The Mexicans might swim the river on their horses in the darkness, and gallop down on the town.

So he never ceased to watch, and he also listened with ears which were rapidly acquiring the delicacy and sensitiveness peculiar to those of expert frontiersmen.
Ned was not warlike in temper.

He knew, from his reading, all the waste and terrible passions of war, but he was heart and soul with the Texans.
He was one of them, and to him the coming struggle was a fight for home and liberty by an oppressed people.

With the ardor of youth flaming in him he was willing for that struggle to begin at once.
Night on the Guadalupe! He felt that the darkness was full of omens and presages for Texas and for him, too, a boy among its defenders.

His pulses quivered, and a light moisture broke out on his face.