and desolation nevertheless weighed upon him.

He crossed several streams, all of them swollen and deep from spring
rains, and every time he came to one he returned thanks again because he
had found Old Jack. The great horse always took the flood without
hesitation, and would come promptly to the other bank.

He saw many deer, and started up several flights of wild turkeys, but he
did not disturb them. He was a soldier now, not a hunter, and he sought
men, not animals. Another night came and found him still alone on the
prairie. As before, he slept undisturbed under the boughs of a tree, and
he awoke the next morning thoroughly sound in body and much refreshed in
mind. But the feeling of hardness, the desire for revenge, remained. He
was continually seeing the merciless face of Santa Anna and the
sanguinary interior of the Alamo. The imaginative quality of his mind
and his sensitiveness to cruelty had heightened the effect produced upon
him.

He continued to ride through desolate country for several days, living
on the game that his rifle brought. He slept one night in an abandoned
cabin, with Old Jack resting in the grass that was now growing rankly at
the door. He came the next day to a great trail, so great in truth that
he believed it to have been made by Mexicans. He did not believe that
there was anywhere a Texan force sufficient to tread out so broad a
road.

He noticed, too, that the hoofs of the horses were turned in the general
direction of Goliad or Victoria, nearer the sea, and he concluded that
this was another strong Mexican army intended to complete the ruin of
infant Texas. He decided to follow, and near nightfall he saw the camp
fires of a numerous force. He rode as near as he dared and reckoned that
there were twelve or fifteen hundred men in the camp. He was sure that
it was no part of the army with which Santa Anna had taken the Alamo.

Ned rode a wide circuit around the camp and continued his ride in the
night. He was forced to rest and sleep a while toward morning, but
shortly after daylight he went forward again to warn he knew not whom.
Two or three hours later he saw two horsemen on the horizon, and he rode
toward them. He knew that if they should prove to be Mexicans Old Jack
was swift enough to carry him out of reach. But he soon saw that they
were Texans, and he hailed them.

The two men stopped and watched him as he approached. The fact that he
rode a horse without saddle or bridle wa