pride of
Santa Anna, unable to brook delay in the face of so small a force, had
pushed him forward.

Knowing now what might be done at night, Ned passed the day in anxiety,
and with the coming of the twilight his anxiety increased.

CHAPTER X

CROCKETT AND BOWIE

Unluckily for the Texans, the night was the darkest of the month. No
bonfires burned in San Antonio, and there were no sounds of music. It
seemed to Ned that the silence and darkness were sure indications of
action on the part of the foe.

He felt more lonely and depressed than at any other time hitherto in the
siege, and he was glad when Crockett and a young Tennesseean whom he
called the Bee-Hunter joined him. Crockett had not lost any of his
whimsical good humor, and when Ned suggested that Santa Anna was likely
to profit by the dark he replied:

"If he is the general I take him to be he will, or at least try, but
meanwhile we'll just wait, an' look, an' listen. That's the way to find
out if things are goin' to happen. Don't turn little troubles into big
ones. You don't need a cowskin for a calf. We'll jest rest easy. I'm
mighty nigh old enough to be your grandfather, Ned, an' I've learned to
take things as they come. I guess men of my age were talkin' this same
way five thousand years ago."

"You've seen a lot in your life, Mr. Crockett," said Ned, to whom the
Tennesseean was a great hero.

Crockett laughed low, but deep in his throat, and with much pleasure.

"So I have! So I have!" he replied, "an', by the blue blazes, I can say
it without braggin'. I've seen a lot of water go by since I was runnin'
'roun' a bare-footed boy in Tennessee. I've ranged pretty far from east
to west, an' all the way from Boston in the north to this old mission,
an' that must be some thousands of miles. An' I've had some big times in
New York, too."

"You've been in New York," said Ned, with quick interest. "It must be a
great town."

"It is. It's certainly a bulger of a place. There are thousands an'
thousands of houses, an' you can't count the sails in the bay. I saw the
City Hall an' it's a mighty fine buildin', too. It's all marble on the
side looking south, an' plain stone on the side lookin' north. I asked
why, an' they said all the poor people lived to the north of it. That's
the way things often happen, Ned. An' I saw the great, big hotel John
Jacob Astor was beginnin' to build on Broadway just below the City Hall.
They said it would cost seven h