The Lost Gold of the Montezumas: A Story of the Alamo

"Ready! Together!" answered Jim, and in a few seconds more the two rifles cracked almost like one.

Tetzcatl had watched the marksmen, and now he nodded approvingly and rode on, but no one climbed to the upper level to inquire whether one bullet or two had cut short the scouting of the imprudent brave, whose eagle feather had betrayed his weedy lurking-place.

It was, nevertheless, another proof that Great Bear was a great chief and that he knew that country, for he had sent his scouts in the right direction before trying to close in upon the Texans at the pond. He had even guessed correctly at one of their possible lines of escape. He could not have calculated beforehand that a feather and a head with a bullet in it should give so complete a confirmation.

"He won't go back to tell," said Bowie, "but we shall be followed all the way."

CHAPTER VIII.

THE CAMP AT THE SPRING

"Crockett, there isn't any use talking. We've an awful tough job cut out."

The old bear-hunter had stuck his coonskin cap upon the muzzle of his rifle, and he stared up at it for a moment.

"Reckon we have," he said; "but we kin skirmish around the corners of it somehow. I've been in tight places before now, but I allers crawled out or fought out."

"We'll have to fight out this time," said the large, determined-looking man he was talking with. "But what on earth are we to do for money?"

"We're played out," replied Crockett, thoughtfully. "We've borrowed all we could. We've taxed till we can't put on any more. Uncle Sam won't let us have any. Houston, we're in a hole."

"The worst of it is right here," continued Houston. "If the legislature lays a tax, all the cash is appropriated before it's collected. What I want is some money to spend without giving any account of it. We want a powder-and-lead fund. I've spent all I had."

"You kin skin my pile," said Crockett. "Wish thar was more of it. We're torn down poor. We might almost be whipped by Santa Anna for want of money to keep the men in the field. Think of losing the Alamo!"

"I couldn't help it just now if we did," groaned Houston. "It's safe yet."

"'Tis till somebody comes to take it," was the ominous response of Crockett, as he lowered his rifle and put on his coonskin. "Just as I told ye. Travis is off on his scout with half the garrison. Bowie went on that expedition of his, and I hope he may get back. Thar isn't enough powder in the fort to fire all the guns more'n twice 'round. No provisions to speak of. No nothin'. If Greasers enough came, they could a' most walk right in."

"They're not ready to come yet," said Houston; "but they're coming, Davy! There 'll be blood when they get in as far as the Alamo!"

"You bet thar will!" shouted Crockett, springing to his feet. "I mean to be thar when they come. We kin hold it ag'in' all Mexico if we've men and powder."

The two Texan patriots were not in any house. They had been sitting side by side upon a log not far from a rail-fence corner where their horses were hitched. From what they said it appeared that they had met there by appointment. It was as good a parlor as such men needed to discuss affairs of state in. Houston had now risen, and they were walking toward their horses.

"Crockett," he said, "it's time for me to git up and git. You go on to Washington. See what you can do. Inquire about rifles and cannon and ammunition."

"Well," replied Crockett, "money's the best kind of am'nition, but we needn't forget one thing. Santa Anna feels a kind of bowel grip right thar. He can't fetch as many rancheros as he'd like to cross the Rio Grande with. He'd ruther 'tend a cock-fight any day than meet us in a shootin' match, onless he was ten to one."

"I wouldn't mind four to one," said Houston, "but I would mind being cut up for lack of powder to shoot with."

"You bet!" said Crockett, bitterly. "Think of bein' jest murdered by Greasers!"

They had reached their horses, and in a moment more they were steadily galloping northward.

A very undefined domain was the vast region to which the Spanish conquerors had given the name of Texas. They had never thoroughly explored it, nor had they determined its boundaries. Its northerly line was that of the then French province of Louisiana, and that was as uncertain as the weather. It might be said to begin at the Sabine Pass on the sea-shore. From that it was supposed to wander inland. The United States surveyors had made their own maps after Jefferson purchased Louisiana from Napoleon, but they had no direct French or Spanish help.

Westward, Texas was believed to have a limit somewhere among the as yet unvisited mountains and plains. No line had been fixed on that side. Southward, the old Spanish maps, and afterwards the Mexican copies of them, were at variance as to whether the Nueces River or the Rio Grande marked the Texas border. This was of less consequence so long as Texas should belong to Mexico, but, a few years later, those conflicting maps played an important part in bringing about the war with the United States. All of that record belongs to history, and so does the older claim that Texas never, at any time, belonged to Spain, but was, in part at least, French territory, and was sold to the United States, accordingly, along with Louisiana.

