So Gonzales kept its cannon, Texas had gained the first battle in defense of liberty, and there was great excitement in the town and in Eli Mitchell’s cornfield. The men cheered and sang and gamboled, celebrating their easy victory. Expresses were immediately sent galloping to the eastward, bearing the news, and urging the colonists to rally.

As soon as the first express reached San Felipe, the Central Committee of Defense, there, of which Stephen Austin was chairman, issued a stirring appeal. A copy of it was read among the volunteers at Gonzales. “Now every man in Texas must decide for himself [it said] whether he would submit to the destruction of his rights and liberties by the Mexican government. If he will not submit, let him give his answer by the mouth of his rifle. The citizens of Gonzales have been attacked, the war has begun. Every citizen should march to help his countrymen in the field!”

Hurrah!

More volunteers did march in. They were assigned to companies, until the cornfield was alive with armed men. Ernest was the youngest soldier on the ground, and he was immensely pleased to find himself really enrolled and assigned to the company of cavalry commanded by Lieutenant, now Captain, Almeron Dickinson. That was great! Thereupon Jim loyally asked to be assigned to the same company.

“Put the two boys together,” gruffly directed Colonel Moore; and when Jim came back with the news, he and Ernest rapturously hugged one another. They were “bunkies,” and continued to spread their blankets side by side. Tents were lacking, but a Texan minded not at all sleeping out in the open.

It was quite a reunion of Texas people, some of whom had been neighbors back in the United States but of late had been widely separated; while others never had met or else had heard each other’s names only in stories of Indian fights.

Ernest knew a few, who had been through Gonzales; but Jim knew many more, for he had lived longer there near the crossing of the Colorado River. And on a morning soon after the cannon fight he uttered a glad shout.

“Here’s Leo Roark! Bully!” And leaving Ernest, he rushed off.

Another body of recruits, dusty with travel, had just come in amidst cheers; and running forward, Jim reached up and warmly shook hands with a rider on a little black horse: a boy, as Ernest could see, about Jim’s age. They chatted for a few minutes—the boy sitting his pony easily, a shot-gun lying across his saddle. Then the detachment moved away, to make camp; and with wave of hand, and a word, and a flash of white teeth from under his broad gray hat, the boy followed.

Jim strolled back.

“That’s Leo Roark,” he said. “From Oyster Creek down at the lower Brazos, near the coast. Ever hear of him?”

“Why, sure,” answered Ernest. “He was in that camp that was cleaned out by Indians, wasn’t he? West of town, about five years ago? The time old man Roark and two or three other men were killed?”

“That’s the fellow,” nodded Jim. “He was on guard, but he was right small. He savvied by the way the mules acted that Injuns were ’round; and before he could get the camp on its feet the Injuns had killed his father and the other man. He’d dropped his gun to cut a mule rope, but he had to drop his knife, too, and dive into the mesquite. He travelled clear to Bejar alone, chewing mesquite berries for water; and didn’t get back home for three months. That was Christmas Eve, 1829, when he was about ten years old.”

“He’s come to enlist, has he?” asked Ernest.

“He’s already enlisted. That whole bunch is from the lower Brazos, in the Bay country. More are on the way, too. I’ll admire to make you acquainted with him. He’s lived in Texas most all his life—since 1824, anyhow. His folks are from North Carolina.”

Pretty soon Leo sauntered over from his part of the field, and Ernest was introduced. A manly, sturdy, good-humored boy was Leo; rather quiet, though, as might be expected in a boy who had seen his father murdered by Indians, and had had to turn to, after that, and help support the family. He wore a blue flannel shirt, red tie and belted trousers thrust into boots; and was armed, like Ernest, with his knife and gun.

“We came as fast as we could,” he informed. “That’s a right smart ride—two hundred miles. My father and I used to take a couple of weeks to it, when we were trading into Bejar. How long have you lived out here?”

“Three years,” proudly answered Ernest.

“Then I was in Gonzales before ever you saw it,” announced Leo. “I came through with pap the first time when I couldn’t reach the stirrups. Legs just stuck out this way——” and he spread his thumb and finger. “I sure wish I’d got here now in time for that fight,” he added. “But there’ll be another, won’t there?”

“You bet,” assured Jim. “We’re going to take Bejar.”

“When?”

“Soon as the consultation at San Felipe is over, and we get Austin to lead us.”

“Who’s your leader now?”

“Colonel John H. Moore.”

“Well, what’s the matter with him, then? He’s some fighter, I reckon. And there must be upward of two hundred fifty men right on this spot, just pinin’ for a scrimmage.”

“That’s what I say,” vaunted Ernest. “We can lick those Mexicans to a finish. They can’t fight. They run.”

