“They must think they’re going to scare us out by noise,” asserted Jim, while he and Ernest and their comrades tore and slashed and dug. “They’ve got cannon, too, all right enough. Those were the wheels I heard squeaking.”
Ernest listened anxiously for the “Boom!” of the cannon. He didn’t mind so much the muskets, but those cannon balls would plough through everything.
Now the brush had been cleared, and footholds had been cut, and there seemed nothing to do but to wait again.
See? The fog was reddening, as it thinned and the sun’s beams struck through――for the sun must have been up and shining three hours.
“Steady, boys,” repeated the officers――and here, at a run, into the bottom-land entered the seven outpost guards from the mission cupola.
“Did you hear me whoop?” panted Robert Calder. “Nigh all Mexico is out yon. We glimpsed ’em through a break in the fog.”
“Wall, you’re in time for the dance,” remarked Henry Karnes.
The fog was lifting, rolling up like a great curtain. Along the lines under the low bluff sounded the click of gun locks, as hammers were cocked.
“Steady! Steady! Pick your marks, boys, and fire at command.”
“See their feet?” whispered Jim, tensely, to Ernest.
Ernest nodded, for his heart was thumping in his throat and he did not dare try to speak. This was going to be a bigger fight than the one at Gonzales.
And a curious sight that was: out on the prairie before them, about 300 yards distant, an array of men’s legs, in dankly hanging cotton trousers; and an amazing array of slimmer horses’ legs! Some of the legs were moving, hither-thither, as if marching about by themselves, for the fog cut sharply and they appeared to have no bodies.
“Lucky for them they fetched their legs,” commented one of Ernest’s neighbors. “They’ll need ’em to run away on.”
“I like something better’n legs to shoot at,” added somebody else.
The fog had lifted from the parapet, and the Texan lines were revealed――and the long-barrelled muskets and rifles levelled and resting upon the sod, and the lean bronzed faces laid expectantly against each stock. Ernest, aiming steadily, blinked and stared.
Swiftly uprolled the fog――above the waists, and the horses’ bellies, and ever higher; and suddenly the sun blazed down and the whole prairie leaped into brilliant life.