“Austin’s been arrested!”

The terse sentence seemed to carry instantly through all inner Gonzales, as attracted by the galloping horse men came running.

“Steve Austin arrested? When? Where?”

“On January 3rd, at Saltillo, by orders from the capital. He’d got this far, on his way home; now they’re taking him back again, to the City of Mexico.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I was there and saw it.”

“What did they arrest him for?”

“Mostly on account of that letter he wrote to San Antonio, advising Texas to get together and form its state government. The mayor sent the letter to the capital, saying he disapproved——”

“The scoundrel!”

“And Farias [the vice-president], who didn’t like some things that Austin had said, anyway, dispatched orders post-haste to have him arrested and turned back. So he was stopped down at Saltillo, and charged with treason to Mexico; and back he’s gone.”

“Did you talk with him, Ben?”

“I did. He was coming home because he thought that everything was all right. Matters had quieted around the capital, and in November Santa Anna called a meeting of his council to hear what Texas had to say. So Austin said it—told why he had brought the petition, and why Texas objected to being joined with Coahuila. Everything went off nicely. The council didn’t think that Texas was ready, quite yet, to be an independent state; but they agreed with Santa Anna that the law against colonization by Americans should be repealed, and they promised a lot of other reforms. That of course was after Austin had written the letter to San Antonio. He claims that he wrote it for fear Texas would take to arms instead of organizing civilly, and would lose all chances. Now that the petition had been acted on at last, in a friendly manner, in December he started home; got as far as Saltillo, and was arrested. He lays it to Farias, rather than to Santa Anna, who’d gone back to his rancho and left Farias in charge.”

“Then as soon as Santa Anna knows, he’ll release him.”

“He’s friendly to Texas, is Santa Anna. We helped him, and he’ll help us.”

“He likes Austin, too. He’ll not see Texas and Steve Austin mistreated.”

Many were such expressions of hope, in Gonzales, that Santa Anna the president would countermand the orders of Farias the vice-president, that Stephen Austin would be released at once, and that all would come out well for Texas. As onward through Texas rushed the tidings of the arrest, other people were hopeful, too. But the hope rode on a great wave of angry protest.

Austin arrested? The honest, honorable, fair-spoken Austin, who always had advised peaceful methods, and had been faithful to Mexico as well as to Texas, and in order to obtain simple justice had borne his own expenses as a delegate from Texas to the Santa Anna government, and after waiting there six months had only frankly and bravely told Don Gomez Farias that if Texas was not helped she would have to help herself. As for his letter to the Mexican mayor of San Antonio de Bejar—that had contained nothing treasonable. The petition from Texas had not been refused, yet, and he had merely advised that Texas wait no longer but go ahead and form the state government.

Who was Don Gomez Farias? Nobody but the vice-president! Santa Anna was the boss. Wait till Santa Anna the president heard.

So Gonzales and the rest of Texas did wait, and fume; and a public meeting held at San Felipe de Austin sent to the City of Mexico another petition, requesting that Stephen Austin be released. But it was unanswered.

However, to his town of San Felipe came from Austin a letter written on his way as a prisoner back to the City of Mexico. He said that matters had gone very well for Texas, and that the people there would do wisely to be grateful and to obey the Mexican regulations until the better ones were made. This sounded encouraging—but it was the last word from him for several months. News out of the City of Mexico stated that he had been placed in a dungeon, to await trial. He was allowed to communicate with nobody and nobody was allowed to communicate with him.

“Just like those Mexicans,” avowed Dick Carroll. “You see Santa Anna hasn’t released him? No, sir! Mark my words: Santa Anna is lying low, till all his schemes are ripe for him to be dictator. He’s letting Don Gomez [who was Farias the vice-president] have full swing and make republican laws that the monarchists don’t like; and when the monarchists are strong enough he’ll come out in the open, be their champion, pretending it’s the will of the people—fire Farias—who’s a more honest man than he is—and sit the saddle himself. Meantime he’s holding Austin, as a hostage for the good behavior of Texas. We don’t dare to r’ar ’round much now, for fear of harm to Steve.”

And Dick Carroll was proved to be a shrewd prophet.

Texas continued in a great confusion. There was a hot-headed war party, which urged separation from Coahuila and establishment as a state under the constitution of 1824, at any price, whether of blood and arms or not; and there was a stronger peace party, which urged the people to wait, to abide by the advice of Stephen Austin, and to go slow and better their condition gradually, rather than risk all on a doubtful war.

