ere comfortable
there before the blaze. His heart filled with bitterness. He had
expected so much of Fannin's men, and Crockett and Bowie before him had
expected so much! Yet here they were, beleaguered as the Texans had been
beleaguered in the Alamo, and there were no walls behind which they
could fight. It seemed to Ned that the hand of fate itself had resolved
to strike down the Texans. He knew that Urrea, one of Santa Anna's
ablest and most tenacious generals, would never relax the watch for an
instant. In the darkness he could hear the Mexican sentinels calling to
one another: "Sentinela Alerte!"

The cold damp allayed the thirst of the young recruits, but the crater
was the scene of gloom. They did not dare to light a fire, knowing it
would draw the Indian bullets at once, or perhaps cannon shots. The
wounded in their blankets lay on the ground. A few of the unhurt slept,
but most of them sat in silence looking somberly at one another.

Fannin lay against the breech of one of the cannon, blankets having been
folded between to make his position easy. His wound was severe and he
was suffering greatly, but he uttered no complaint. He had not shown
great skill or judgment as a leader, but he was cool and undaunted in
action. Now he was calling a council to see what they could do to
release themselves from their desperate case. Officers and men alike
attended it freely.

"Boys," said Fannin, speaking in a firm voice despite his weakness and
pain, "we are trapped here in this hole in the prairie, but if you are
trapped it does not follow that you have to stay trapped. I don't seek
to conceal anything from you. Our position could not well be worse. We
have cannon, but we cannot use them any longer because they are choked
and clogged from former firing, and we have no water to wash them out.
Shortly we will not have a drop to drink. But you are brave, and you can
still shoot. I know that we can break through the Mexican lines to-night
and reach the Coleto, the water and the timber. Shall we do it?"

Many replied yes, but then a voice spoke out of the darkness:

"What of the wounded, Colonel? We have sixty men who can't move."

There was an instant's silence, and then a hundred voices said in the
darkness:

"We'll never leave them. We'll stay here and fight again!"

Ned was standing with those nearest Fannin, and although the darkness
was great his eyes had become so used to it that he could see the pale
face of t