They opened the heavy oaken doors, entered
the building and looked up through the open roof at the sky. Then
Crockett's eyes came back to the arched rooms and the covered sacristy.
"This is the real fort," he said, "an' we'll put our gunpowder in that
sacristy. It looks like sacrilege to use a church for such a purpose,
but, Ned, times are goin' to be very hot here, the hottest we ever saw,
an' we must protect our powder."
He carried his suggestion to Travis, who adopted it at once, and the
powder was quickly taken into the rooms. They also had fourteen pieces
of cannon which they mounted on the walls of the church, at the stockade
at the entrance to the plaza and at the redoubt. But the Texans,
frontiersmen and not regular soldiers, did not place much reliance upon
the cannon. Their favorite weapon was the rifle, with which they rarely
missed even at long range.
It took the Texans but little time to arrange the defence, and then came
a pause. Ned did not have any particular duty assigned to him, and went
back to the church, which now bore so little resemblance to a house of
worship. He gazed curiously at the battered carvings and images over the
door. They looked almost grotesque to him now, and some of them
threatened.
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