half-hunter's garb, a long-barrelled
rifle was slanted over his shoulder, and he seemed a favorable specimen
of the "half-horse, half-alligator" type of the early West. But there
was a shrewd look on his weather-beaten face and a humorous twinkle in
his eyes that betokened a man above the ordinary frontier level, while
it was very evident that the guests present looked upon him as no
every-day individual.

The visitor was, indeed, a man of fame, for he was no less a personage
than the celebrated Davy Crockett, the hunter hero of West Tennessee.
His fame was due less to his wonderful skill with the rifle than to his
genial humor, his endless stories of adventure, his marvellous power of
"drawing the long bow." Davy had once been sent to Congress, but there
he found himself in waters too deep for his footing. The frontier was
the place made for him, and when he heard that Texas was in revolt
against Mexican rule, he shouldered his famous rifle and set out to take
a hand in the game of revolution. It was a question in those days with
the reckless borderers whether shooting a Mexican or a coon was the
better sport.

[Illustration: THE ALAMO.]

The festive citizens of Nacogdoches heard that Davy Crockett had arrived
in their town on his way to join the Texan army, and at once sent a
committee to invite him to join in their feast. Hearty cheers, as we
have said, hailed his entrance, and it was not long before he had his
worthy hosts in roars of laughter with his quaint frontier stories. He
had come to stay with them as a citizen of Texas, he said, and to help
them drive out the yellow-legged greasers, and he wanted, then and
there, to take the oath of allegiance to their new republic. If they
wanted to know what claim he had to the honor, he would let Old
Betsy--his rifle--speak for him. Like George Washington, Betsy never
told a lie. The Nacogdochians were not long in making him a citizen, and
he soon after set out for the Alamo, the scene of his final exploit and
his heroic death.

The Alamo was a stronghold in the town of San Antonio de Bexar, in
Western Texas. It had been built for a mission house of the early
Spaniards, and though its walls were thick and strong, they were only
eight feet high and were destitute of bastion or redoubt. The place had
nothing to make it suitable for warlike use, yet it was to win a great
name in the history of Texan independence, a name that spread far
beyond the borders of the "Lone