Over across the Rio Grande, in Coahuila province, which was the other half of the state of Coahuila and Texas, the confusion was worse. The people of Saltillo opposed whatever the people at Monclova, the capital, did; but the state legislature, meeting, passed a number of acts which gave Texas several measures that it wanted. Then the Saltillo party declared all these acts, and others, illegal; set up their own governor, and spoke of war.

This left Texas without any settled state government; and to Dick Carroll and many others, including Ernest (who listened and thought as hard as he could), it looked as if indeed Texas must take matters into its own hands, or it would go to ruin.

Just as Dick had predicted, in April Santa Anna emerged from his ranch, Magna de Clavo, displaced the honest Don Gomez and the Farias cabinet, disbanded a number of state legislatures, deposed some governors whom he didn’t like, dissolved the congress, and ordered a new congress and a new constitution to suit himself!

Coahuila was in such a condition, with three governors, and no legislature at all, that Santa Anna ordered a new election for governor. Don Augustin Viesca was chosen, and the capital was placed at Monclova—which did not please Saltillo.

However, Texas took heart again. A letter was received at San Felipe from Stephen Austin. He had been released from prison by Santa Anna, was being well treated, and Santa Anna seemed friendly to Texas. Austin again counselled that his people “go slow,” and that the petition would be acted upon favorably, he was sure. In October he was called to a meeting with the president, and made a long talk, explaining what Texas desired, and why the Texas half and the Coahuila half never could agree. They were different races and had different countries and different ideas—and look at the confusion in Coahuila!

Santa Anna replied very nicely. He said that he would agree to letting American colonists come in; he would send troops to protect the settlers against Indians and smugglers; but he did not think that Texas was enough populated yet to be a state by itself—he really did not see how he was authorized to make it a state; but it could be a territory!

Texas did not wish to be a territory, for then it would have no independence at all, and all its officers would be supplied by the government and they might not be good officers. And it was suspicious of so many troops, who might not pay so much attention to the Indians as to the American settlers.

Many people thought that Austin was being hood-winked by Santa Anna. The president was too smooth-spoken, and Austin was gullible. He had not been permitted to return yet, had he? No.

Then another difficulty arose. The Coahuila legislature, supposed to represent Texas, too, began to sell off vast tracts of Texas land, for as low as two cents an acre; and instead of giving the money to Texas, divided it among speculators, while pretending to apply it on a fund to maintain a militia for defense against the Indians. Evidently Coahuila was making what it could out of Texas, before a separation occurred.

Still, the Texas Grand Central Committee, appointed by that convention of 1833, which had sent Stephen Austin to the City of Mexico, opposed war. It appointed subcommittees throughout the province, who should keep track of matters and spread any news that came to them; but while Austin was a prisoner it advocated peace, as long as possible.

This may read dull, but life in Texas in those days was by no means dull; not even for Ernest. The Indians themselves shared the unrest, and kept things lively. Attacks and massacres were reported, in the country districts and along the Royal Road itself, from Nacogdoches to Bejar. The Comanches, the Wacos, the Cooshatties, the Tawakanas, were very, very bad; and after almost every full moon (which was the favorite time for raids) Gonzales heard of Indian forays, in which women and children as well as men were killed and scalped.

The six-pounder brass cannon, which had been sent to Gonzales, from the presidio at Bejar, for protection, was kept ready. Gonzales thought highly of that brass cannon. And while on herd with his horses Ernest carried his little rifle, and watched sharply.

The year 1834 passed; Stephen Austin had not returned, although he might be expected any week, for Santa Anna was “meditating” upon the reforms that he had promised to Texas. Mr. Austin, writing in March, declared that the national congress was considering statehood instead of a territory, and in his opinion the president was about to report “decidedly in favor” of it. Good news, this, for Texas!

But the same month the legislature down in Coahuila sold 400 square leagues of Texas land for $30,000—about a cent and a half an acre.

However, Santa Anna did not like this; the government wanted to use those lands. He declared the sale illegal.

