



Produced by Al Haines










[Illustration: Cover art]





[Frontispiece: "This is a terrible piece of work."  Page 185.]






THE LOST GOLD OF

THE MONTEZUMAS


A STORY OF THE ALAMO


BY

WILLIAM O. STODDARD

AUTHOR OF "CHUMLEY'S POST," "CROWDED OUT O' CROFIELD," "THE TALKING
LEAVES," ETC.




WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY

_CHARLES H. STEPHENS_





PHILADELPHIA

J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY

1898




COPYRIGHT, 1897,

BY

J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY.




CONTENTS.


CHAPTER I.

The Gods of the Montezumas


CHAPTER II.

The Alamo Fort


CHAPTER III.

The Dream of the New Empire


CHAPTER IV.

The Race for the Chaparral


CHAPTER V.

Among the Bushes


CHAPTER VI.

The Old Cash-Box


CHAPTER VII.

The Escape of the Rangers


CHAPTER VIII.

The Camp at the Spring


CHAPTER IX.

The Skirmish in the Night


CHAPTER X.

A Baffled Pursuit


CHAPTER XI.

The Charge of the Lancers


CHAPTER XII.

The Horse-Thieves and the Stampede


CHAPTER XIII.

The Last of Tetzcatl


CHAPTER XIV.

The Perilous Path


CHAPTER XV.

The Return of the Gold Hunters


CHAPTER XVI.

The Army of Santa Anna


CHAPTER XVII.

The First Shot


CHAPTER XVIII.

Crockett's Alarm Gun


CHAPTER XIX.

The Reinforcement


CHAPTER XX.

Nearing the End




ILLUSTRATIONS


"This is a terrible piece of work"......... _Frontispiece._

"Good!  Tetzcatl go to the Alamo"

"Heap dollar," remarked Red Wolf

"Ugh!" screeched the Comanche at the end of a terrific minute, and
  he sank into the grass

In rode the very airy captain of lancers

A dark, stern, terrible shape half rose from a couch




CHAPTER I.

THE GODS OF THE MONTEZUMAS.

It was a gloomy place.  It would have been dark but for a heap of
blazing wood upon a rock at one side.  That is, it looked like a rock
at first sight, but upon a closer inspection it proved to be a cube of
well-fitted, although roughly finished, masonry.  It was about six feet
square, and there were three stone steps leading up in front.

Behind this altar-like structure a vast wall of the natural rock, a
dark limestone, had been sculptured into the shape of a colossal and
exceedingly ugly human face,--as if the head of a stone giant were half
sunken in that side of what was evidently an immense cave.

There were men in the cave, but no women were to be seen.  Several of