“I don’t know,” dubiously said Jim. “Ugartechea has four hundred regulars in Bejar, and if Cos joins him with those five hundred more we might have to do a lot of chewing before we could swallow.”

“Shucks!” grunted Leo. “Down our way we calculate one Anglo-Texan settler can lick ten Mexicanos. Look at what we did in ’32 when we drove out the Bustamantists. Anyhow, seems like the whole country is arming now. We passed a lot of people on the road. Fannin’s ‘Brazos Company’ is somewhere behind us.”

“Who are they?” asked Ernest.

“A company of Brazos people who organized at San Felipe, I hear tell. Jim Fannin is their captain. He’s from Georgia and he’s been in Texas only a year; but he’s all man.”

“Doesn’t take long to make a Texan,” asserted Jim, much to Ernest’s satisfaction.

The “Brazos Company,” under Captain James W. Fannin, Jr., arrived. Speedily, indeed, the camp and town were full of notables. There was boyish William Travis, who so hated Mexican tyranny; and Colonel Pat Jack, who with Travis had been cast into a Mexican dungeon, at Anahuac in 1831; and Henry Karnes, a trapper from Arkansas, whose hair was so red that the Apache Indians thought it was his “medicine” charm, and let him go after they had captured him; and Colonel Edward Burleson, who had served under General Andrew Jackson, along with Sam Houston, against the Creek Indians, in Alabama; and Dr. James Grant, a Scotchman who owned a great estate in Coahuila; and Captain Jesse Burnam, of Burnam’s Crossing; and Colonel Branch T. Archer, who had been an Aaron Burr conspirator and had fled from Virginia on account of a duel; and Rezin Bowie, Jim Bowie’s brother—the real inventor of the Bowie knife and as good a man as Colonel Jim. Colonel Jim was in Bejar, ’twas said, with his wife; but he could be counted on.

“I reckon Ben Milam wishes he was here, too, instead of in prison at Monterey,” quoth Ernest; and his companions gravely nodded.

Meanwhile scouts were out and sentries were posted, for Colonel Ugartechea, in command of the Mexican post at San Antonio, would not long be idle after the defeated Lieutenant CastaÑeda reported to him; and General Cos was marching westward from the coast to reinforce him. The camp was full of rumors and alarms.

At midnight Ernest, turning over in his blanket, drowsily heard the beat of galloping hoofs, out of Gonzales and down the road to San Felipe. He thought nothing especial of it, but in the morning the camp soon was astir with renewed excitement, and Jim and Leo brought the word.

“Did you hear that express, last night? Ugartechea’s coming!”

“How do you know? When?”

“Reckon he’s started already,” declared Leo. “They got a message from him late last evening at headquarters, addressed to Austin. Dated the fourth. He said he was marching the next day, which was day before yesterday, for Gonzales, with a complete force; and if we met him and delivered the cannon he’d take it and go back; but if we didn’t be so accommodating then the nation of Mexico would consider itself insulted and at war with the Texas colonists.”

“We aren’t going to do it, are we?” demanded Ernest.

Jim and Leo laughed.

“Hardly, my lad,” said Jim, grandly. “What do you think we’re made of? Colonel Moore sent the message on to San Felipe, with a right smart note to Colonel Austin, asking him to hurry along with more men, and while we waited we’d entertain Ugartechea and Cos, too, if he came. We’d hold ’em off some way.”

“If Cos and Ugartechea don’t come to us we’ll go to them,” added Leo. “We Brazos people enlisted to take Bejar and drive the Mexicans across the Rio Grande, where they belong. We won’t sit ’round here very much doing nothing. We want to finish this war and go home.”

The day proved to be a disturbing one. More scouts were ordered out, westward, to spy on the enemy’s advance; rifles and pistols were cleaned, the six-pounder brass cannon was placed in a better position (“so Ugartechea and Cos can find it easy!” laughed the men), and a general council of war was convened, at the Colonel Moore headquarters, to discuss matters. Colonel Moore was elected commander of the whole camp, until a commander-in-chief of the Texas army was chosen.

Expresses continued to arrive, with dispatches and tidings from the east.

“Suppose you’ve heard the latest about Sam Houston, boy?” hailed Dick Carroll, passing where Ernest was sharpening his knife on his boot-leg.

“Is he coming? Where is he?”

“Oh, he’ll come, when he’s needed. But just now he’s still down at San Augustine and Nacogdoches. He’s been elected commander-in-chief of all Eastern Texas, and the Redlanders [these, as Ernest knew, were the settlers in the Red River country, on the Texas northeastern border] are flocking to him by hundreds.”

“Good for the Redlanders!” cried Ernest. This news from Sam Houston certainly sounded like business. “What’ll we do? March to Bejar and clean the Mexicans out of Texas?”

