The most undemonstrative man among them all was Colonel Bowie. He had slung his hammock near one of the embrasures, with a cannon at his side, and, like the cannon, he was continually peering out. Even after it grew darker and only moonlight remained to show him anything, he every now and then seemed to take an inquiring look at the surrounding country. "I can see that cave," he muttered to himself, "as clear as if I were in it. What if the fate of a young nation should depend upon our getting into that hole again? If those old rascals knew we were coming, they'd pitch it all down the chasm. I'd like to know, just for curiosity, what fellows and how many of them have been butchered before that altar. In the old times they used up whole tribes and regiments of captives that way. Then I'd like to know where all that bullion came from. I don't believe they mined for it. They didn't know how. They got it out of river-beds, I reckon, just as they do in Asia and Africa." He had hit the mark, for there was no other way imaginable. But where were the riverbeds, and how much more gold-dust and nuggets might there be remaining in them? He could dream and speculate there in his hammock, but that was all he could do. His young republic was indeed to come and go. Mexico was to lose Texas and her other northern provinces. The pioneers among whom he was so daring a leader were to accomplish even more than they were planning. Beyond all his dreams, however, would be the solution of his gold problem. Only a few years later the slopes and gulches of the California mountains were to swarm with hardy miners, and the treasures of the Montezumas were to sink into insignificance in comparison with the wealth to be taken out, not by the Aztecs or the Spaniards, but by the "Gringos." Would anybody then be found to take note of the fact that Bowie and his comrades were the advance-guard, the skirmish-line, almost the "forlorn hope" of the armies of Taylor and Scott? The United States, the world at large, and even Mexico, owe their memories something of recognition, and they were not even much "ahead of their time." "Crockett," said Travis, just before they went to sleep, "Bowie can't get that cave out of his head." "It's t'other way," replied Crockett. "He can't get his head out of the cave, and I'll be glad, you bet, when we all get our heads out of the cave this push of Santa Anna is putting us into." CHAPTER XVIII. CROCKETT'S ALARM GUN. February 24, 1836, and a splendid winter morning for a parade. Altogether unmolested as they came, the Mexican army marched into position around the Alamo fort. Not a shot was fired at them. Not a man of the garrison was in sight. There was a sullen air about the whole concern. Upon the church wall, indeed, Colonel Travis with a field-glass studied and estimated the assailants he was to contend with.