"Colonel," broke in a bearded, powerful-looking man, stepping forward, "I know what he means, if you don't. He said something to me about it, once. The old tiger is full of that nonsense of the hidden treasure of the Montezumas. It's the old Cortez humbug." "Humbug? I guess it is!" laughed the colonel. "I can't be caught by such a bait as that. The Spaniards hunted for it, and the Mexicans, too. No, I won't go, Bowie. You won't, and Crockett won't. We should only lose our scalps for nothing. We'll stay and fight the Greasers on our own ground." "Tell you what, colonel," responded his friend, "let's have him talk it out. You just hear what he's got to say." "Well, Bowie," he said, "I don't object to that, but we've all heard it, many a time. I don't believe Cortez and his men left anything behind them. If they found it, they just didn't report it to the king, that's all. That's about what men of their kind would ha' done. Nothing but pirates, anyhow. Talk with old Tetzcatl? Oh, yes. No harm in that." "I'd kind o' like a ride into Mexico," remarked Bowie, thoughtfully, "if it was only to know the country. Somehow I feel half inclined to try it on, if we can take the right kind with us." A ringing, sarcastic laugh answered from behind him, and with it came the derisive voice of another speaker. "Not for Davy Crockett," he said. "I'd ruther be in Congress any day than south o' the Rio Grande. Why, colonel, that part o' Mexico isn't ours, and we don't keer to annex it. What we want to do is to stretch out west-'ard. But we're spread, now, like a hen a-settin' onto a hundred eggs, and some on 'em 'll spile." There was sharper derision in his face than in his words, aided greatly by his somewhat peaked nose and a satirical flash in his blue-gray eyes. It was curious, indeed, that so much rough fun could find a place in a countenance so deeply marked by lines of iron determination. Very different was the still, set look upon the face of Colonel James Bowie. The celebrated hand-to-hand fighter seemed to be a man who could not laugh, or even smile, very easily. Colonel Travis was in a position of official responsibility, and he was accustomed to dealing with the sensitive pride of Indians. He now turned and held out a hand to the evidently angry Comanche. "Great Bear is a great chief," he said. "He is wise. He can count men. Let him look around him and count. How many rifles can his friend take away to go with the Comanches into Mexico?" "Ugh!" said Great Bear. "Fort no good. Heap stone corral. Texan lie around. No fight. No hurt Mexican. Sit and look at big gun. Hide behind wall. Rabbit in hole." He spoke scornfully enough, but the argument against him was a strong one. "Great Bear," said Crockett, "you're a good Indian. When you come for my skelp, I'll be thar. But you can't have any Texans, just now." The Comanche turned contemptuously away to speak to one of his own braves.