It was
significant that Smith, the New Yorker, and Bowie, the Georgian, rode
side by side.
All through the hot sun of the afternoon they rode on. Twilight found
them still riding. Far in the night they waded and swam the Rio Grande,
and the next morning they stood on the soil that now is Texas.
CHAPTER XIV
THE RING TAILED PANTHER
Texas was then a vague and undetermined name in the minds of many. It
might extend to the Rio Grande or it might extend only to the Nueces,
but to most the Rio Grande was the boundary between them and Mexico. So
felt Ned and all his comrades. They were now on the soil which might own
the overlordship of Mexico, but for which they, the Texans, were
spending their blood. It was strange what an attachment they had for it,
although not one of them was born there. Beyond, in the outer world,
there was much arguing about the right or wrong of their case, but they
knew that they would have to fight for their lives, and for the homes
they had built in the wilderness on the faith of promises that had been
broken. That to them was the final answer and to people in such a
position there could be no other.
The sight of Texas, green and fertile, with much forest along the
streams was very pleasant to Ned, and those rough frontiersmen in
buckskin who rode with him were the very men whom he had chosen.
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