The Texans now began to grow restless. Cooped up in two houses they were in the way of one another and they demanded freedom and action. Henry Karnes suggested that they break into another house closer to the plaza. Milam consented and Karnes, followed closely by Ned, Obed, the Ring Tailed Panther and thirty others, dashed out, smashed in the door of the house, and were inside before the astonished Mexicans could open an accurate fire upon them. Here they at once secured themselves and their bullets began to rake the plaza. The Mexicans were forced to throw up more and higher intrenchments. Again the combat became intermittent. There were bursts of rifle fire, and occasional shots from the cannon, and, now and then, short periods of almost complete silence. Night came on and Ned, watching from the window, saw Colonel Milam, their leader, pass down the trench and enter the courtyard of the Veramendi house. He stood there a moment, looking at the Mexican position. A musket cracked and the Texan, throwing up his arms, fell. He was dead by the time he touched the ground. The ball had struck him in the center of the forehead. Ned uttered a cry of grief, and it was taken up by all the Texans who had seen their leader fall. A half dozen men rushed forward and dragged away his body, but that night they buried it in the patio. His death only incited them to new efforts. As soon as his burial was finished they rushed another house in their slow advance, one belonging to Antonio Navarro, a solid structure only one block from the great plaza. They also stormed and carried a redoubt which the Mexicans had erected in the street beside the house. It now being midnight they concluded to rest until the morrow. Meanwhile, they had elected Johnson their leader. Ned was in the new attack and with Obed and the Ring Tailed Panther he was in the Navarro house. It was the fourth that he had occupied since the attack on San Antonio. He felt less excitement than on the night before. It seemed to him that he was becoming hardened to everything. He looked at his comrades and laughed. They were no longer in the semblance of white men. Their faces were so blackened with smoke, dirt and burned gunpowder that they might have passed for negroes. "You needn't laugh, Ned," said Obed. "You're just as black as we are. This thing of changing your boarding house every night by violence and the use of firearms doesn't lead to neatness. If fine feathers make fine birds then we three are about the poorest flock that ever flew." "But when we go for a house we always get it," said the Ring Tailed Panther. "You notice that. This place belongs to Antonio Navarro. I've met him in San Antonio, an' I don't like him, but I'm willin' to take his roof an' bed."