os! Los Tejanos! Los Tejanos!_"

He dashed through a door to grab his weapons and flee, and in through
the open, undefended portal from the square leaped a blood-covered
Delaware, an epic of rags and rage, a man so maddened that all thought
of weapons save Nature's, had gone from his burning brain. Behind him
leaped a Blackfoot, dynamic and deadly as a panther, a Colt pistol in
one eager, upraised hand, in the other the cold length of a keen
skinning knife. Behind them from a wagon deserted in the square came the
sharp crashes of Hawken and Colt, and a shouted battlecry: "Remember th'
Alamo! Remember th' Alamo! Texans to th' fore!"

As the Delaware dashed past an open door he caught a flurry of movement,
the flare of a pistol and his laughter pealed out in one mad shout as he
stopped like a cat and leaped in through the opening. Another flash,
another roar, and a burning welt across a shoulder spurred the bloody
Nemesis to a greater speed. The wavering sword he knocked aside and near
two hundred pounds of fighting, mountain sinew hurled itself behind a
driving fist. The hurtling bulk of Armijo crashed against a wall and
dropped like a bag of grain as the plunging Delaware whirled to pounce
upon it. As he turned, a scream rang out somewhere behind him, through
the door he had just entered, a scream vibrant with desperate hope, and
he bellowed a triumphant answer. Here was his mission; Armijo was a side
issue. The governor, helpless before him, was forgotten and the Delaware
whirled through the door bellowing one name over and over again.
"Patience! Patience! _Patience!_"

"_Los Tejanos! Los Tejanos!_" came from the public square.

"_Los Tejanos! Los Tejanos!_" quavered the despairing echo throughout
the quaking town, while from the south there came the steady crash of
alien rifles, firing harmlessly into the air.

Before him a Blackfoot methodically battered at a door, taking a few
quick steps backward and a plunging dive forward. The Delaware shouted
again and added the power of his driving weight. There came a
splintering crash and the door went in. The Blackfoot whirled and darted
to the great portal leading to the square, bouncing on the balls of his
feet like a cougar expecting danger at every point. The Delaware
scrambled to his feet and gathered a whitefaced woman in his arms,
crushing her to his bloody chest. He felt her go suddenly limp and,
throwing her across a bare and bleeding shoulder, he drew a Colt
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