"All right," said the colonel, but he turned to call out to his two friends,--
"Travis? Crockett? Come along. I want a full talk with Tetzcatl.
There"s more than you think in a scout across the Rio Grande. Let"s go on into the fort."
"I"m willing," said Travis; and on they went toward the Alamo convent, the citadel, and they were followed by Castro and the white-headed Tlascalan.
Red Wolf was not expected to join a council of great chiefs, but he looked after them earnestly, saying to himself,--
"Ugh! Heap war-path! Red Wolf go!"
CHAPTER III.
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 pa.s.ses 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 a.s.sent, 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.