Ned was exceedingly glad to dismount as he was stiff and sore from the long ride, and he was also as hungry as a wolf.
"Lay down on the grass, Ned, an' stretch yourself," said Karnes.

"When you're tired the best way to rest is to be just as lazy as you can be.
The ground will hold you up an' let your lungs do their own breathin'.
Don't you go to workin' 'em yourself." Ned thought it good advice and took it.

It was certainly a great luxury to make no physical exertion and just to let the ground hold him up, as Karnes had said.

Obed imitated his example, stretching himself out to his great thin length on the soft turf.
"Two are company and twenty are more so," he said, "especially if you're in a wild country.

My burden of care isn't a quarter as heavy since we met Jim Bowie, and all the rest of these sure friends and sure shots.
This isn't much like San Juan de Ulua is it, Ned?
You wouldn't like to be back there." The boy looked up at the vast blue dome of the heavens, then he listened a moment to the sigh of the free wind which came unchecked a thousand miles and he replied with so much emphasis that his words snapped: "Not for worlds, Obed!" Obed White laughed and rolled over in the grass.
"I do believe you mean that, Ned," he said, "and the sentiments that you speak so well are also mine own." Smith and Karnes went a little distance up the creek, and found some buffalo feeding.