Harrisburg was only about twenty miles inland from Galveston Bay of the coast. So Santa Anna had marched clear across Texas, with General Houston at first before him, and now behind him. On the bay shore east of Harrisburg was the town of New Washington; and a few miles north of New Washington was Lynch’s Ferry and Lynchburg, of the San Jacinto River—just above where the river, flowing southward, widens into San Jacinto Bay in the upper part of Galveston Bay.

From the west, Buffalo Bayou (near whose mouth is to-day located the city of Houston) joined the San Jacinto River at Lynch’s Ferry. Somewhere to the south of the angle formed by the Bayou, and the San Jacinto River and bay, were the Santa Anna army. They could not go much further east, that was certain. They would go north, for East Texas. Urrea was taking care of the south.

To-day’s march from McCurley’s ranch was a hard one. The prairie road was soft with bogs and with mud from the rain, and everybody was in a hurry. The “Twin Sisters,” as the Cincinnati cannon had been christened, were dragged with long ropes—a score of volunteers lending their hands. The cannon wheels and the wheels of the wagons sank deeply into the mushy sod. The general frequently dismounted and helped push and pull. There were so many sloughs and creeks, also, that it took until dark to go twelve miles, and even then camp was made on wet ground at the edge of a sluggish creek.

Buffalo Bayou, curving into the south as it reached back from the San Jacinto, sent out many branches; and Jim and Ernest and all were well fagged out when, before noon of April 18, the third day from McCurley’s and the forking of the trails, the toiling army at last reached the main channel of the bayou, almost opposite Harrisburg.

Not a Mexican soldier had been sighted; but now, slightly to the southeast, across the bayou, lay Harrisburg. It had been burned, for a veil of smoke from its smouldering rafters hung low over the bayou timber, marking the site.

So there, between the bayou and the coast, a short stretch of timber-dotted prairie and swamp country, was Santa Anna with his army.

However, the other army were almost too tired to talk. During the forced march of fifty-five miles from McCurley’s, in two and a half days of rain and mud, Jim and Ernest had scarcely seen Leo and Sion. As soon as the camps had been located, and supper eaten, everybody had gone to sleep. Now the word was passed that a half day’s rest would be given, to freshen the army up for a battle.

Deaf Smith and Henry Karnes, the chief scouts, took two or three of the Deaf Smith Spies, and swimming their horses, crossed the rapid bayou on a raft, to reconnoitre. Otherwise it was a lazy afternoon. But about dusk Deaf Smith returned, driving two prisoners before them. He made them row the raft, and followed them in to camp, a pair of leather saddle-bags in his hand, his rifle in the other. There was no use yelling questions. But——

“I know that one fellow, and so do you!” exclaimed Ernest, to Jim. “That little fellow. Remember him? He’s a paisano from Bejar. He was in Captain Seguin’s Mexican company, too, before San Antonio.”

“Well, you never know which way those paisanos are going to jump,” quoth Jim.

The two prisoners were conducted to headquarters by Deaf Smith. The “little fellow” proved to be a guide for Santa Anna; and the other prisoner was a captain in the Mexican army, who had been carrying dispatches from General Filisola the Italian to Santa Anna. Deaf Smith had caught both of the men on the main road for Harrisburg.

The guide told General Houston that the Santa Anna army numbered 500 infantry and 100 cavalry. As for the dispatches in the leather bags——

“Jiminy!” cried Sion, who with Leo sought out the other boys, after having skirmished for the true news. “Deaf Smith says those dispatches were so fresh that the ink on ’em was hardly dry yet. Those were Travis’s deerhide saddle-bags—had his name on ’em. The dispatches told us just what we want to know. Santa Anna’s ahead, all alone, with only six hundred men. Urrea’s clear down at Matagorda. Gaona’s away back up north, toward Bastrop. He got lost. Filisola and Sesma are at the Brazos, near Fort Bend below San Felipe; and the only thing that’s liable to interfere is Cos the parole-breaker. Filisola’s hurrying him forward with five hundred men.”

