“Isn’t Fannin going?”
“He sent word by Bonham that he’d try, but we think the Mexicans have cut him off. He’ll certainly come if he can. There’s no braver man alive than Jim Fannin.”
“Why don’t the men at Gonzales march?”
“Why don’t you men march? It isn’t a question of a hundred or two, now. The Mexican lines are drawn too close. I doubt if even another dispatch will get out; the country around Bejar is thick with Mexican patrols. Santa Anna’s there, remember; and so is Cos, who broke his parole just to get a revenge for the licking we gave him.”
“How’s the Alamo? Shot up much? Many killed? What does Travis say now?”
“Nobody’s been hurt, except Mexicans. We were short of ammunition, though. Bowie’s sick in bed. The men are fighting night and day, and they’ll never surrender. I fetched two dispatches: one for the convention, and the other a letter to a friend of Travis. Travis says: ‘Take care of my little boy. If the country should be saved, I may make him a splendid fortune; but if the country should be lost, and I should perish, he will have nothing but the proud recollection that he is the son of a man who died for his country.’ Travis told me to say to the people that as long as he held out he’d fire a signal gun every morning at sunrise.”
“Everybody to the convention hall!” was the sudden hail. “Delegates and everybody to the convention hall. Special meeting.”
Men were already pushing in through the doorway; the group about Captain Smith dissolved quickly. He staggered stiffly in the rear of the hurrying procession; Ernest nimbly darted ahead, and squeezed in with the crowd.
Most of the delegates were in their seats. President Richard Ellis and Secretary Kimball were in their places, waiting. Mr. Ellis held a piece of soiled paper in his hand. He arose, and amidst a tense silence looked over the assemblage. His face was pale and haggard, and Ernest could barely hear his words.
“I have just received by special courier, who has ridden the one hundred and eighty miles in less than four days, another message from Colonel Travis in the Alamo, addressed to this convention,” he said. “It is of such importance that I feel it should be communicated at once. The date is March 3—or only last Thursday.”