprang up in the light of the morning. They saw the steep mound crowned by the Mexicans, and men still at work on the hasty trench. Again that full-throated cheer came from the Texans and they quickened their pace, but Captain Castenada came down from the mound and a soldier came with him bearing a white flag.
There we met again with our old friends the Wakoes, and learned that there was a party of sixty or seventy Yankees or Texans roaming about the upper forks of the Trinity, committing all sorts of depredations, and painting their bodies like the Indians, that their enormities might be laid to the account of the savages.
Goliad had been quite a village for the period and region, but some years before there had been a Mexican massacre, in which every inhabitant had been killed or driven away. This, with the massacre of the prisoners in the Alamo, San Antonio, about the same time, more than three hundred men in all, furnished the strongest justification the Texans had for carrying on the war with so much cruelty.
He also confirmed the information that the Texans were gathering from all points for the attack upon this, the greatest Mexican fortress in all Texas. Mr. Austin was commander-in-chief of the forces, but he wished to yield the place to Houston who would not take it. Late in the afternoon they saw horsemen and rode toward them boldly.
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