Stoddard William Osborn
The Lost Gold of the Montezumas: A Story of the Alamo

"You might win another match," responded Travis, "if all the Mexican birds were as game as General Bravo."

The Mexican bowed low and his face flushed with pride at receiving such a compliment from the daring leader of the Texan rangers.

"Thanks, señor," he said, as he raised his head. "I will show you some of them. I shall hope to meet you at the head of my own lancers."

"I know what they are," laughed Travis, "and you can handle them. But they can't ride over those walls. Likely as not Great Bear's Comanches 'll find you work enough at home. I'm afraid Santa Anna will have to conquer Texas without you."

General Bravo uttered a half-angry exclamation, but he added, —

"That's what I'm afraid of. They are our worst enemy. There is more danger in them than in the Lipans. Among them all, though, you must look out for your own scalp. You might lose it."

Travis laughed again in his not at all pleasant way, but he made no direct reply. It was said of him that he always went into a fight with that peculiar smile, and that it boded no good to the opposite party.

There seemed to be old acquaintance, if not personal friendship, between him and General Bravo, and neither of them said anything that was positively disagreeable.

Nevertheless, they talked on with a cool reserve of manner that was natural to men who expected to meet in combat shortly. The war for the independence of Texas had already been marked by ruthless blood-shedding. General Bravo, it appeared, was even now on his return from bearing important despatches, final demands from the President of Mexico to the as yet unacknowledged commander-in-chief of the rebellious province of Texas. He was therefore to be considered personally safe, of course, until he could recross the border into his own land.

For all that, he might not have been sure of getting home if some of the men who were watching him could have had their own way, and when he mounted his horse a dozen Texan rangers, sent along by Houston himself, rode with him as an escort.

"Bravo may come back," said Bowie, looking after him, "but all the lancers in Mexico can never take the Alamo."

The iron-faced, iron-framed borderer turned away to take sudden note of a pair of very keen, black eyes which were staring, not so much at him as at something in his belt.

"You young red wolf!" he exclaimed. "What are you looking at?"

"Ugh! Heap boy Red Wolf! Good!" loudly repeated the Lipan war-chief Castro, standing a few paces behind his son.

Ugh! Ugh! Ugh! followed in quick succession, for every Indian who heard knew that the boy had then and there received from the great pale-face warrior the name by which he was thenceforth to be known, according to established Indian custom.

"Big Knife," said the boy himself, still staring at the belt, but uttering the words by which the white hero was designated by the red men of many tribes, north and south. "Red Wolf look at heap knife."

"Oh," said the colonel. "You want to see Bowie's old toothpick? Well, I guess all sorts of redskins have made me pull it out."

"Heap medicine knife," remarked Castro. "Kill a heap. Boy see."

Bowie's own eyes wore a peculiar expression as he drew out the long, glittering blade and handed it to his young admirer.

It was a terrible weapon, even to look at, and more so for its history. Originally, its metal had been only a large, broad, horse-shoer's file, sharpened at the point and on one edge. After its owner had won renown with it, a skilful smith had taken it and had refinished it with a slight curve, putting on, also, a strong buck-horn haft. It was now a long, keen-edged, brightly polished piece of steel-work, superior in all respects to the knives which had heretofore been common on the American frontier.

"Ugh!" said Red Wolf again, handling it respectfully. "Heap knife."

He passed it to his father, and it went from hand to hand among the warriors, treated by each in turn as if it were a special privilege to become acquainted with it, or as if it were a kind of enchanted weapon, capable of doing its own killing.

"Bowie, knife!" said Castro, when he at last returned it to its owner, unintentionally using the very term that was thenceforward to be given to all blades of that pattern.

"All right," said the colonel, but he turned to call out to his two friends, —

"Travis? Crockett? Come along. I want a full talk with Tetzcatl. There's more than you think in a scout across the Rio Grande. Let's go on into the fort."

"I'm willing," said Travis; and on they went toward the Alamo convent, the citadel, and they were followed by Castro and the white-headed Tlascalan.