Bad news soon followed, to upset the good. Santa Anna had determined to draw a new constitution; Coahuila, like Texas, stood firm for the republic’s constitution of 1824, which granted so much liberty. Santa Anna sent troops into Coahuila, under his brother-in-law, General Martin Perfecto de Cos, who from Saltillo ordered the militia at Monclova, where the legislature met, to disband. Governor Viesca opposed this, and with the state papers, the militia and Ben Milam and Dr. John Cameron and several other Texans, tried to change the capital to San Antonio de Bejar. He was captured—he and his party; and was sent as prisoner to old Mexico, and Ben Milam and John Cameron with him.

The word that Ben Milam had been taken created much excitement in Gonzales.

What stirred Texas the deepest, aside from the matter of a new constitution, was the order from Santa Anna to reduce the militia. Only one militia-man for each 500 inhabitants was permitted, and all the other militia must surrender their arms to the government! Many Americans had been enrolled in the militia, and their arms were their own.

“Never!” cried Dick Carroll, when he heard of the order. “What! Give up our rifles, and let the Injuns murder us all? A Texan can’t live, in these days, and protect his family, without guns.”

Anybody could understand this. Why, that very spring of 1835 had not Mr. Castleman, who had moved onward fifteen miles west from Gonzales, come riding furiously, with word that the Comanches had attacked and murdered a party of traders right on his place (just as they had tried to murder him a year and a half before, as Ernest well remembered), and that help was needed at once. A bold spirit was John Castleman, whose ranch house was a sort of fortress for travellers on the trail. From his house he and his wife had seen the massacre—and a horrid sight it was. So a posse immediately rode out from Gonzales—“Old Paint” Matthew Caldwell, Dan McCoy, Almeron Dickinson, Zeke Williams, Jacob Darst, Tom Malone, and twenty others, including, of course, Dick, with Bart McClure as captain. Ernest would have joined, but they would not accept him. They caught the Comanches and threshed them well. But supposing no guns had been allowed! Santa Anna, as said Dick Carroll, could go “plumb to thunder.”

Before 1835 was half over with, things in Texas began to look very serious indeed.

“There are those three things, boys,” spoke old Captain John Moore, a famous Indian fighter, who had ridden in from his Moore’s Retreat on the Colorado. “We won’t stand for a new constitution drawn by Santa Anna to suit his tyrannical notions; we won’t be disarmed—no, sir! And we don’t want any 4000 Mexican regular soldiers quartered over us, to spy on us and enforce Santa Anna’s laws. We want to be a free state, with our own laws and our own officers, as allowed by the constitution of 1824. We didn’t come here to form part of a one-man monarchy. Bustamante tried that on us, and failed; and Santa Anna would better not try it. That soldier business looks too much like the way the British acted, before 1776, in Boston. If Mexico doesn’t take care, there’ll be another battle of Lexington, here in Texas, and a Bunker Hill, and a Yorktown to follow.”

In Coahuila, Santa Anna had dissolved the state legislature, and had appointed a governor of his own. Texas had had nothing to say about it, and now stood alone.

In June arrived by courier more bad news; and yet, according to the war party men, not such bad news, either. Captain William B. Travis and a little company had attacked Captain Tonorio, the Mexican officer who was trying to collect revenue taxes at the port of Anahuac, had captured him, and had sent him inland to San Felipe.

Many persons did not approve of this—although everybody liked William Travis. He was a daring young man, and never had been afraid to act. It reminded Ernest of the Boston “tea party,” when the colonists had opposed the collection of the tea tax, and had seized the vessel in Boston harbor, in 1773.

Now both Texas and Mexico were aroused thoroughly. General Cos, who commanded the department of Eastern Mexico, which included Texas, dispatched a message to the Mexican officers at Anahuac, saying that a strong force was being sent there, to restore authority; at the same time he informed the Texas leaders that he would meet their commissioners and talk matters over; but his dispatches were taken from the messenger, and opened.

At San Felipe a public meeting was held, by the Texas war party; and in a speech R. M. Williamson (he who was called “Three-legged Willie”) declared: “Our country, our liberty, and our lives are all involved in the present contest between the State and the military.” A printing press at San Felipe published the speech and proceedings in a circular, and spread it broadcast.

General Cos issued another proclamation, warning Texas that it would be counted as rebellious. From San Antonio de Bejar the courtly Colonel Ugartechea, who commanded 500 soldiers there, issued his own address, assuring his friends the Texans that the proposed revolution would be a great mistake, and that the soldiers were being stationed in Texas solely as a protection to the settlers. And Colonel Dominic Ugartechea was known to Dick Carroll, and “Three-legged” Williamson, and even to Will Travis, as a brave, honorable, conscientious man.

