fter they had rested for a bit. "I'm that hungry I
could eat most anything."

"I don't know this location at all, Poke. Where are we?"

"Not many miles from the Gonzales road, lad. About a mile back is Nat
Woodver's cabin. I reckon as how we'll git a warm welcome there, if Nat
is able to give it to us."

They set out in the darkness, and reached the cabin half an hour later.
They found that the settler was away, to join the army; but his wife
and daughters were home, and they speedily did all they could for our
friends, giving them a hot supper, and dressing the wounds as skilfully
as trained nurses. They had heard of the fall of the Alamo, but had not
imagined that all of the garrison were slaughtered.

His awful experience had driven Carlos Martine entirely out of Dan's
head, and all the youth thought of now was to rejoin his father and his
brother.

"They will worry about us, Poke," he said. "More than likely they will
think us dead, for they must know that all of the Texans in and about
San Antonio went to the Alamo when Santa Anna appeared."

"You are right, lad; we'll steer for the ranch the first thing in the
morning," answered Stover, and this they did, riding two ponies that
Mrs. Woodver loaned them.

When the pair reached Gonzales they found the town wild with
excitement. The news of the disaster of the Alamo had just come in, and
by the deaths of the thirty-two men from Gonzales who had entered the
mission shortly before it fell, twenty women were left widows and twice
as many children fatherless. One woman went crazy, and rushed about the
streets crying for the Mexicans to come and kill her, too. It is
needless to add that the Parkers were deeply affected over the loss of
Henry.

As Dan and Stover were about to start for the trail leading up the
Guadalupe, they met Amos Radbury riding post-haste into Gonzales.

"My son!" cried the father, joyfully. "And Poke, too! I was afraid you
were dead!"

"We came close enough to it, father," answered Dan. And then he and the
frontiersman told their stories in detail.

"I would have gone with the men from Gonzales," said Lieutenant
Radbury, "but I hated to leave Ralph home with nobody but Pompey. These
are certainly terrible times. I wonder what Santa Anna will do next?"

"Perhaps he'll march on Gonzales," said the youth. "It looks as if he
meant to wipe out everybody in Texas."

"The whole State is aroused now. It must and will be a fight to the
finish