“Go slow,” cautioned Dick. “You’re just like all these other fellows; spoiling for a fracas. Want to eat the Mexicans at a bite and go back home to their folks and crops. We’ve less’n three hundred men, and Bejar isn’t the only post we’ve got to tackle. There’s Victoria, and Goliad, south, on our flank—and I understand a hundred men are to be sent off against those places. As I calkilate, we gain by waiting a bit, and like as not some of those Mexicans who can’t stomach any dictator business will help us. De Zavala’s come in to San Felipe already, and offered himself to Austin.”

“Who! Lorenzo de Zavala, Dick?”

“That’s right. He’s thrown in with Texas, for liberty and the constitution of ’24; and he was governor of the State of Mexico, too—until Santa Anna chased him out and put a price on his head. That means we’ll probably get a lot of Mexican patriots, as soon as they understand we’re fighting for state freedom. But this camp’s so cocky, doesn’t seem like it’ll wait for Austin or Houston or reinforcements or anything.”

“What man do you want for commander-in-chief, Dick?” queried Ernest.

“Houston,” promptly answered Dick. “Sam Houston. Didn’t I go clear up north to find him, for Texas? But I don’t reckon he’ll be elected. They’re most all West Texas men hyar, yet, and he’s of East Texas. How about it, Henry?” and he hailed Henry Karnes, the red-headed Arkansas trapper and Apache “big medicine,” who on moccasined feet was striding by. “Do you figger we can elect Sam Houston?”

Henry Karnes scratched his fiery thatch.

“Wall,” he drawled, “if he was on the spot he might be elected. Or if we-all were thar he might be elected. But he’s away out yonder, recruitin’ the Redlanders. I think a heap of Houston, myself, but I reckon Austin stands a better show. Everybody knows Austin. He’s got some folks, though, that hold he’s too sort of mild, for a fightin’ man. Fact is, I don’t see how anybody can be elected; this hyar camp’s so split up, with every company shoutin’ for its own separate candidate.”

And that was true. The election had been ordered for to-morrow, and the camp and the town were in a perfect buzz of electioneering. Texas was so large, and the settlements were so widely divided off, that each locality formed a clan, eager to have a man from among themselves as the leader.

On this day 110 volunteers under Captain Allen and Captain Benjamin Fort Smith were detached to march south and seize Victoria and Goliad, so as to cut off the Mexicans’ line of communication with the Gulf. Now there were not enough men left at Gonzales to capture San Antonio, and if Colonel Ugartechea and his Mexican regulars arrived, for that cannon, before reinforcements came in, Colonel Moore’s riflemen certainly would have their hands full.

However, amidst the wild rumors, scouts brought word that Ugartechea had not yet marched out of the Alamo mission of Bejar, but that General Cos was nearing Bejar with his 500 soldiers. Something therefore must be done soon.

Ernest was a strong Sam Houston “man.” But when he tried a little electioneering, himself, for his candidate, he found, as Trapper Karnes had said, that the camp was all “split up.” He could not swing even Leo and Jim.

“Aw, who’s Sam Houston?” opposed Leo. “He may be a right smart of a man, but we’ve got a lot as good one’s who’ve been in Texas longer than he has. We Lower Brazos fellows aren’t going to vote for anybody we don’t know. We’ve got a man of our own.”

“Didn’t you ever see Sam Houston?” asked Ernest.

“Naw, I never did. I hear tell he’s a politician who’s come into East Texas hoping to get something. Did you ever see him?”

“I should say I did!” defended Ernest, hotly. “I saw him up at Fort Gibson before ever he came into Texas, and I’ve seen him at Gonzales, too. He’s the finest, kindest man anybody ever met. He’s a friend of President Jackson’s, and a friend of Texas—and didn’t Texas send for him, and hasn’t he been at the head of things around Nacogdoches, and taken part in the conventions, and haven’t they elected him their commander-in-chief already?”

“Shucks!” scoffed Leo. “We don’t care what they’re doing up ’round Nacogdoches. We’ve got a leader picked out that we know and can depend on. He’s from down our way.”

“But Houston’s been in the United States army, and he’s lived with the Indians, and he’s not afraid of anything,” argued Ernest. “He can fight the way the white men fight and he can fight the way the Indians fight; and if he was commander then maybe all the Cherokees and Comanches would join us.”

But Leo was unconvinced. So was Jim; and moreover, Jim didn’t seem even to favor Austin, especially, although he knew Stephen Austin well.

“Austin would do toler’bly, I reckon,” agreed Jim. “But we settlers on the Colorado have a Colorado man we want. What’s the use in looking to the Brazos or clear to East Texas for a commander, when right here in camp we’ve one of the best fighters in Texas, who’s lived on the Colorado, and knows the whole country and all the men, from the Colorado to the Rio Grande?”