“Yes,” put in Leo, “and Deaf Smith says Harrisburg was burned on the fifteenth, and the Mexicans got to the bay just in time to see President Burnet setting out in a skiff for Galveston Island. Only three printers were left in the town. Then Santa Anna started on for New Washington and Lynch’s Ferry, to cut us off if we retreated east. But when he finds we’re here to fight him, and have cut him off, in a pocket, he’ll have to get out either over the bayou again, or else by Lynch’s Ferry. He doesn’t know we’re here—he thinks we’re retreating to the Trinity and Nacogdoches. That’s what all the settlers have told him. And if we hurry we can beat him to the San Jacinto, and he’s our meat!”

“He sure is!” exulted Jim. “This army can lick any six hundred Mexicans that ever were born.”

“I reckon Sam Houston knew his business, after all,” admitted Sion.

That night the camp was impatient for the dawn. Deaf Smith estimated that the Mexican army were less than a day’s march away. If they weren’t overhauled before they crossed the juncture of Buffalo Bayou and the San Jacinto River they’d have a clear lead again, and could go on up to Nacogdoches, and summon the Indians of the northern prairies, and perhaps unite with the Gaona column.

General Houston and Colonel Rusk, the secretary of war, had had a conference.

“We don’t need to talk,” the general was reported to have said. “You think we ought to fight, and so do I.”

There still were some men who feared that the general might wait. Colonel Sherman promised his regiment that if the general would not fight, they could follow him and he’d soon give them enough. But an aide summoned him and Colonel Burleson to headquarters and when Colonel Sherman returned, everything was all right.

The general had asked him and Colonel Burleson if they had beef on hand for three days.

“Yes, sir,” they replied.

“Very well,” had said General Houston. “You will see then that each man is supplied with cooked rations for three days, and hold the camp in readiness to march. We will see if we can find Santa Anna. Good evening, gentlemen.”

The morning dawned for a day of energy. The army ate a hasty breakfast of beef strips wound around green sticks and held in the blaze, and orders were given to fall in. General Houston rode in front of the lines, and from his horse made a speech. It was a short speech, but it was enough.

“The army will cross, and we will meet the enemy,” he declared. “Some of us may be killed, and must be killed. But, soldiers, remember the Alamo, the Alamo, the Alamo!”

“By thunder, after that speech there’ll be mighty few prisoners taken; I know that!” exclaimed Major Somervell.

Colonel Rusk began an address. He had proceeded only a few words, when he stopped, amidst the cheering, and bowed, and said, simply: “I am done.” He evidently saw that no more words were necessary.

First, the bayou was to be crossed. It was fifty yards wide, and running swiftly. The old ferryboat—a scow—had been found, but it was leaky, and the general fumed angrily when he saw that it had not been repaired according to orders. There was no time to repair it now. If Cos or Santa Anna should come while the army were crossing—whew!

The boat had no oars, even. General Houston flung off his black coat, grabbed an ax, and began to hew an oar from a piece of fence rail. He delivered orders right and left, while he hewed. A second oar was needed. Men were set at work tying rawhide ropes and horsehair cabrestas or picket lines together. Only the saddle-horses, the “Twin Sisters” teams, and one baggage wagon were to be taken. The rest of the baggage and animals, and the sick men, were to be left here on the west bank.

Thirty pioneers or trail-makers were sent over first, while four men bailed. They carried an end of the rope, and made it fast to a tree; and the rope, thus stretched from bank to bank, formed a guide for the boat. When the boat was returned, rowed and paddled, the general himself leaped aboard, afoot, with the next detachment. His horse whinnied, and sprang into the water and swam after. Colonel Rusk stayed on the west bank. Running between them, guided by the rope, the boat made passage after passage. To help out, the raft which had served Deaf Smith was called into service.

The infantry and cannon and wagon were transferred before the cavalry moved. The boat soon was leaking much worse, and threatened to sink or capsize. The four men bailing furiously could scarcely keep it afloat.

Noon passed, and still the cavalry waited, and still the infantry were being ferried by scow and raft, urged from either bank by the shouts of the general and Colonel Rusk.