It is history now, but that history had not been made up when, late that day, Colonel Bowie and his men rode out of the long ravine and found themselves upon an open prairie. It was dotted here and there with groves of oak. Much more interesting at first to the mounted marksmen was the fact that it was also dotted by several small droves of wild cattle.

"Buffalo!" exclaimed Bowie. "I didn't think of meeting any here. We must have one. Then we'll go into camp as soon as we can find water."

"Ugh!" came instantly from the Lipan boy. "Red Wolf find heap water."

"Bully!" said the colonel. "This used to be a Lipan hunting-ground. Go ahead. Find us a good spring."

Red Wolf had his orders and off he went, while Jim Cheyne looked after him and remarked emphatically, —

"That young chap's going to be a buster. But now, boys, don't let's load up too much with meat. One good critter's all we want."

"All right," replied one of his comrades; "but, Jim, if we keep our hair on overnight thar won't be any time wasted on huntin' to-morrow."

"We shall strike straight for the Nueces, and then for the Rio Grande," said Bowie. "Great Bear hasn't let up on us, and we must look out for him all the time. He's just death on a trail."

"You kin swar to that," added Cheyne. "He's as ready to ride into Mexico, too, as we are. How's that, Tetzcatl?"

"Bueno!" snapped the dark-faced panther. "Comanches find Bravo's lancers beyond the river. Kill them all."

He gave no reason for the resentful feeling he had shown against Great Bear, but loud chuckles among the men expressed their approval of his idea that if the Comanches should meet the lancers the story of the Kilkenny cats would be repeated.

A general hunt was forbidden on account of the horses, and only two men went out as buffalo butchers.

On leaving his party, Red Wolf rode in a kind of long circuit instead of aiming at the nearest grove. He galloped a full mile before he gave any reason why he had not gone in a straight line. He may have been a little uncertain about his landmarks, but he made no considerable error in his calculations.

"Ugh!" he exclaimed, as he pulled in upon the crest of a prairie roll and looked forward earnestly. "Heap hole. Big stone. Big Knife get water."

He was near the brink of a deep and remarkable hollow. It was almost regularly funnel-shaped, and on the opposite side of it sat a large boulder of granite. Such "sink-holes" can be found only in limestone formations. They are supposed to lead to caverns and subterranean watercourses. The presence of a mass of granite was, therefore, one of the many puzzles for geologists. Perhaps it had floated there upon a cake of ice. Then the ice had melted; the water had run off down the sink-hole; and the boulder was left to supply the red hunters of the plains with a perpetual guide-board.

"Big stone here," he said. "Water there."

The direction in which he rode away gave his words an explanation. He went as straight as an arrow for more than another mile, hardly glancing aside, either at groves of trees or herds of fat bisons.

Meantime, the white men he was providing refreshment for rode slowly onward. They heard a brace of rifle reports, and took the success of their hunters for granted. They remarked to each other, however, that good luck was with them, for "bufler" were getting scarcer year after year so far as that to the eastward.

"One of these days," said Bowie, "they'll all be gone. This 'll be corn land then, and every farmer 'll raise his own beef."

"He'll kill it for himself, too," laughed Cheyne. "I don't want to be here then. I'd ruther have my beef runnin' round the prairie for free shootin'."

Bowie's eyes were all the while busy in a search for "sign." He had found none near his present line of march, but if he could have looked back upon his entire trail he would have seen several things to interest him.

The first point was in the timber at the upper end of the long ravine. A dozen braves of the Comanches were grouped, on foot, around the opening through which Tetzcatl had so suddenly disappeared. They were watching, bow in hand, as if it had been the den of some wild animal, or rather as if, possibly, some returning Texan might at any moment show himself as a target.

Not far down the ravine, but on the upper level on one side of it, three more braves sat in silence by the body of their tribesman who had been slain by the bullet of Cheyne or Bowie. Every now and then they peered over into the gorge below and listened as if for the sounds of horse-hoofs upon the gravelly bottom. Watchers had been set, therefore, to intercept any returning ranger. That was only by way of precaution, in case of an escape from the other part of the relentless pursuit.

Miles and miles away, along the route of the winding cleft and on its westerly side, rode twice as many Comanches as had been with Great Bear when first he had been seen by Red Wolf, on the plain beyond the chaparral, two days before. His reinforcements had arrived and he was ready for extensive mischief.

At point after point, wherever the ravine was approachable and descent into it fairly easy, a warrior on foot, sometimes even on horseback, would go down and search any soft earth at the side of the little rill at the bottom. Then he would swiftly return, report that he had found the trail; that Bowie's men were farther down, all of them; and the band would ride steadily on.