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

It was bright morning when the little cavalcade, with its fine supply of extra horses, filed out from among the woods and went slowly northward.

"I kind o' wish we were all back at the Alamo," remarked Joe.

"We won't go in that direction jest yit," said Jim Cheyne. "We'd better ride clean across the continent."

"Halt!" sprang from the lips of Colonel Bowie. "Here he comes! My God, boys! What's happened?"

Not with his usual swiftly gliding step, but staggering and panting as if in pain, the old Tlascalan appeared at a little distance ahead of them. He was alone, and he motioned to them to stay where they were.

"Find Comanche," suggested Red Wolf.

Bowie was silent, but when the old man drew near enough he asked, —

"Did you sight the Lipans?"

"All gone!" gasped Tetzcatl.

"Castro?"

"Gone!" came faintly back. "Great Bear's whole band. My mule! We must push on! They are crossing the Rio!"

Bowie sprang to the ground and strode forward.

"Man alive!" he said. "Where are you hurt? Tell us the rest of it while I fix you up. Jim, get that plaster and scissors out of my saddle-bags. We mustn't lose him just now."

Off came the serape from the old man's shoulders and an awful gash was discovered. His left arm told of an arrow, and there was a deep cut on his head. He was tough indeed to have carried all those hurts with him across the Rio Grande.

"I'm surgeon enough," remarked the colonel. "I don't believe he can live, boys, but we must do the best we can. Put him on his mule."

The wounds had been dressed with much care and skill, but the wounded man had hardly seemed to think of them. Briefly and clearly he told of his scouting beyond the river; of a meeting with Castro and then with the party of Lipans. There had been an attempt to rejoin the Texans, but in making it the entire force of Great Bear, called out by the return of the horse-thieves from the hacienda, had suddenly swarmed around them. Tetzcatl had escaped mainly because he was on foot, but a lance-thrust in the dark and the arrows that fell like snow had done their work upon him. Here he was now, to say as persistently as ever, —

"Gold! The treasure of Montezuma."

"What do we care for gold just now?" grumbled Jim Cheyne. "I'm thinkin' of the ha'r on my head."

Tetzcatl raised his uninjured arm, as he sat upon his mule, and pointed toward the hacienda.

"Bravo's lancers," he said, "sweeping the whole country."

"Fact!" said Jim, but Tetzcatl now pointed northward.

"Great Bear and his Comanches all the way to the Alamo."

"That's about so," came from one of the rangers. "We can't git through 'em."

Once more Tetzcatl turned, and now he pointed westward.

"Apaches!" he said. "Bowie must come with me. A few days' ride. Then he will come back with his ponies loaded."

He spoke with some difficulty, and at the end of his very pointed remarks he spurred his mule, as if he were going his own way whether or not the Texans were to follow.

"Boys," said Bowie, "what do you say?"

"Thar isn't a word to say," growled Joe. "We've jest got to git. Come on, fellers. This crowd's travelling gold or no gold."

"The coast 'll be clear by the time we want to come back," said the colonel. "We shall hardly meet an enemy going or coming."

So they turned and rode on after the old Tlascalan. Behind them quietly followed the Lipan boy. His young face was clouded with sorrow, but the only words that escaped him were, —

"Castro! Great chief of the Lipans! Gone! Red Wolf will strike the Comanches!"

CHAPTER XIII.

THE LAST OF TETZCATL

A week had gone by and a little cavalcade rode slowly on along a fairly well marked forest road. In front was a man on a fine-looking horse, but at his side a mule was carrying a rider who almost lay down, with his arms around the animal's neck.

"Can you stand it to get there?" asked the man on the horse.

"Bowie, you are in the valley now," was the faint-voiced response. "Ride on, Tetzcatl cannot die but in the house of Huitzilopochtli."

"Pretty nigh gone, old chap?" was the not unkindly inquiry from the next horseman behind them. "We'll git you thar. You may pull through. You're as tough as a hickory knot."

They could have seen how beautiful was the valley they were riding through if they had not been in it. As soon, however, as the path they were in began to climb a steep ascent and they could look back through the trees, they broke out into strong expressions of admiration.

"It was a'most worth while comin'," said Jim Cheyne, "if 'twas only to see this 'ere. If Americans got hold of sech a country as this is they'd make something out of it."

"They never will," remarked Bowie. "Best timber. Best farm land in the world. Fine climate – "

"Gold! gold! Silver!" gasped the sufferer on the mule. "Americans – all men will come some day. I die, but the lands of the Montezumas will not be held by the Spaniards."

It was as if he could bear the idea of leaving his mountains and valleys and their riches to any other race than the one which had broken the empire of its ancient kings and destroyed the temples of the Aztec gods.

The Texans could also see more clearly now the grand height of the mountain chain into which they were climbing. They were evidently in a pass, partly natural and partly artificial. In places which would otherwise have been difficult the narrow roadway had been solidly constructed of massive stonework, for the greater part unhewn. There had been excavations also, but before long Joe was justified in remarking, —

"I say, colonel, this might do for mules, but it won't for mustangs. I'd rather go afoot."

He sprang to the ground as he spoke, and his comrades followed his example. Well they might, for at their right arose an almost perpendicular cliff, while at their left the side of the mountain went down, for hundreds of feet, without a tree or a bush to prevent man or horse from rolling the entire descent.

"How far have we now to go?" asked Bowie of his guide. "Red Wolf, hold on."

"Red Wolf find road," came back in Lipan-Spanish. "Big Knife bring old man. Tetzcatl heap dead."

"Pitch ahead, then!" exclaimed the colonel. "Boys, wait here with the critters. I'll go on and find the place. The boy can come back after you."

"All right, colonel," replied Jim. "He won't last long now."

"On! on!" exclaimed Tetzcatl, his fierce, black eyes burning with the fire of the fever which had set in upon him, caused by his hurts. "We are at the door! I will die in the house!"