The Lost Gold of the Montezumas: A Story of the Alamo. Stoddard William Osborn
was having a red-letter day. At last, however, he was compelled to give up sightseeing, and he marched out through the sentried gate with his father toward the place where their ponies had been picketed.
Great Bear and his chiefs also left the fort, but they went in an opposite direction. If there had been any thought of a temporary alliance between them and their old enemies, the Lipans, for Mexican raiding purposes, it had disappeared in the up-stairs council. Of course they parted peaceably, for even according to Indian ideas the fort and its neighborhood was "treaty ground," on which there could be no scalp-taking. Besides that, there were the rangers ready to act as police.
As for Tetzcatl, he and his mule were nowhere to be seen.
Siestas were the order of the day inside the walls of the Alamo, but one man was not inclined to sleep.
Out by the eighteen-pounder stood the tall form of Colonel Travis, and he was glancing slowly around him with a smile that had anxiety in it.
Near a door of one of the lower rooms of the convent swung the hammock that contained Davy Crockett. He was lazily smoking a Mexican cigarette, but he was not asleep. He could see a great many things through the open door, and he was a man who did a great deal of thinking.
"What's the matter with Travis?" he asked. "What's got him out thar? Reckon I'll go and find out if there's anything up."
In half a minute more the two celebrated borderers were leaning against the gun, side by side, and there was a strong contrast between them.
Travis was not without a certain polish and elegance of manner, for he was a man of education and had travelled. If, however, Crockett was said to have killed more bears than any other man living, Travis was believed to have been in more hard fights than any other, unless, it might be, Bowie. Utterly fearless as he was, he nevertheless commanded the Alamo, and he could feel his military burdens.
"What's the matter with me?" he replied to Crockett's question. "Look at this fort. If I had five hundred men I could hold it against the whole Mexican army. That is, unless they had heavy guns. But I've less than a hundred just now. We couldn't work the guns nor keep men at all the loop-holes."
"That's so," said Crockett. "The Greasers could swarm over in onto ye. But Sam Houston could throw in men if Santa Anna should cross into Texas. I don't reckon he'd try to haul heavy cannon across country. He'd only leave 'em in the sloughs if he did."
"That's so," said Travis. "But he's coming some day. I want to be here when he comes. I want you and Bowie and all our old crowd."
"I'll be fifin' 'round," said Crockett; "but just now I've got to go and blow my whistle in Washington. Durned long trip to make, too."
"Come back as soon as you can," replied Travis, with unusual earnestness. "I've a job on hand. Houston has ordered me to scout along the Nueces. I'll only take a squad, but it weakens the garrison. Bowie has made up his mind to take a ride with Castro. Some of the men that are not enlisted yet will go with him, most likely."
"Let him go," said Crockett. "He'll learn a heap of things. He kind o' gets me as crazy as he is about our new Southwest enterprise. Tell you what! Just a smell o' gold 'd fetch the immigrants in like blazes. Prairie fire's nothin' to it."
"He won't smell any," laughed Travis; but they had turned away from the gun, and were pausing half-way between the Alamo and the church. They were glancing around them as if to take a view of the military situation.
It was quiet enough now, and there was no prophet standing by to tell them of the future. What their cool judgment now told them as entirely possible was surely to come. From beside that very gun they were to see the "Greasers," as they called the soldiers of Santa Anna, come swarming over the too thinly guarded wall. There, at the left, by the four-pounder, was Travis to fall across the gun, shot through the head. Here, on the spot where he now stood, was Crockett to go down, fighting to the last and killing as he fell. In the upper corner room of the Alamo, where the conference with Tetzcatl and the chiefs had been held, was Bowie himself to perish, like a wounded lion at bay, the last man in the Alamo.
CHAPTER IV.
THE RACE FOR THE CHAPARRAL
It was a bugle and not a drum that summoned the garrison to answer at their morning roll-call.
"Bowie," said Colonel Travis, just after he had dismissed the men, "I don't want to ask too much. You're not under my orders, but I wish you'd take a pretty strong patrol and scout off southerly. The Lipans camped off toward San Antonio, but I'd like to feel sure that Great Bear kept his promise and rode straight away. He isn't heavy on promise-keeping."
"Not where scalps are in it," said Bowie. "He's in bad humor. I'll go."
"You bet," remarked Crockett. "Castro hasn't many braves with him. He'll be bare-headed before night if the Comanches can light onto him."
"All right," said Bowie; "but they won't strike us just now. I don't want Castro wiped out. We're old friends."
"Mount your men well," said Travis to Bowie. "You may have hard riding. Don't fight either tribe if you can help it. I must be off on Houston's orders as soon as I can get away."
"I'll take a dozen," replied Bowie. "The fort 'll be safe enough just now."
No further orders were given, but he picked both his men and his horses, and he seemed to know them all.
They were good ones, the riders especially. They were all veterans, trained and tried and hardened in Indian warfare, and ready for anything that might turn up. They went into their saddles at the word of command as if they were setting out for a merry-making, and the little column passed through the gate-way two abreast, followed a minute later by their temporary commander.
The Texan rangers were armed as well as was possible at that date. The Colt's revolver had but just been invented, and the first specimens of that deadly weapon found their way to Texas a few months later. Barely two small six-shooters came in 1836, but these opened the market, and there was a full supply, large pattern, sent on in 1837.
Just now, however, each man had horse-pistols in holsters at the saddle. In each man's belt were smaller weapons, of various shapes and sizes, and not one of them failed to carry a first-rate rifle. All had sabres as well as knives, but they were not lancers. On the contrary, they were inclined to despise the favorite weapon of the plains red men and of the Mexican cavalry.
Bowie was now at the front, and he appeared to have some reason of his own for making haste.
No such indication was given, however, by an entirely different body of horsemen, five times as numerous, which was at that hour riding across the prairie, several miles to the southeastward. These, too, seemed to have a well-understood errand.
Their leader was about two hundred yards in advance of the main body, and he paused upon the crest of every "rising ground" as he went, to take swift, searching glances in all directions.
"Great Bear is a great chief!" he loudly declared. "He will teach Castro and the Lipan dogs a lesson. They have set Travis against the Comanches. Castro shall not ride into Chihuahua. I will hang his scalp to dry in my own lodge. I will strike the Mexicans. Ugh!"
He spoke in his own tongue, and then he seemed to be inclined to repeat himself in Spanish, for he was an angry man that day. It was not at all likely that he would prove over-particular whether his next victims were red or white, and he evidently did not consider himself any longer within neutral territory.
Suddenly the Comanche war-chief straightened in his saddle, turned his head, and sent back to his warriors a prolonged, ear-piercing whoop.
A chorus of fierce yells answered him, and the slow movement of the wild-looking array changed into a swift, pell-mell gallop.
It had been a whoop of discovery. At no great distance from the knoll upon which Great Bear had sounded his war-cry a voice as shrill and as fierce, although not as powerful, replied to him with the battle-yell of the Lipans. In another instant, the wiry mustang which carried an Indian boy was springing away at his best pace eastward. Probably it was well for his rider that the race before him was to be run with a light weight.
Red