"Git his ears?" eagerly demanded the Blackfoot.
"Thar's been ears enough took—already. Come on; she's in th' palacio—with Armijo!"
"Jest what we figgered, damn him!" growled the Blackfoot, leading the way.
In the stable at the rear of the courtyard a decrepit dog, white with age, had barked feebly when its breath permitted, while the fight had raged in the house. The Blackfoot had considered stopping the wheezy warnings, but they did not have power enough to lure him from his watch. He had accepted the lesser of the two evils and remained on guard. As the two Indians crept from the courtyard the aged animal burst into a paroxysm of barking, which exhausted it. To those who knew the captain's dog, its barking long since had lost all meaning, for, as the soldiers said, it barked over nothing. They did not know that the animal dreamed day and night of the days of its youth and strength and now, in its dotage, in imagination was living over again stirring incidents of hunts and fights long past. Gradually it recovered its strength from sounding its barked warnings in vain, and pantingly sniffed the air. Its actions became frantic and the decrepit old dog struggled to its feet, swaying on its feeble legs, its grizzled muzzle pointing toward its master's house. The composite body odor it had known for so many years had changed, and ceased abruptly. Whining and whimpering, the dog searched the air currents, but in vain; the scent came no more. Then, sinking back on its haunches, it raised its gray nose to the sky and poured out its grief in one long, quavering howl of surprising volume.
The sleeping square sprang to life, superstitious terror dominated the barracks. Lights gleamed suddenly and the barracks door opened slowly, grudgingly as frightened soldiers hurriedly crossed themselves. Don Jesu and Robideau pushed hesitatingly to the portal and peered fearsomely into the night. They suddenly cried out, drew their ancient pistols, and fired at two vague figures slinking hurriedly along the side of the house opposite. From the darkness there came quick replies. A coruscating poniard of spiteful flame stabbed into the night. Don Jesu whirled on buckling legs and pitched sidewise to the street. A second stab of sparky flame split the darkness and Robideau reeled back into the arms of his panicky soldiers. As the heavy reports rolled through the town they seemed to be a signal, for on the southern outskirts of Santa Fe gun after gun crashed in a rippling, spasmodic volley. A few stragglers in the all but deserted streets raised a dreaded cry and fled to the nearest shelter. The cry was taken up and sent rioting through the city; doors were doubly barred and the soldiers in the barracks, safer behind the thick mud walls than they would be out in the dark open against such an enemy, slammed shut the ponderous door and frantically built barricades of everything movable.
"Los Tejanos!" rolled the panicky cries. "Los Tejanos! Los Tejanos!"
The wailing warning of the coming of a plague could not have held more terror. Gone were the vaunted boastings and the sneers; gone was the swaggering bravado of the dashing caballeros, who had said what they would do to any Texan force that dared to brave the wrath of the defenders of San Francisco de la Santa Fe. Gone was all faith, never too sincere, in ancient escopeta and rusty blunderbuss, now that the occasion was close at hand to measure them against the devil weapons of hardy Texan fighting men, of the breed that had stood off, bloody day after bloody day, four thousand Mexican regulars before a little adobe church, now glorified for all the ages yet to come. To panicky minds came magic words of evil portent; the Alamo and San Jacinto. To evil consciences, bowed with guilt, came burning memories of that sick and starved Texan band that had walked through winter days and shivered through winter nights from Santa Fe to the capital, two thousand miles of suffering, and every step a torture. Texan ears had swung from a piece of rusty wire to feed the cruel conceit of a swarthy tyrant.
"Los Tejanos! Los Tejanos! Los Tejanos!"
At the palacio a human brute recoiled before a barred door between him and a desperate captive, his honeyed cajolings turning to acid on his lying tongue. No longer did he hear the measured tread of the palace guards, who secretly exulted as they fled and left him defenseless.
"Los Tejanos! Los Tejanos! Los Tejanos!"