It was the world-renowned Alamo, one of the most famous monuments to liberty in America; and, hastening across the plaza, Ridge stood reverently before it, thrilled with the memory of Crockett and Bowie, Travis and Bonham, who, more than half a century before, together with their immediate band of heroes, here yielded up their lives that Texas might be free.
Ridge was well read in the history of the Lone Star State, and now he strove to picture to himself the glorious tragedy upon which those grim walls had looked.

As he thus stood, oblivious to his surroundings, he was recalled to them by a voice close at hand, saying, as though in soliloquy: "What a shame that so sacred a monument should be degraded by the vulgarity of its environment!" "Is it not ?" replied Ridge, turning towards the speaker.

The latter was a squarely built man, about forty years of age, with a face expressive of intense determination, which at the moment was partially hidden by a slouch hat pulled down over the forehead, and a pair of spectacles.

He was clad in brown canvas, very much as was Ridge himself; but except for facings of blue on collar and sleeve be wore no distinctive mark of rank.

For a few minutes the two talked of the Alamo and all that it represented.