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Despite his long period of wild life among the Indians his manners were distinguished. "We welcome you, Smith and Karnes, our faithful scouts," he said, "and we also welcome those with you who, I presume, are the two escaped from the City of Mexico." It was evident that the story of Ned and Obed had preceded them, but Karnes spoke for them. "Yes, General," he said.
Smith and Karnes remained while the convention continued its work. They did little ostensibly but smoke their cob pipes, but they observed everything and thought deeply. On Sunday morning, five days after the men had gathered at Washington, as they stood at the edge of the little town they saw a man galloping over the prairie.
The figures flitted away in the dusk, but the camp of Bowie was aroused at once. Inside of a minute every man was on his feet, rifle in hand, facing the open place in the horseshoe. They knew that they could not be attacked from the river. Bowie came to the side of Ned and Karnes. "What is it?" he asked.
He knew the history of Houston, his singular and picturesque career, and the great esteem in which he was held by the Texans. A man with a rifle on his shoulder stood by the door as guard, but he recognized Smith and Karnes, and held the door open for the four, who went inside without a word.
All this quarreling and temporizing are our ruin. Heavens, what a time for disagreements!" "There couldn't be a worse time, general," said Henry Karnes. "Me an' 'Deaf' would like mighty well to march to the Alamo. A lot of our friends are in there an' I reckon we've seen them for the last time." The fine face of Houston grew dark with melancholy.
"If we don't do something before long," said Henry Karnes, "we'll just dissolve like a snow before a warm wind." "An' all our rippin' an' tearin' will go for nothin'," growled the Ring Tailed Panther. "We've won every fight we've been in, an' yet they won't let us go into that town an' have it out with Cos." "We'll get it yet," said Obed cheerfully.
They rode until nearly noon, when they stopped in a fine grove of oaks and pecans by the side of a clear creek. The grass was also rich and deep here, and they did not take the trouble to tether their horses. Ned was exceedingly glad to dismount as he was stiff and sore from the long ride, and he was also as hungry as a wolf. "Lay down on the grass, Ned, an' stretch yourself," said Karnes.
"That's a good spirit to have," said Karnes, smiling, "and you need it down here, where a man must always be watching for something. In Texas boys have to be men now." He walked back and forth with Ned, and the lad felt flattered that so famous a scout should show an interest in him. The two were at the edge of the wood and they could see duskily before them a stretch of bare prairie.
On the wild border where life depended almost continually upon skill and quickness with weapons, "Deaf" Smith, Jim Bowie and Henry Karnes were already heroes to youth. Ned thrilled. He was here with his own people, and with the greatest of them. He had finished his long journey and he was with the Texans. The words shaped themselves again and again in his brain, the Texans! the Texans! the Texans!
Then they all dismounted and another man, short and thick, shook Obed by the hand and called him by his first name. He was Henry Karnes, the Tennesseean, great scout and famous borderer of the Texas plains. Ned looked with admiration at these men, whose names were great to him.
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