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The next afternoon Mr. Carroll pointed ahead.

“San Felipe on the Brazos,” he announced. “First American town founded in Texas, headquarters of Steve Austin’s colony, and sort of capital for the whole outfit of us. We’ll stop there to-night, and at Burnam’s on the Colorado to-morrow night, and day after we’ll push on through to Gonzales.”

San Felipe was a straggling little town, with scattered houses of logs and of thick, rough-sawed siding like clapboards, and dusty but wide streets, centering about two public squares or plazas. There was a tavern, run by a settler named Whitesides, and a double log house where lived Stephen Austin himself, the “Father of Texas.” He was away from town, just now, on business. Mr. Carroll thought that at least 1500 people formed the population of the San Felipe neighborhood. The farms were said to be the most prosperous in Texas.

This night’s lodging was at the house of another friend—Mr. R. M. Williamson, one of whose legs was bent at the knee, so that he moved by help of a crutch. He had been alcalde, or mayor, of San Felipe, and was called “Three-legged Willie.” He seemed to be a fine man, of quick, decisive action.