“Yes,” put in Leo, “and Deaf Smith says Harrisburg was burned on the fifteenth, and the Mexicans got to the bay just in time to see President Burnet setting out in a skiff for Galveston Island. Only three printers were left in the town. Then Santa Anna started on for New Washington and Lynch’s Ferry, to cut us off if we retreated east. But when he finds we’re here to fight him, and have cut _him_ off, in a pocket, he’ll have to get out either over the bayou again, or else by Lynch’s Ferry. He doesn’t know we’re here――he thinks we’re retreating to the Trinity and Nacogdoches. That’s what all the settlers have told him. And if we hurry we can beat him to the San Jacinto, and he’s _our meat_!”
“He sure is!” exulted Jim. “This army can lick any six hundred Mexicans that ever were born.”
“I reckon Sam Houston knew his business, after all,” admitted Sion.
That night the camp was impatient for the dawn. Deaf Smith estimated that the Mexican army were less than a day’s march away. If they weren’t overhauled before they crossed the juncture of Buffalo Bayou and the San Jacinto River they’d have a clear lead again, and could go on up to Nacogdoches, and summon the Indians of the northern prairies, and perhaps unite with the Gaona column.
General Houston and Colonel Rusk, the secretary of war, had had a conference.
“We don’t need to talk,” the general was reported to have said. “You think we ought to fight, and so do I.”
There still were some men who feared that the general might wait. Colonel Sherman promised his regiment that _if_ the general would _not_ fight, they could follow him and he’d soon give them enough. But an aide summoned him and Colonel Burleson to headquarters and when Colonel Sherman returned, everything was all right.
The general had asked him and Colonel Burleson if they had beef on hand for three days.
“Very well,” had said General Houston. “You will see then that each man is supplied with cooked rations for three days, and hold the camp in readiness to march. We will see if we can find Santa Anna. Good evening, gentlemen.”
The morning dawned for a day of energy. The army ate a hasty breakfast of beef strips wound around green sticks and held in the blaze, and orders were given to fall in. General Houston rode in front of the lines, and from his horse made a speech. It was a short speech, but it was enough.