“There he is!” cried Ernest. “Oh, Leo! Whoopee!”
They shook hands with Leo. He was more excited than they, although he had the only clean face among them.
“What you-all been doing?” he demanded, eagerly. “You look like wrecks. Where we going next? Am I too late for the fun? I came as quick as I could. The general sent three more companies and I got in on one of them—Captain Cheshire’s.”
“You’re just in time, boy,” vaunted Sion. “We’re going to take the Priest’s House. Ugartechea’s slipped through you fellows scouts with six hundred more soldiers, from down on the Rio Grande, and we’ve got to finish up quick. Once we take the Priest’s House, we’ll be right on the main plaza—and then watch those Mexican cannoneers hop!”
The Priest’s House occupied the block which, bounded on the right by the Navarro House and Zambrano Row, on the left by part of the Veramendi House and some smaller buildings, and behind by the Henry Karnes house and yard and an intersecting street, fronted along the middle of the main plaza.
“I’m in on that, then,” announced Leo. “If they call for volunteers you’ll see me jump.”
“Same here,” proclaimed they all.
The great Priest’s House, the last stepping stone, was to be stormed at ten o’clock this night, December 8. One hundred volunteers were asked for by General Johnson. There were a few smiles and jokes when the four boys boldly crowded forward—but, as Jim said, they hadn’t had a single good chance yet in any of the special assaults, and they could “wiggle through awful small holes.”
“Let ’em come,” spoke somebody; and they went.
Out from the Navarro house into the wet night they all plunged, across the slippery stone pavement, and hurled themselves at the windows, door and walls of the Priest’s House. This was the biggest fight of all. The muskets of the Mexican soldiers belched a storm of fire and lead from roof top and from windows; and the plaza cannon thundered fiercely.