Somebody in Ernest and Jim’s company had picked up, on the ground where the general’s quarters had been located, a piece of paper which he had thrown aside. It was the first part of a note, written in lead pencil to Mr. Henry Raguet, of the Committee of Safety in Nacogdoches. The fragment said:

“Sounds like business,” approved one of the men, as the note was circulated.

Toward sunset only one boatload of the infantry remained to be ferried. Sion and Leo had gone—they had waved to Jim and Ernest; and balancing, Sion had grinned with glee at the adventure.

“Cavalry’s turn, now, gentlemen,” called Colonel Rusk. “Swim your horses well below the ferry, and don’t crowd.”

“Come on, boys,” bade Colonel Sherman. “Tie up your bridles.”

The bridle lines were tied loosely about the horses’ necks, so that the animals would not entangle their feet, and by companies the horses were led to the water’s edge. Then the men fell back, forming a half circle, to shout and wave their arms and hats, and crowd the horses forward. In plunged the gallant Colonel Sherman, to head his own horse across, and slipping from the saddle, to swim alongside, holding by the mane.

On the bank the front rank of horses were pressed forward by their comrades behind, jostling and snorting to the shouting and waving of the men. Presently in splashed one horse, and another, and another, to launch in the wake of the Colonel Sherman horse. Some disappeared entirely as they took the plunge into the deep water. In went Jim’s horse; in went Duke—practically heels over head; and Ernest watched anxiously for him to break the surface again, for it was well known that if a horse got water in his ears, while swimming, he would drown. But up bobbed Duke’s yellow head; he blew the water from his nostrils, and bravely stuck out along with the procession.

Every horse of the sixty reached the opposite bank without mishap; scrambling out, shook himself violently, and joined his fellows, herded together by the first of the cavalrymen ferried across.

The baggage wagon and the Twin Sisters had been rafted over. Twilight was gathering when the last boatload of men was landed. Colonel Rusk accompanied it. He stepped ashore, and he and General Houston gripped each other’s hands. The camp guard left at the other side cheered.

“Thank God,” uttered the general. And, to the colonels commanding: “Form the ranks.”

Now across Buffalo Bayou, on the Harrisburg and Santa Anna side toiled the little army, at best pace. In the darkness they clattered over a bridge which crossed a branch bayou running north into Buffalo Bayou.

Vince’s Bayou, was this, by report along the column, and Vince’s Bridge of the road from Harrisburg: the road taken by the Mexican army. But presently the column left the main road and diverged to the left, following closer the timber down Buffalo Bayou.

“Great CÆsar!” murmured Jim, dimly seen as he rode at Ernest’s right hand. “If this keeps up all night we’ll reach the mouth at the San Jacinto, and Lynch’s. Can’t go any further then without more ferrying.”

By midnight the infantry were staggering and stumbling, and even the horses moved on leaden feet. But nobody complained. Seven hundred fighting Texans were hot on the hunt for 600 hateful invading Mexicans, and the two trails would meet somewhere close ahead.

At one o’clock by the stars (for the sky had cleared at last) the order to rest for two hours was given. The infantry dropped in their tracks, Ernest and Jim and the other horsemen simply tumbled from their saddles. And here concealed in the fragrant evergreens the little army panted and shivered and dozed.

“After this war’s over,” mused Jim, drowsily, huddling under his wet blanket beside Ernest, “I’m going to change my clothes. A fellow likes a clean shirt and dry socks once in a while! Maybe to-morrow I’ll capture an officer and take his. Those Mexican officers dress fine.”

“Guess Sion and Leo are getting all the action they want, this time,” stammered Ernest, with teeth chattering. “But we’re lucky that none of us had to stay with that camp guard, back at the bayou crossing.”

“Those fellows certainly did hate to stay,” agreed Jim. “They’re liable to have to fight the whole Mexican army, though, if there’s a retreat. Or Cos may attack ’em on his way in.”

Ernest dropped into an uneasy sleep. He dreamed that he was home and that his mother was trying to tuck him in bed with covers which were too short!

