occasionally meeting other sentinels, and exchanging a few words with
them. Once he glanced at their cattle, which were packed closely under a
rough shed, where they lay, groaning with content. Then he went back to
the wall and noticed the dim figure of one of the sentinels going toward
the convent yard and the church.

Ned took only a single glance at the man, but he rather envied him. The
man was going off duty early, and he would soon be asleep in a warm
place under a roof. He did not think of him again until a full hour
later, when he, too, going off duty, saw a figure hidden in serape and
sombrero passing along the inner edge of the plaza. The walk and figure
reminded him of the man whom he had seen an hour before, and he wondered
why any one who could have been asleep under shelter should have
returned to the cold and rain.

He decided to follow, but the figure flitted away before him down the
plaza and toward the lowest part of the wall. This was doubly curious.
Moreover, it was ground for great suspicion. Ned followed swiftly. He
saw the figure mounting the wall, as if to take position there as a
sentinel, and then the truth came to him in a flash. It was Urrea
playing the congenial role of spy.

Ned rushed forward, shouting. Urrea turned, snatched a pistol and fired.
The bullet whistled past Ned's head. The next moment Urrea dropped over
the wall and fled away in the darkness. The other sentinels were not
able to obtain a shot at him.

CHAPTER XI

THE DESPERATE DEFENCE

Ned's report created some alarm among the defenders of the Alamo, but it
passed quickly.

"I don't see just how it can help 'em," said Crockett. "He's found out
that we're few in number. They already knew that. He's learned that the
Alamo is made up of a church an' other buildings with walls 'roun' them.
They already knew that, too, an' so here we all are, Texans an'
Mexicans, just where we stood before."

Nevertheless, the bombardment rose to a fiercer pitch of intensity the
next day. The Mexicans seemed to have an unlimited supply of ammunition,
and they rained balls and shells on the Alamo. Many of the shells did
not burst, and the damage done was small. The Texans did not reply from
the shelter of their walls for a long time. At last the Mexicans came
closer, emboldened perhaps by the thought that resistance was crushed,
and then the Texan sharpshooters opened fire with their long-barreled
rifles.

The Texans had two or