-h-h!" when, sitting at one
end of the grounds, the girls heard the first stirring notes of the
band.

To the Hexagon Club it was a most wonderful sight--those long lines of
men moving with such perfect precision. Fresh from the Alamo as the
girls were, with the story of that dreadful slaughter in their ears--to
them it almost seemed that there before them marched the brave men who
years ago had given up their lives so heroically in the little chapel.

It was Tilly who broke the silence.

"Oh, I do just love soldiers," she cried, with a hurried glance sideways
to make sure that Mr. Hartley in the next carriage could not hear her.
"Don't you, Genevieve?" But Genevieve was too absorbed to answer.

A little later the band played "The Star-spangled Banner," and there
sounded the signal gun for the lowering of the colors. In the glorious
excitement of all this, even Tilly herself forgot to talk.

After dress parade a certain Major Drew, who knew Mr. Hartley, came up
and was duly presented to the ladies. He in turn presented the officer
of the day, who looked, to the Happy Hexagons, very handsome and
imposing in sword and spurs. After this, at Major Drew's invitation,
there was a visit to the officers' quarters, and on the Major's broad
gallery there was a cooling refreshment of lemonade and root beer before
the drive back to the hotel.

CHAPTER XVII

"BERTHA'S ACCIDENT"

It had been decided that the party would go to New Orleans from San
Antonio, and then from there by boat to New York.

"It'll make a change from car-riding, and a very pleasant one, I'm
thinking," Mr. Hartley had said; and the others had enthusiastically
agreed with him.

It was on the five-hundred-and-seventy-two mile journey from San Antonio
to New Orleans that something happened. In the Chronicles of the Hexagon
Club it fell to Genevieve to tell the story; and this is what she wrote:

"It seems so strange to me that we should have traveled so many
thousands of miles on the railroad without anything happening; and then,
just on the last five hundred (we are going to take the boat at New
Orleans)--to have it happen.

"We have had all sorts of amusing experiences, of course, losing trains,
and missing connections; but nothing like this. Even when we had to take
that little bumpy accommodation for a few hours, and it was so
accommodating it stopped every few minutes 'to water the horses,' as
dear Tilly said, nothing happened--though, to