The easternmost stars were just paling when the camp was aroused by orders to fall in again. Stiffly all obeyed. Ernest had faint recollection of the usual three taps of the drum, from the general’s quarters, as first signal—but he had found it very hard to obey them. However, now the officers were urging—the general’s voice was echoing through the grayness—somebody said that he had slept with the coil of cannon rope for a pillow—and into the cold saddles on the hunched horses must the cavalry climb.

“Hee-yaw!” yawned Jim. “We’re riding, anyhow. Only the cavalry and the high-up officers have horses. That’s tough on some of the officers who’ve been a-straddle all the way from the Colorado.”

“Wonder if we ever eat again,” responded Ernest, who had a woefully hollow feeling.

“Sure thing,” asserted Jim. “The general, he’ll just take us in sight of those Mexicans cooking breakfast—so we can smell the coffee, you know; then he won’t have to give a single order, but you’ll see us charge a-whooping, for the kettles!”

Camp had been made without supper. The march was made without breakfast. Nobody could accuse the general, now, of dilly-dallying!

Away galloped the Deaf Smith Spy Company, commanded by Henry Karnes the red-head, to scout in advance. The army could always depend upon the Deaf Smith Spies. At slower pace the column followed, plodding wearily and hungrily through the damp timber and the tall prairie grass, cloaked in the chillness of early dawn.

After a march of seven miles, halt was ordered for breakfast at last, in the sunrise. Rations had given out, but several cattle were sighted near, and were driven in and killed. Speedily the soldiers, horse and foot, were grouped about fires, toasting the fresh meat on sticks, regular buccaneer fashion. The cannon horses were unfastened from the traces, and they and the mounts of the cavalry and the field officers industriously grazed. It was a wild and picturesque sight: 700 ragged, bedraggled, whiskered men (not to speak of the boys) squatting around fires, their guns in their laps, and all intently toasting bloody meat. The sun, which had risen above the timber of the crooked Buffalo Bayou, shone peacefully upon them, through the magnolias and live-oaks, and upon the prairie beyond.

This process of breakfast-getting was very slow; and Ernest, with eyes smarting and mouth watering, was manipulating his meat on his stick, trying to hurry it, when an exclamation from Jim interrupted him.

“Aw, shucks! Here come those scouts, lickity-split, as if they had some sort of a big tell! Why can’t they wait till a fellow’s eaten?”

Along the timber edge from the east a squad of the scouts, led by Deaf Smith, were racing back to the army.

“What’s the matter now?” hailed voices, impatiently.

“Saw the enemy. They’re on ahead a short piece. You-all’ll have to hurry.”

Up sprang the camp. The cannoneers leaped for their team, the cavalry for their saddles. Having listened shortly to the report of Deaf Smith, the general roared his orders—repeated briskly by Colonel Burleson and Colonel Sherman, and by the company captains.

“Fall in, men! Fall in!”

“By gravy, I don’t leave my meat, you can bet,” scolded Jim, running, with his laden, smoking stick, for his horse. Ernest followed his example. Men were doing the same. The army “chawed” as they went.

The scouts reported that a few miles before they had encountered an advance guard of the Mexican army—had been chased but had escaped. Nobody killed. By all appearances the Mexican army were marching from New Washington north to cross the San Jacinto and the mouth of the bayou at Lynch’s Ferry. Washington had been burned.

Throughout the ranks, afoot and mounted, rifles began to crack. Jim promptly shot into the air, and swiftly reloaded.

“Go ahead. Clean out your gun,” he bade, to Ernest; and Ernest likewise pulled harmless trigger. His little rifle spoke smartly.

The general came riding furiously down the column.

“Stop that firing!” he fairly bellowed.

“No, we won’t, general,” replied somebody, good-naturedly. “Our guns have been loaded over two weeks and we don’t intend to meet the enemy with our powder wet.”

The general drew his sword.

“I’ll run the next man through who fires without orders,” he declared.

“Bang!”

“It won’t do for you to try that game, now, general,” warned the shooter. The ranks laughed. General Houston glared around him for an instant, and with a shrug of his great shoulders clapped his sword back and rode to the front again.

The column lunged forward at best speed. Now indeed it was a race to see which army would be the first to reach the crossing. Colonel John A. Wharton, of the staff, took thirty of the cavalry and dashed away, to reconnoitre the crossing and keep the enemy in play until the army could arrive. Jim and Ernest regretfully watched the advance disappear in the margin of the timber. Only men had been picked, mainly from one company.

“I always knew I ought to have joined that company, in the first place,” deplored Jim. “Now they’ll find Santa Anna and get all the best clothes!”

But no sounds of a battle were heard—ah, yes, there echoed a rifle shot! And another. The shooting ceased. And when, breathless, dripping, men and horses alike, with perspiration, the army rounded a shoulder of timber, they saw, before, an expanse of flat, marshy ground, inhabited by myriads of piping, screaming wild fowl; eastward still was flashing San Jacinto Bay, with the juncture of the Buffalo Bayou and the San Jacinto River above its upper end—the few scattered houses at Lynch’s Ferry, and the waiting horsemen of Colonel Wharton’s command. Not a Mexican soldier was in sight.

The Colonel Wharton detachment were found at the ferry landing in possession of a fine new flatboat equipped with a sail and loaded with foodstuffs. They said that Captain Hancock and Lieutenant Crain and four others had arrived before the rest, and that a guard of twenty Mexican soldiers had fled south without firing a shot. Had left the flatboat, of course—for which, much obliged to them! Santa Anna had shipped the boat up the bay from New Washington, to be ready for him. Now he could come and get it.

“We won. Hurrah!” cheered Ernest, excitedly. “We beat Santa Anna to the crossing.”

“Yes, sir; and we corralled a flatboat full of breakfast, too,” reminded Jim. “Do you see that big house yonder, across the San Jacinto? That’s Lorenzo de Zavala’s house. He lives here. He and Colonel Lynch and the rest of the bay fellows are right at home.”

General Houston immediately ordered the boat taken up the bayou about three-quarters of a mile, and the army to follow along the bank, out of the flat to the timber.

Camp was made on high ground in the shade of great live-oaks, whose branches were festooned with the drooping Spanish moss. It was a beautiful spot. The bayou, wide, and sluggishly flowing in a curve between green banks, was behind. On the left the San Jacinto River rippled past the bayou’s mouth, and widened into San Jacinto Bay, bordered by salty marshes. On the right, distant about six miles, Vince’s Bayou extended down to Vince’s Bridge in the southwest, at the Harrisburg road. Before, a rolling prairie stretched two miles to the swamps of the inward curving bay. A timbered rise jutted out before the camp; and several hundred yards out on the prairie, were two timber “islands,” or motts; one in front of the camp, the other to the left.

The general lost no time in getting ready for Santa Anna, who could not be more than a couple of miles distant. He planted the Twin Sisters in the edge of the trees on the little rise. Colonel John Neill commanded the battery. Two hundred infantry, including Leo’s company, armed with muskets and commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel Millard of the Texas Regulars, were stationed behind the cannon. Sion and the other riflemen of the First Volunteers under Colonel Edward Burleson were placed on the right wing, the Second Volunteers under Colonel Sidney Sherman on the left wing. The cavalry were back of the Millard musketeers or regulars. The gold and white flag, surmounted by the glove of Colonel Sherman’s bride, floated over the centre.

Now it was noon.

“I reckon if nobody’s coming we might as well eat,” quoth Jim, while for a brief space the army waited, and peered across the prairie beyond the timber. “What do we call it, anyway? Last night’s supper? We’ve got three meals due us. De Zavala ought to invite us all over to his house for a snack.”

De Zavala the patriot did not quite do this; but, as the prairie remained apparently peaceful, presently orders were issued for the men to go ahead with their three meals in one. Fires were lighted, beef was toasted once more—when on a sudden back through the high grass along the timber came galloping once more the Deaf Smith Spies. They had sighted the Mexican army advancing. The camp left its beef and seized its arms.

“Seems as if we didn’t get time for anything any more,” complained Ernest, as he and Jim ran for their saddles. “It’s just up and down, up and down.”

“That’s right,” concurred Jim. “We’ve been wanting to fight, and now we have to fight even to eat!”