“But if everybody wants a different man, how’s anybody to be elected?” demanded Ernest. And suddenly, interrupting himself, he sprang to his feet, pointing. “Look!” he cried. “Here’s a big bunch of more volunteers coming; a regular company! Hooray!”

“Hooray!” cheered Jim and Leo; and from Gonzales and from the cornfield resounded other cheers, as men flourished their hats and rifles, welcoming the new arrivals.

“They’ve got a flag! See it?”

“A new tri-color—red, white and blue, with a star on it!”

“It’s the Lone Star, boys! The Star of Texas and Liberty! Three cheers!”

In real military order, horse and foot, the company of reinforcements marched up the road. Three riders led; and the rider at the left bore, on a lance at his saddle-bow, a square pennant divided into three sections—blue, white and red. The blue was a broad band running up and down, next to the pole; the white and the red made two bands extending the other way, from the blue to the end. In the middle of the blue band was a single large white star, five-pointed.

It was a gay and beautiful flag; and the company under it marched proudly on, to report. Speedily the word spread that this was a company clear from Harrisburg on Buffalo Bayou of the Galveston Bay section. Andrew Robinson was captain; A. B. Dodson was first lieutenant; Jim Ferguson was second lieutenant. The flag had been made by Lieutenant Dodson’s bride, who had been Miss Sarah Rudolph Bradley (Leo said that he knew her), out of calico, and had been presented by her to the company. Lieutenant Ferguson was the man carrying it. He and the others explained that the three colors combined the tri-color idea of Mexico (whose flag was red, white and green) with the American red, white and blue; and that the star was Texas, rising for liberty in Mexico.

The company brought copies of several circulars that had been distributed throughout East and Southeast Texas, urging the settlers to arm and hasten to Gonzales; every circular had the right ring to it: “Take Bejar and drive the Mexican soldiery out of Texas,” was the slogan. They brought word also that Sam Houston was being depended upon to raise volunteers in the United States, to help Texas; and that a general consultation of defense was still in session at San Felipe, and that Stephen Austin was anxious to get away from there and likely enough was already on the road.

The flag was much admired; but by the next morning it was forgotten. The election of commander-in-chief of the Texan army was ordered for four o’clock this afternoon of October 11, and there were as many candidates as companies! Matters seemed all mixed up, until, fortunately, at noon Austin came riding in.

This settled the quarrels and disputes. The sight of Stephen Austin, here at last, and the recollection of how he had toiled for Texas, won everybody. His name was proposed to company after company and received with cheers; and although he said that he did not want the position—he did not feel strong enough, after his imprisonment in Mexico—he accepted, as his duty, if the army would be satisfied with no one else.

Accordingly, after the election at four o’clock, Peter Grayson, the president of the board of war, informed him that he had been unanimously elected commander-in-chief of the Texan army.

“Don’t you think he’ll be a good one, Dick?” anxiously queried Ernest, seeking his trusty oracle.

“Well,” replied Dick, as if weighing the pros and cons, “we all love Austin—just natur’ly love him. But he’s not a military man, and to me he looks powerful pale and weak. When we really get ag’in a hard campaign with the Mexican regulars, my opinion is that Austin would do better organizing finances and supplies and keeping things moving at that end, which is more his training, while an Old Hickory sort of a man like Sam Houston takes the field. We Texans are a hard people to manage, anyhow. We’re so tarnation independent.”

Dick’s words were encouraging, nevertheless. And so were Leo’s.

“Yes, I voted for Austin,” he said. “We’ll follow Austin. But if he hadn’t accepted, and if we-all didn’t get our own man in, some of our fellows would have gone home.”

“Would you have gone back home?” demanded Ernest.

Leo opened his eyes wide.

“Who? Me? I should say not! I’m here to stick till we take Bejar.”

“So am I,” asserted Jim, quietly. “I want to see this fracas through.”

Whereupon they three agreed to “stick,” together, and “see the fracas through,” for the sake of the cause and not the sake of any particular leader. Still, Ernest did not give up the hope that he, at least, might some day follow Sam Houston.

As he was turning in under his blanket, for sleep, he was set almost wide awake by a joyous shout from Jim, who had been “visiting.”

“Shake up your priming and stow away your corn-bread, boy,” jubilated Jim. “We bust camp to-morrow and march straight for Bejar.”

“Who said so?”

“General Austin. I got it from a man who got it from another man who got it at headquarters. The consultation at San Felipe’s going to quit until November 1, so all the delegates can join the army; Austin’s promised that if they do he’ll take Bejar in three days; and he’s sent another express to Sam Houston and the Redlanders to hurry along, pronto [fast], ’cause they’ll be needed in the fight.”