Stover knows them like a book, and he says they are
just aching to go on the war-path, now the government is having so much
trouble of its own."

"If the Indians are around it won't be safe to leave the cabin alone,"
was the younger boy's comment.

"I reckon we can leave it for awhile, Ralph. We won't be gone more than
an hour, at the most," concluded Dan Radbury, as he disappeared into
the cabin for the firearm he had mentioned.

The scene was that of a typical frontier home, in the heart of Texas,
close to the Guadalupe River, and about ten miles from what was then
the village of Gonzales. It was the year 1835, and the whole of
northern and western Texas could truthfully be put down as a "howling
wilderness," overrun with deer, bison, bears, and other wild animals,
wild horses, and inhabited only by the savage and lawless Comanche,
Apache, Cherokee, and numerous other tribes of Indians. As regards the
rest of the State, it may briefly be stated that this immense territory
of thousands of square miles contained not over twenty-two thousand
white and black people combined. How many Indians there were is not
definitely known, but they have been estimated at fifteen to eighteen
thousand. The main cities were San Antonio de Bexar, San Felipe de
Austin, Nacogdoches, San Augustine, Columbia, and the seaport town of
Velasco, but not one of these boasted of more than thirty-five hundred
inhabitants.

To this territory had come, three years before, Amos Radbury, the
father of the two lads introduced at the beginning of this chapter. The
family were from Georgia, where Mr. Radbury had once owned a large
interest in a tobacco plantation. But a disastrous flood had robbed him
not only of the larger portion of his property, but also of his much
beloved wife, and, almost broken-hearted, the planter had sold off his
remaining interest in the plantation for five thousand dollars, and
emigrated, first to New Orleans, and then to his present home. The trip
from New Orleans had been made in a prairie wagon, drawn by a double
yoke of oxen, and had consumed many weeks, and that trip over the
prairies, through the almost trackless forests, and across numerous
dangerous fords, was one which the boys were likely never to forget. On
the way they had fallen in with a small band of treacherous Indians,
but they had been saved by the timely arrival of some friendly Caddos,
under the leadership of Canoma, a chief well known throughout the
len