He looked back, and extended his
hand to Crockett as he had to Bowie.
"Good-by, Mr. Crockett," he said, "you've been very good to me."
The great brown hand of the frontiersman clasped his almost
convulsively.
"Aye, Ned," he said, "we've cottoned to each other from the first. I
haven't knowed you long, but you've been like a son to me. Now go, an'
God speed you!"
Ned recalled afterward that he did not say anything about Roylston's
relieving force. What he thought of then was the deep feeling in
Crockett's words.
"I'm coming back," he said, "and I hope to hunt buffalo with you over
the plains of a free Texas."
"Go! go! Hurry, Ned!" said Crockett.
"Good-by," said Ned, and he dropped lightly to the ground.
He was outside the Alamo after eleven days inside, that seemed in the
retrospect almost as many months. He flattened himself against the wall,
and stood there for a minute or two, looking and listening. He thought
he might hear Crockett again inside, but evidently the Tennesseean had
gone back at once. In front of him was only the darkness, pierced by a
single light off toward the west.
Ned hesitated. It was hard for him to leave the Alamo and the friends
who had been knitted to him by so many common dangers, yet his errand
was one of high importance--it might save them all--and he must do it.
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