THE DREAM OF THE NEW EMPIRE.
Neither of the two stories of the solid, ancient-looking convent was
very high. Both were cut up into rooms, large below and smaller above.
The convent roof was nearly flat, with a parapet of stone, and it was
one hundred and ninety-one feet long by eighteen wide.
In one of the upper rooms, at the southerly corner of the building, sat
a sort of frontier Committee of Ways and Means, having very important
affairs of state and war under discussion.
The session of the committee began with a general statement by
ex-Congressman David Crockett of the condition of things both in Texas
and in Mexico.
"You see how it is," he said, in conclusion. "The United States can't
let us in without openin' a wide gate for a war with Mexico. Some o'
the folks want it. More of 'em hold back. The trouble with 'em is
that sech a scrimmage would cost a pile of money. I don't reckon that
most o' the politicians keer much for the rights of it, nor for how
many fellers might git knocked on the head."
That was the longest speech yet made by anybody, but the next was short.
"Ugh!" said Great Bear.
"Ugh!" said Castro, also; but he added, "Heap far away. No care much.
Stay home. Boil kettle. No fight."
The next speaker was the old Tlascalan. He did not try to express any
interest in either Texas or the United States, for he was a
single-minded man. He declared plainly that he had come to stir up
recruits for his life-long war with Mexico, regarded by him only as a
continuation of Spain, and with Santa Anna as a successor of Hernando
Cortez. The white rangers and the red warriors were all alike to him.
Their value consisted in their known faculty for killing their enemies.
"It's all very well," remarked Travis, at the end of the old man's
talk, "but we've enough to care for at home. We haven't a man to
spare."
The Big Knife had been stretching his tremendously muscular frame upon
a low couch, and he now sat up with a half-dreamy look upon his face.
"I'm kind o' lookin' beyond this fight," he said. "We don't want any
United States fingers in our affairs. What we want is the old idea of
Aaron Burr. He knew what he was about. He planned the republic of the
South-west. He wanted all the land that borders the Gulf of Mexico.
We want it, too. Then we want to strike right across the continent to
the Pacific Ocean. I've been to California and into the upper Mexican
states on that side. We'll take 'em all. That 'll be a country worth
while to fight for. Texas is only a beginning."
"Just you wait," said Crockett. "It's no use to kill a herd of buffler
when you can't tote the beef. You're in too much of a hurry. The time
hasn't come."
"I don't agree with you," said Travis, with energy. "What we want is
Uncle Sam and a hundred thousand settlers."
"No! no!" interrupted Tetzcatl. "Gold! Show gold. Talk gold. Bring
all the men from all lands beyond the salt sea."
"About that thar spelter," replied Crockett, "I'll hear ye. Tell the
whole story. I've only heard part of it. Biggest yarn! Spin it!"
A great many other people had heard the old legend, or parts of it. It
was an historical record that Cortez had been accused before the King
of Spain of having himself secreted part of the plunder, won during his
campaigns against the Aztecs and other tribes. It had brought him into
a great deal of trouble, but, after all, the fact that he had seemed to
prove his innocence did but tend to build up and afterwards to sustain
quite another explanation of the absence of the reported gold and
silver. It had never been found, and therefore every ounce of it was
now lying hidden somewhere, only waiting the arrival of a discoverer.
Tetzcatl was not an eloquent man, and he spoke English imperfectly, but
he was nevertheless a persuasive talker. Somehow or other a pebble as
large as a dollar had wandered into that room, and he put it down upon
the floor, declaring it to be the City of Mexico. He evidently
expected them, after that, to imagine about a square yard around it to
be a kind of map, with the Rio Grande at its northern edge and Texas
beyond. He proceeded then as if he had all the mountains and passes
marked out, but he had not gone far before Crockett broke in.
"Hullo," he said. "I see. Cortez didn't find the stuff in the city,
because it wasn't thar. It was up nearer whar it was placered out,
hundreds of miles away."
"I never thought of that," remarked Travis. "There's sense in it."
"Bully!" said Bowie. "And all they had to do was to cart it farther."
"No carts," said Crockett. "No mules, either. Not a pony among them."
"That makes no difference," replied Bowie. "Those Indian carriers can
tote the biggest loads you ever saw. One of 'em can back a man right
up a mountain."
"That's it," said Crockett. "A thousand dollars' worth of gold weighs
three pounds. Sixty pounds is twenty thousand. A hundred men could
tote two millions. That's what I want."
"All right," laughed Travis, "but only part of it was gold. Part of it
was silver. But, then, Guatamoczin could send a thousand carriers and
keep 'em going till 'twas all loaded into his cave."
Tetzcatl understood them, and he not only nodded assent, but went on to
describe the process of transportation very much as if he had been
there. According to him, moreover, the largest deposit was within a
few days' ride of what was now the Texan border. A great deal of it,
he said, had not come from the south at all, but from the north, from
California, New Mexico, and Arizona.
They could not dispute him, but at that day all the world was still in
ignorance of the gold placers of the Pacific coast. California was as
yet nothing more than a fine country for fruit, game, and
cattle-ranches.
"I've heard enough," said Travis, at last. "It's as good as a novel.
