The Lost Gold of the Montezumas: A Story of the Alamo — John Shaqi
The Lost Gold of the Montezumas: A Story of the AlamoStoddard, William O.
General
The Lost Gold of the Montezumas: A Story of the Alamo
Stoddard, William O.
Alamo (San Antonio, Tex.) -- Siege, 1836 -- Juvenile fiction
"Comanche!" said Red Wolf, holding up his gory prize. "Great Bear
come. Not many braves right away. Too many pretty soon. Heap run.
Ugh!"
Castro understood the situation well enough without much explanation,
and his prospects did not seem to be very good. He and his braves were
too few to win a pitched battle and too many for concealment.
"Ugh!" he replied to Red Wolf. "Great chief no run. Die hard. Heap
fight."
The one thing in his favor was the first mistake made by Great Bear.
It had kept him from being in person among the next half-dozen of the
braves who had gone to the left, so very close upon the heels of Red
Wolf. Even their wrath for the fate of their foremost man did but send
them on the more recklessly to avenge him. They whooped savagely as
they galloped past his body at the crossing of the paths. They still
believed they had only one Lipan to deal with, but they were terribly
undeceived, for their blind rush into the presence of Castro and his
warriors was as if they had fallen into a skilfully set ambuscade.
They were taken by surprise, outnumbered, almost helpless, and down
they went, not one of them escaping.
Away behind them, the fast-arriving main body of the Comanches listened
to the death-shouts and to the Lipan whoops of triumph, and they obeyed
the astonished yell with which their leader summoned them to gather to
him at the spot where he had halted.
"Too many Lipan," he said, to a brave who rode in with a kind of
report. "Castro great chief. Heap snake. No let him catch Great Bear
in chaparral trap. Wait. Comanche fool. Lose hair for nothing. Red
Wolf heap young brave. Kill him dead."
That was indeed fame for the young Lipan warrior. Not only had he been
recognized by his pursuer, but the great war-chief of the Comanches
believed that the son of his old enemy was proving himself another
Castro, as courageous and as cunning as his father. A mere boy, not
yet sixteen, had become of such importance that he must be killed off,
if possible, to prevent the future harm that he would be likely to do.
Red Wolf's ambuscade had not been of his own planning, but he had
performed his accidental part of it remarkably well.
"Red Wolf, young chief! Son of Castro!" said his father, proudly.
"Big Knife good medicine. Saw boy. Old friend tell name. Ugh! Good!"
To his mind, therefore, Colonel Bowie had been a kind of war-prophet,
declaring the capacity of the boy he had named, giving him "good
medicine," or tremendous good luck, and now his correctness as a
prophet had been unexpectedly established. So said more than one of
the Lipans who had been at the fort and had witnessed the performance
with the wonderful medicine knife.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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