“You boys both ready?” queried Dick Carroll, strolling by Jim and Ernest, late in the afternoon. “There’ll be something stirring before dark, so I thought I’d warn you. Looks like we’d get over on the lieutenant’s side, an’ pay him a call.”
“Ginger! Wish I had more powder,” remarked Jim, to Ernest. “How many loads you got?”
“Ten,” replied Ernest, dubiously. “Hope that’ll be enough. I’ll give you one if you run short.”
“Your bullets don’t fit my gun, though,” reminded Jim. “Maybe I can double patch ’em. But I guess powder alone will fill the bill. It’ll make a noise. Just to hear a gun go off scares those _hombres_ [men] into fits.”
Evidently Jim did not think much of the Mexican soldiery. Neither did most of the other volunteers. Still, the camp of Lieutenant Castañeda, on Zeke Williams’s farm, was known to be a strong position, well chosen; and the dragoons were regulars of the Mexican army, thoroughly equipped with muskets and pistols.
As Dick Carroll had predicted, that night at seven o’clock orders were given to move from Eli Mitchell’s cornfield, where the little army was camped, and to cross the river with the cannon. The cannon was trundled by oxen upon the flatboat ferry; the footmen were ferried over also, by the flatboat and by dug-outs; the horses forded; and Colonel Moore summoned the officers to a council of war. They all could be dimly seen, squatting in a circle. Presently the circle broke up.
“Wonder if we’re going to fight,” queried Ernest, of Jim, as they sat their horses, waiting with the other horsemen.
“Dunno. _Quien sabe?_” responded Jim――which meant, in Spanish, “Who knows?” And he suddenly added: “Reckon we are, though. There comes the parson, to tell us how.”
For the Reverend W. P. Smith, the Methodist preacher who had accompanied the Rutersville volunteers, had mounted his horse and ridden forward from the council, to halt and hold up his hand in signal. He was easily identified by his black, broad-brimmed flat hat, and his long black coat.
“Listen to the parson,” rose the cry; and the ranks were formed to hear him.
The Reverend Mr. Smith made a stirring speech: he told the volunteers that they were about to move against the enemy who were invading their rights, and that the time had come when Texas should strike another blow for human liberties. This was to be a second Battle of Lexington; and everyone should remember the glorious example set by the American minute-men of ’76. Freedom was at stake, and tyranny should not prevail. Wives and children were waiting in Gonzales and elsewhere, for victory; and all Texas also was waiting.