ed long-barreled muzzle-loaders, these rifles; and
powder-horns hang by the sides of the bearers. They are long-haired
men; and their faces are deeply burned by sun and wind, one hundred
and eighty-three of them; and where they died, fighting to the last
against four thousand of Santa Ana's soldiers, rose the first
boot-hill. That was in San Antonio, Texas, at the building called the
Alamo; and in this day, when schoolboys who can describe Thermopylae in
detail know nothing of that far finer stand, it will do no harm to
dwell on a proud episode ignored by most text-book histories.

On the fifth day of March, 1836, San Antonio's streets were resonant
with the heavy tread of marching troops, the clank of arms and the
rumble of moving artillery. Four thousand Mexican soldiers were being
concentrated on one point, a little mission chapel and two long adobe
buildings which formed a portion of a walled enclosure, the Alamo.

For nearly two weeks General Santa Ana had been tightening the cordon
of cavalry, infantry, and artillery about the place. It housed one
hundred and eighty-three lank-haired frontiersmen, a portion of
General Sam Houston's band who had declared for Texan independence.
The Mexicans had cut them off from water; their food was running low.
On this day the dark-skinned commander planned to take the square. His
men had managed to plant a cannon two hundred yards away. When they
blew down the walls the infantry would charge. It only remained for
them to load the field-piece. Bugles sounded; officers galloped
through the sheltered streets where the foot soldiers were held in
waiting. There came from the direction of the Alamo the steady
rat-tat-tat of rifles. The hours went by but the cannon remained
silent.

A little group of lean-faced men were crouching on the flat roof of
the large out-building. The most of them were clad in fringed garments
of buckskin; here and there was one in a hickory shirt and home-spun
jeans. Six of them, some bareheaded and some with hats whose wide rims
dropped low over their foreheads, were clustered about old Davy
Crockett, frontiersman and in his day a member of Congress. Always the
six were busy, with ramrods, powder-horns, and bullets, loading the
long-barreled eight-square Kentucky rifles. The grizzled marksman took
the cocked weapons from their hands; one after another, he pressed
each walnut stock to his shoulder, lined the sights, pulled the
trigger, and laid the dischar