had entered, and thence into the darkness
beyond.

It seemed to him the best road to escape, and he had another object also
in entering the Alamo. The defenders had had three or four rifles
apiece, and he was convinced that somewhere in the rooms he would find a
good one, with sufficient ammunition.

It was with shudders that he entered the Alamo, and the shudders came
again when he looked about the bloodstained courts and rooms, lately the
scene of such terrible strife, but now so silent. In a recess of the
church which had been used as a little storage place by himself and
Crockett he found an excellent rifle of the long-barreled Western
pattern, a large horn of powder and a pouch full of bullets. There was
also a supply of dried beef, which he took, too.

Now he felt himself a man again. He would find the Texans and then they
would seek vengeance for the Alamo. He crossed the Main Plaza, dropped
over the low wall and quickly disappeared in the dusk.

CHAPTER XIV

THE NEWS OF THE FALL

Five days before the fall of the Alamo a little group of men began to
gather at the village of Washington, on the Brazos river in Texas. The
name of the little town indicated well whence its people had come. All
the houses were new, mostly of unpainted wood, and they contained some
of the furniture of necessity, none of luxury. The first and most
important article was the rifle which the Texans never needed more than
they did now.

But this new and little Washington was seething with excitement and
suspense, and its population was now more than triple the normal. News
had come that the Alamo was beleaguered by a force many times as
numerous as its defenders, and that Crockett, Bowie, Travis and other
famous men were inside. They had heard also that Santa Anna had hoisted
the red flag of no quarter, and that Texans everywhere, if taken, would
be slaughtered as traitors. The people of Washington had full cause for
their excitement and suspense.

The little town also had the unique distinction of being a capital for a
day or two. The Texans felt, with the news that Santa Anna had enveloped
the Alamo, that they must take decisive action. They believed that the
Mexicans had broken every promise to the Texans. They knew that not only
their liberty and property, but their lives, also, were in peril.
Despite the great disparity of numbers it must be a fight to the death
between Texas and Mexico. The Texans were now gathering a