But he did not allow his comfort to lull him into lethargy.
Always he watched the river and the farther shore.

He had now become no mean scout and sentinel.

The faculties develop fast amid the continuous fight for life against all kinds of dangers.

Above all, that additional sense which may be defined as prescience, and, which was a development of the other five, was alive within him, ready to warn him of a hostile presence.
But Ned neither saw nor heard anything, nor did his sixth sense warn him that an enemy was near.

The Guadalupe, wide, yellow and comparatively shallow like most of the Texas rivers, flowed slowly and without sound.
Now and then Obed and the Panther walked down to the other ford, where all, too, was quiet, but Ned kept his place against the root.