Chapter 20 - Page 2

Antonio. Since he could not have just what he wished, the Panther was glad to get the new task, and the others were content.

They rode away the next morning, armed and provisioned well. Their horses, having rested long and fed abundantly, were strong and fresh, and they went at a good pace, until they came to the last swell from which they could see San Antonio. The town was distant, but it was magnified in the clear Texas sunlight. It looked to Ned, sitting there on his horse, like a large city. It had come to occupy a great place in his mind and just now it was to him the most important town in the world. He wondered if they would ever take it. Urrea, who was watching him, smiled.

"I know what you are thinking," he said, "and I will wager that it was just the same that I was thinking."

"I was trying to read the future and tell whether we would take San Antonio," said Ned.

"Exactly. Those were my thoughts, too."

"I reckon you two wasn't far away from my trail either," said the Ring Tailed Panther, "'cause I was figgerin' that we'd take it inside of a month."

"Count me in, too," said Obed. "Great minds go in bunches. I was calculating that we would capture it some day, but I left out the limit of time."

They turned their horses, and when they reached the crest of the next swell San Antonio was out of sight. Before them stretched the prairies, now almost as desolate as they had been when the Indians alone roamed over them. They passed two or three small cabins, each built in a cluster of trees near a spring, but the occupants had gone, fled to a town for shelter. One seemed to have been abandoned only an hour or two ago, as the ashes were scarcely cold on the hearth, and a bucket of water, with its gourd in it, still stood on the shelf. The sight moved the Ring Tailed Panther to sentiment.

"Think of the women an' children havin' to sleep out on the prairie," he said. "It ain't right an' fittin'."

"We'll bring them all back before we are through," said Obed.

They left the little cabin, exactly as they had found it, and then rode at an increased pace toward the north and the east, making for the settlements on the Brazos. A little while before nightfall, they met a buffalo hunter who told them there were reports of a Mexican cavalry force far north of San Antonio, although he could not confirm the truth of the rumors. Urrea shook his head vigorously.

"Impossible! impossible!" he said. "The Mexicans would not dare to come away so far from their base at San Antonio."

The hunter, an old man, looked at him with curiosity and disapproval.

"That's more than you an' me can say," he said, "although you be a Mexican yourself and know more about your people than I do. I jest