But I guess I won't go."
"I think I'll take a ride with Castro, anyhow," replied Bowie. "If
it's only for the fun of it. Great Bear and his Comanches can have a
hunt after Bravo's lancers. But it's awfully hot in here. I'm going
to have a siesta."
That meant a sleepy swing in a hammock slung in one of the lower rooms,
and the other white men were willing to follow his example.
It was pretty well understood that the proposed raid into Mexico was to
be joined by several paleface warriors. Castro wore a half-contented
face, but the great war-chief of the Comanches stalked out of the
building uttering words of bitter disappointment and anger. He had
hoped for hundreds of riflemen, with whose aid he could have swept on
across a whole Mexican state, plundering, burning, scalping.
The Lipans and Comanches were not at peace with each other. They never
had been, and nothing but a prospect of fighting their common enemy,
the Mexicans, could have brought them together.
During all this time, however, one Lipan, and a proud one, had been
very busy. Red Wolf, with a name of his own that any Indian boy might
envy him, did not need a siesta. He had a whole fort to roam around
in, and there were all sorts of new things to arouse his curiosity.
The walls themselves, particularly those of the fort and the church,
were wonders. So were the cannon, and he peered long and curiously
into the gaping mouth of the solitary eighteen-pounder that stood in
the middle of the enclosure, ready to be whirled away to its embrasure.
It was a tremendous affair, and he remarked "heap gun" over it again
and again.
He was having a red-letter day. At last, however, he was compelled to
give up sightseeing, and he marched out through the sentried gate with
his father toward the place where their ponies had been picketed.
Great Bear and his chiefs also left the fort, but they went in an
opposite direction. If there had been any thought of a temporary
alliance between them and their old enemies, the Lipans, for Mexican
raiding purposes, it had disappeared in the up-stairs council. Of
course they parted peaceably, for even according to Indian ideas the
fort and its neighborhood was "treaty ground," on which there could be
no scalp-taking. Besides that, there were the rangers ready to act as
police.
As for Tetzcatl, he and his mule were nowhere to be seen.
Siestas were the order of the day inside the walls of the Alamo, but
one man was not inclined to sleep.
Out by the eighteen-pounder stood the tall form of Colonel Travis, and
he was glancing slowly around him with a smile that had anxiety in it.
Near a door of one of the lower rooms of the convent swung the hammock
that contained Davy Crockett. He was lazily smoking a Mexican
cigarette, but he was not asleep. He could see a great many things
through the open door, and he was a man who did a great deal of
thinking.
"What's the matter with Travis?" he asked. "What's got him out thar?
Reckon I'll go and find out if there's anything up."
In half a minute more the two celebrated borderers were leaning against
the gun, side by side, and there was a strong contrast between them.
Travis was not without a certain polish and elegance of manner, for he
was a man of education and had travelled. If, however, Crockett was
said to have killed more bears than any other man living, Travis was
believed to have been in more hard fights than any other, unless, it
might be, Bowie. Utterly fearless as he was, he nevertheless commanded
the Alamo, and he could feel his military burdens.
"What's the matter with me?" he replied to Crockett's question. "Look
at this fort. If I had five hundred men I could hold it against the
whole Mexican army. That is, unless they had heavy guns. But I've
less than a hundred just now. We couldn't work the guns nor keep men
at all the loop-holes."
"That's so," said Crockett. "The Greasers could swarm over in onto ye.
But Sam Houston could throw in men if Santa Anna should cross into
Texas. I don't reckon he'd try to haul heavy cannon across country.
He'd only leave 'em in the sloughs if he did."
"That's so," said Travis. "But he's coming some day. I want to be
here when he comes. I want you and Bowie and all our old crowd."
"I'll be fifin' 'round," said Crockett; "but just now I've got to go
and blow my whistle in Washington. Durned long trip to make, too."
"Come back as soon as you can," replied Travis, with unusual
earnestness. "I've a job on hand. Houston has ordered me to scout
along the Nueces. I'll only take a squad, but it weakens the garrison.
Bowie has made up his mind to take a ride with Castro. Some of the men
that are not enlisted yet will go with him, most likely."
"Let him go," said Crockett. "He'll learn a heap of things. He kind
o' gets me as crazy as he is about our new Southwest enterprise. Tell
you what! Just a smell o' gold 'd fetch the immigrants in like blazes.
Prairie fire's nothin' to it."
"He won't smell any," laughed Travis; but they had turned away from the
gun, and were pausing half-way between the Alamo and the church. They
were glancing around them as if to take a view of the military
situation.
It was quiet enough now, and there was no prophet standing by to tell
them of the future. What their cool judgment now told them as entirely
possible was surely to come. From beside that very gun they were to
see the "Greasers," as they called the soldiers of Santa Anna, come
swarming over the too thinly guarded wall. There, at the left, by the
four-pounder, was Travis to fall across the gun, shot through the head.
Here, on the spot where he now stood, was Crockett to go down, fighting
to the last and killing as he fell. In the upper corner room of the
Alamo, where the conference with Tetzcatl and the chiefs had been held,
was Bowie himself to perish, like a wounded lion at bay, the last man
in the Alamo.