loud report
in the courtyard. The Mexicans had captured one of the cannon, and
turned it upon the long ward of the hospital building, and the
grape-shot laid fifteen Texans low. The Texans were now fighting from
room to room of the convent, and the whole place looked like a
slaughter-pen.

"To the church!" came the cry. "To the church! Let the last stand be in
the church!" The cry was taken up on all sides, and every Texan who
could do so ran for the church with all possible speed. In the
meantime, the stockade had been carried, and fresh Mexican soldiers
were pouring over this in droves.

At the entrance to the church stood Davy Crockett, clubbed rifle in
hand, and with the blood pouring from a wound in the head.

"Rally around me, boys!" he shouted. "Don't give up! We are bound to
whip 'em yet!" And as the first of the Mexicans came on, he laid two of
them low with one mighty blow of his favourite "Betsy," that cracked
the rifle in half. And, as the rifle fell, so did lion-hearted Davy
Crockett, to rise no more.

With the fall of Crockett, the other Texans, especially those who had
emigrated from Tennessee, fought like demons, and soon the whole church
was so thick with smoke that scarcely one man could be told from
another. In a side apartment lay Bowie, suffering from a fall from a
platform, where he had been directing operations. As the Mexicans
swarmed into the room, Bowie raised himself up and fired his pistols.
Seeing this, the Mexicans retreated, and fired on him from behind the
door, killing him almost instantly.

It had been decided that, should the worst come to the worst, the
Texans must fire the powder-magazine located in one part of the church.
It was now seen that further resistance would be useless.

"The magazine!" came from half a dozen. "Blow the Mexicans up!"

"I will!" shouted back Major T. C. Evans, commander of the artillery,
and started forward with a firebrand for the purpose. The Mexicans,
however, saw the movement, and before Evans could go a dozen paces, a
score of guns were aimed at him, and he went down fairly riddled with
bullets.

"I'm shot!" cried Poke Stover, in the midst of the din and confusion,
and clapped his hand to his left shoulder. He had been leading Dan to a
rear apartment of the church, between overturned benches and sacks of
wheat and rice.

"Shot?" gasped the boy. "Where? Oh, I hope it isn't serious!"

"It's in the shoulder," and the old frontiersman gave a s