red feet had been passed. "Like as
not they built it to escape in case the Injuns attacked 'em."

"Well, if they did, it must lead to some place of safety," answered
Dan. "I sincerely hope it does."

Stover was still suffering great pain, and he had lost so much blood
that he could scarcely walk.

"I must rest and try to bind up that wound," he panted, and sank in a
dead faint at Dan's feet.

Dan could do nothing in the darkness, and now he resolved to risk a
light, and lit the stump of a candle which he usually carried with him
when on a hunting expedition. By these feeble rays he bound up the
wound as well as he was able and also attended to his own hurt. Then,
as Stover gave a long sigh and opened his eyes, he blew out the light.

"Don't make a light ag'in," were the frontiersman's first words. "It
may cost us our lives. We will keep still and lay low," and then he
became partly unconscious again.

The hours which followed were like some horrible nightmare to Dan,
whose nerves had been wrought up to the top notch of excitement by the
scenes in the courtyard and the church. From a distance he heard calls
and groans and an occasional shot. The Alamo had fallen and now Santa
Anna was himself upon the scene, to make certain that not one of the
Texans should escape. "I told them what to expect," he is reported to
have said, and then, when five men were brought before him, and his own
officer, General Castrillon, interceded for the Texans, he gave
Castrillon a lecture for his soft-heartedness, and the prisoners were
speedily put to the bayonet. Such was Santa Anna, now high in power,
but who was destined in time to be shorn of all rank and to die in
bitter obscurity. His last act of atrocity at the Alamo was to have the
bodies of his victims piled up with layers of brushwood and burned.

The hours passed, how slowly or swiftly neither Dan nor Poke Stover
knew. No one came to disturb them, and at length the boy sank into a
doze due to his exhausted condition.

When he awoke he found the frontiersman also aroused. "I hope the sleep
did ye good, Dan," he said.

"Was I asleep? I did not know it. How long have we been here?"

"I can't say."

"Have you heard anything more of the Mexicans?"

"Only a faint sound or two, comin' from behind. I reckon we had best
push on and see whar this passage leads to."

They arose, to find their legs stiff from the dampness of the
passageway. At least three hundred yards were pas