They tethered the horses at the edge of the wood, but where they could
reach the grass, and then Bowie placed numerous pickets in the wood
through which an enemy must come, if he came. Ned was in the first watch
and Obed and the Ring Tailed Panther were with him. Ned stood among the
trees at a point where he could also see the river, here a beautiful,
clear stream with a greenish tint. He ate venison from his knapsack as
he walked back and forth, and he watched the last rays of the sun,
burning like red fire in the west, until they went out and the heavy
twilight came, trailing after it the dark.
Ned's impression of mediaevalism that he had received in the day when
they were riding about San Antonio continued in the night. They had gone
back centuries. Hidden here in this horseshoe, water on one side and
wood on the other, they seemed to be in an absolutely wild and primitive
world. Centuries had rolled back. His vivid imagination made the forest
about them what it had been before the white man came.
The surface of the river was now dark. The stream flowed gently, and
without noise. It, too, struck upon the boy's imagination. It would be
fitting for an Indian canoe to come stealing down in the darkness, and
he almost fancied he could see it there.
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