But Ex-Governor Viesca, captured by the Santa Anna forces in Coahuila, had sent word: “Citizens of Texas, arouse yourselves, or sleep forever. Your dearest interests, your liberty, your property—nay, your very existence—depend upon the fickle will of your direst enemies. Your destruction is resolved upon, and nothing but that firmness and energy peculiar to true republicans can save you.”

Alarming words, these.

Then in July arrived in Texas Don Lorenzo de Zavala, who had been the governor of the State of Mexico, at the City of Mexico, and was now fleeing from Santa Anna by reason of having opposed the dictatorship and the new constitution. Don Lorenzo also told the Texas people to be wary.

Orders were sent from the City of Mexico for his arrest; and Colonel Ugartechea, commandant at Bejar, issued an order to Texas for the surrender of not only him, but William Travis, “Three-legged” Williamson, and other American settlers who had been outspoken. They were not surrendered. It would have been dangerous for any Mexican official to attempt to take them.

More trouble occurred at Anahuac. And in the midst of all this turmoil who should arrive but Stephen Austin, landing on the last day of August from a schooner at the mouth of the Brazos River on the Gulf coast. He had not been tried at all, but had been passed from court to court until released and told to go home by Santa Anna himself.

He was worn out, the San Felipe reports said, by his long imprisonment—nearly two years; and upon landing he had walked the beach all night, troubled to know what to do. He went to the home of his sister, near Brazoria town, on the Brazos, about fifty miles below San Felipe.

At Brazoria, on September 8, the people gave a great dinner for him. Over 1000 citizens and settlers gathered there, to welcome him and listen to an address. General Houston came in, and many another notable. It was the first large public banquet in Texas.

Stephen Austin said that he had left for Mexico City with hopes of peace, but that after persecution and imprisonment he had returned to find only unrest and threat of war. Texas was entitled to be separate from Coahuila; of this there was no doubt. The only way by which the Texas farmers could prosper was through getting this matter settled, so that Texas could feel free to go to work. Santa Anna had promised him that the new constitution should consider the special needs of the people of Texas, and had been told that if armed troops were sent into Texas they would be resisted. Now, the thing for Texas to do was to cease these outbreaks and disputes, and to call a general convention, for the purpose of officially drawing up resolutions to Santa Anna, protesting against the armed troops, and saying just what Texas desired, in the new Mexican constitution. This would show that Texas was united.

And he gave as a toast: “The constitutional rights and security and peace of Texas—they ought to be maintained; and jeopardized as they now are, they demand a general consultation of the people.”

But scarcely had the report of the banquet and the speech been spread around, when came the news that General Cos was on his way with troops to land at Matagorda Bay, march inland clear across Texas to Bejar and place the country under military rule! This must not be permitted. Once let the Mexican soldiery establish themselves in Texas, and Texas was lost.

There was no time in which to assemble the consultation advised by Stephen Austin. But at San Felipe immediately met the Central Committee of Safety, of which he was chairman. On September 19, of this 1835, issued a proclamation, signed by him, and printed by the public press at San Felipe—a press that the government hated.

The proclamation, as received at Gonzales, called upon Texans to insist upon their rights under the constitution of 1824; to send delegates for a general consultation and authorized to act as might be necessary; to raise militia and volunteers; not to depend upon the promises of General Cos or other Mexican officers. And it added:

“War is our only resource. There is no other remedy. We must defend our rights, ourselves, and our country by force of arms.”

Colonel Ugartechea had personally assured the Gonzales council that no soldiers were to be brought in and distributed; but they were coming! On this, Texas was resolved: that General Cos should not march across. In Gonzales a company of riflemen were enrolled at once; everybody glowed at white heat; and herding his horses on the prairie, Ernest burned to take part. He was a boy, but he could fight for liberty.

Suddenly, on September 25, there appeared on the west side of the river, at the ferry crossing, opposite town, a Mexican corporal and five soldiers and an ox-cart. The corporal sent word across that he was Casimiro de Leon, of the garrison at Bejar; and that he had a letter from the political chief at Bejar to the alcalde of Gonzales, ordering that the brass cannon be delivered over for loading upon the ox-cart!