At midnight Ernest, turning over in his blanket, drowsily heard the beat of galloping hoofs, out of Gonzales and down the road to San Felipe. He thought nothing especial of it, but in the morning the camp soon was astir with renewed excitement, and Jim and Leo brought the word.
“Did you hear that express, last night? Ugartechea’s coming!”
“Reckon he’s started already,” declared Leo. “They got a message from him late last evening at headquarters, addressed to Austin. Dated the fourth. He said he was marching the next day, which was day before yesterday, for Gonzales, with a complete force; and if we met him and delivered the cannon he’d take it and go back; but if we didn’t be so accommodating then the nation of Mexico would consider itself insulted and at war with the Texas colonists.”
“We aren’t going to do it, are we?” demanded Ernest.
“Hardly, my lad,” said Jim, grandly. “What do you think we’re made of? Colonel Moore sent the message on to San Felipe, with a right smart note to Colonel Austin, asking him to hurry along with more men, and while we waited we’d entertain Ugartechea and Cos, too, if he came. We’d hold ’em off some way.”
“If Cos and Ugartechea don’t come to us we’ll go to them,” added Leo. “We Brazos people enlisted to take Bejar and drive the Mexicans across the Rio Grande, where they belong. We won’t sit ’round here very much doing nothing. We want to finish this war and go home.”
The day proved to be a disturbing one. More scouts were ordered out, westward, to spy on the enemy’s advance; rifles and pistols were cleaned, the six-pounder brass cannon was placed in a better position (“so Ugartechea and Cos can find it easy!” laughed the men), and a general council of war was convened, at the Colonel Moore headquarters, to discuss matters. Colonel Moore was elected commander of the whole camp, until a commander-in-chief of the Texas army was chosen.
Expresses continued to arrive, with dispatches and tidings from the east.
“Suppose you’ve heard the latest about Sam Houston, boy?” hailed Dick Carroll, passing where Ernest was sharpening his knife on his boot-leg.
“Oh, he’ll come, when he’s needed. But just now he’s still down at San Augustine and Nacogdoches. He’s been elected commander-in-chief of all Eastern Texas, and the Redlanders [these, as Ernest knew, were the settlers in the Red River country, on the Texas northeastern border] are flocking to him by hundreds.”