“Don’t know whether we will or not,” retorted Jim. “And supposing we do. They’re just an advance guard. There’s Urrea, now, down south, with twelve or fifteen hundred regulars, and nobody to hold him; and there’s Santa Anna coming, with a few thousand more. And who’s helping _us_? Half of us are down with the measles, anyway. Where are those East Texas militia we’ve been hearing about? Where are those reinforcements and those cannon from the mouth of the Brazos? And look what we’ve lost! All those companies from the United States, except the Newport Volunteers that are in this camp. The New Orleans Grays, the Mobile Grays, the Kentucky Mustangs, the Alabama Red Rovers, the Georgia and Tennessee companies, and all the rest――the best armed troops we had; and one of the best officers――Jim Fannin.”
“Well,” said Ernest, determined to make the best of it, “they weren’t all shot. They just surrendered. Only half a dozen were killed and they wiped out about three hundred Mexicans.”
“They all are paroled, though; they can’t fight any more. They won’t break their parole; they’re not like Cos,” insisted Jim. “And remember the Alamo. Every man massacred whether he’d surrendered or not. And remember how those other men were tied to oak trees and shot. We’re liable to hear the same kind of news from Fannin yet.”
“Can’t help it,” declared Sion, doggedly. “I’m here to fight, and so are the other men.”
“You talk as if you were as tall as that gun you’re lugging round,” scoffed Jim. “Sounds as if you were going to account for the whole Mexican army.”
“This gun shoots just as hard as if I was as big as General Houston,” stoutly answered Sion. “That Mexican said there was a boy named Harry Ripley with Fannin; from Louisiana. He got wounded, and asked a woman named Mrs. Cash, from Goliad, to prop him up so he could shoot. He popped four more Mexicans before a bullet broke his steadying arm; and then with a broken arm and a broken thigh he had to quit. Said he’d made the Mexicans pay double for what they gave him. I reckon I can do as well as any boy from the United States.”
General Houston ordered the Mexican, Peter Kerr, under close arrest; would not even talk with him, and claimed that he was only a miserable spy, and should be shot, the first thing in the morning. But nobody believed that this would be done; they all knew the general too well――and Peter evidently had spoken the truth. Late that evening the general was seen talking to him, and examining him. The next day there was no execution; instead, when the army was paraded, they listened to the adjutant, Colonel Ben Fort Smith, read a general order: