"That 'll just suit the critters," replied the colonel. "It's all the're fit for. But we mustn't fail to get there. I kind o' feel as if Texas was getting safer." They were themselves by no means safe and it was time to go forward. The horses had picked a little grass. They had been watered, and so had the feverish, anxious rangers, but rest for either was not to be thought of. Slowly, cautiously, the devious avenues of the seemingly endless thickets were traversed, and at last the little cavalcade, with its precious freight, emerged among the scattered trees on the border of the prairie. "'Tisn't time for us to whistle yet," said Bowie, "even if we're out o' the woods. Hullo! Men! There they come! Forward! Double lines. Horses outside." "Whoop! Whoop!" came fiercely from Castro and his son. "I reckon we've been watched for somehow," growled Jim. "We'll show 'em a good fight for the pewter, but don't I wish thar was more of us!" It seemed as if the loads of dollars added to the desperate courage of the men, and they made ready for the coming fight as if more than their own lives were depending upon it. The horses were ranged in parallel lines, and the riflemen walked on in the space between. It was a kind of travelling breastwork, and it must have had a dangerous look to an outsider. A number of wild horsemen, therefore, contented themselves, for the present, with whooping loudly and riding around at safe distances. There were a great many of them, but Castro declared that the entire force under Great Bear had not made its appearance. "It looks bad for our side," said Bowie. "It's a long time since any Comanche war-parties have ventured in as far as they have this season. Santa Anna was quite enough for us to handle without the redskins." He hardly knew, at that moment, how dark a cloud seemed to be hanging over Texas in those closing days of the winter of 1835-1836. All things had been going wrong. There were quarrels among leaders, and even Houston had lost, apparently, a great deal of his popularity. As Crockett expressed it,-- "The cusses expect the old man to do some things that can't be did." There were a great many things that he could not do. Nevertheless, he worked unceasingly. He made visits of inspection here and there. He made speeches, printed patriotic appeals in the newspapers, and argued with timid or disaffected settlers. It all seemed to be of little use. The Indians were busy on the borders. Reports of the feeling in the Congress of the United States were discouraging. All the while, moreover, every arrival from south of the Rio Grande told of the extensive preparations which the Mexican president was making for an invasion. He was said to have gathered a force that would prove overwhelming, and he had declared death to all rebels.