Then they secured the windows, and heaped logs before the door in such a manner that the smartest wolves and panthers in the world could not force an entrance.

As they sat on their horses in the twilight preparatory to riding away, they regarded their work with great content.
"There it is, waiting for us when we come again," said Obed White.

"It's a pleasant thing to have a castle for refuge when your enemies are making it too hot for you out in the open." "So it is," said the Panther, "and a man finds that out more than once in his life." Then they turned their horses and rode southward in the dusk.

But before long they made an angle and turned almost due west.

It was their intention to intersect the settlements that lay between the Rio Grande and San Antonio and give warning of the approach of Santa Anna.
They went on steadily over a rolling country, mostly bare, but with occasional clumps of trees..