"
His confidence was justified, and the next morning they were away again
over the prairie. Ned was sure that he would meet roving Texans or
Mexicans before noon, but he saw neither. He surmised that the news of
Santa Anna's great force had sent all the Texans eastward, but the
loneliness and desolation nevertheless weighed upon him.
He crossed several streams, all of them swollen and deep from spring
rains, and every time he came to one he returned thanks again because he
had found Old Jack. The great horse always took the flood without
hesitation, and would come promptly to the other bank.
He saw many deer, and started up several flights of wild turkeys, but he
did not disturb them. He was a soldier now, not a hunter, and he sought
men, not animals. Another night came and found him still alone on the
prairie. As before, he slept undisturbed under the boughs of a tree, and
he awoke the next morning thoroughly sound in body and much refreshed in
mind. But the feeling of hardness, the desire for revenge, remained. He
was continually seeing the merciless face of Santa Anna and the
sanguinary interior of the Alamo. The imaginative quality of his mind
and his sensitiveness to cruelty had heightened the effect produced upon
him.
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