His prescience, the gift of foresight, was at work.

It was telling him that the time, in very truth, had come.

Yet he could not see or hear a single thing that bore the remotest resemblance to an enemy.
The boy stepped from a clump of trees in order that he might get a better look down the river.

There was a crack on the farther shore, a flash of fire, and a bullet sang past his ear.

He caught a hasty glimpse of a Mexican with a smoking rifle leaping to cover, and he, too, sprang back into the shelter of the trees.
It was the first shot of the great Texan struggle for independence! Ned felt all of its significance even then, and so did Obed.
"You saw him ?" asked the Maine man.
"I did, and I felt the breath of his bullet on my face, but he gained cover too quick for me to return his fire." "The first shot was theirs and it was at you.