"Less than one hundred of the defenders were left to resist those thousands; but three times did this handful of dauntless fighters repel their swarming assailants, and three times did the furious Mexican General drive them back to the assault. At length the defenders had fired away their last grain of powder, the crowding Mexicans forced an entrance, and after another hour of the most terrific hand-to-hand fighting and awful slaughter, the Alamo was theirs. At nine o'clock two murderous discharges of double-shotted grape and canister from a cannon planted in the doorway of the room used as a hospital, and filled with helplessly wounded Americans, ended the bloody tragedy, for of Travis's noble band no man remained alive. So terribly had they fought that five hundred and twenty Mexicans were killed in that final assault, and as many more were wounded, while, including all who had fallen beneath the unerring Texas rifles during the siege, the Alamo had cost Santa Aña over two thousand men. "In his rage at this stubborn resistance the Mexican General ordered the bodies of the heroic defenders to be burned just outside the Alamo, and so thoroughly was this work accomplished that by sunset of that dreadful day naught was left of them save a mound of wind-blown ashes and an undying memory." "I think that is the very finest thing I ever heard of!" cried Bryce, nearly choked with emotion; "and now I know that I am prouder of being an American than any Greek boy can be of his country. But what happened after that, Uncle Cap? Did Santa Aña keep right on and conquer the whole of Texas?" "How could he when the Texans had such a glorious example to follow as that of Travis and Bowie and Crockett, and those who fell with them, and such a battle-cry as 'Remember the Alamo'? No, indeed, he did not conquer Texas, and I think your history will tell just how long it took the Texans to sweep everything before them, and win an independence that they maintained for nine years before joining themselves to the great American republic, and becoming one of the United States." "And what became of the Alamo?" "It still stands, or rather the old church does, facing the principal plaza of the beautiful, wide-spread city that has grown around it since Travis and his men won for it a glorious immortality." "Can any one see it, and go inside and touch its walls?" "Certainly he may." "Then," said Bryce, glowing with enthusiasm, "that is the very first place in all the world that I mean to visit just as soon as I set out on my travels." THE PRESIDENT'S PRIVATE LIFE.