Red Wolf was not expected to join a council of great chiefs, but he looked after them earnestly, saying to himself, —

"Ugh! Heap war-path! Red Wolf go!"

CHAPTER III.
THE DREAM OF THE NEW EMPIRE

Neither of the two stories of the solid, ancient-looking convent was very high. Both were cut up into rooms, large below and smaller above. The convent roof was nearly flat, with a parapet of stone, and it was one hundred and ninety-one feet long by eighteen wide.

In one of the upper rooms, at the southerly corner of the building, sat a sort of frontier Committee of Ways and Means, having very important affairs of state and war under discussion.

The session of the committee began with a general statement by ex-Congressman David Crockett of the condition of things both in Texas and in Mexico.

"You see how it is," he said, in conclusion. "The United States can't let us in without openin' a wide gate for a war with Mexico. Some o' the folks want it. More of 'em hold back. The trouble with 'em is that sech a scrimmage would cost a pile of money. I don't reckon that most o' the politicians keer much for the rights of it, nor for how many fellers might git knocked on the head."

That was the longest speech yet made by anybody, but the next was short.

"Ugh!" said Great Bear.

"Ugh!" said Castro, also; but he added, "Heap far away. No care much. Stay home. Boil kettle. No fight."

The next speaker was the old Tlascalan. He did not try to express any interest in either Texas or the United States, for he was a single-minded man. He declared plainly that he had come to stir up recruits for his life-long war with Mexico, regarded by him only as a continuation of Spain, and with Santa Anna as a successor of Hernando Cortez. The white rangers and the red warriors were all alike to him. Their value consisted in their known faculty for killing their enemies.

"It's all very well," remarked Travis, at the end of the old man's talk, "but we've enough to care for at home. We haven't a man to spare."

The Big Knife had been stretching his tremendously muscular frame upon a low couch, and he now sat up with a half-dreamy look upon his face.

"I'm kind o' lookin' beyond this fight," he said. "We don't want any United States fingers in our affairs. What we want is the old idea of Aaron Burr. He knew what he was about. He planned the republic of the South-west. He wanted all the land that borders the Gulf of Mexico. We want it, too. Then we want to strike right across the continent to the Pacific Ocean. I've been to California and into the upper Mexican states on that side. We'll take 'em all. That 'll be a country worth while to fight for. Texas is only a beginning."

"Just you wait," said Crockett. "It's no use to kill a herd of buffler when you can't tote the beef. You're in too much of a hurry. The time hasn't come."

"I don't agree with you," said Travis, with energy. "What we want is Uncle Sam and a hundred thousand settlers."

"No! no!" interrupted Tetzcatl. "Gold! Show gold. Talk gold. Bring all the men from all lands beyond the salt sea."

"About that thar spelter," replied Crockett, "I'll hear ye. Tell the whole story. I've only heard part of it. Biggest yarn! Spin it!"

A great many other people had heard the old legend, or parts of it. It was an historical record that Cortez had been accused before the King of Spain of having himself secreted part of the plunder, won during his campaigns against the Aztecs and other tribes. It had brought him into a great deal of trouble, but, after all, the fact that he had seemed to prove his innocence did but tend to build up and afterwards to sustain quite another explanation of the absence of the reported gold and silver. It had never been found, and therefore every ounce of it was now lying hidden somewhere, only waiting the arrival of a discoverer.

Tetzcatl was not an eloquent man, and he spoke English imperfectly, but he was nevertheless a persuasive talker. Somehow or other a pebble as large as a dollar had wandered into that room, and he put it down upon the floor, declaring it to be the City of Mexico. He evidently expected them, after that, to imagine about a square yard around it to be a kind of map, with the Rio Grande at its northern edge and Texas beyond. He proceeded then as if he had all the mountains and passes marked out, but he had not gone far before Crockett broke in.

"Hullo," he said. "I see. Cortez didn't find the stuff in the city, because it wasn't thar. It was up nearer whar it was placered out, hundreds of miles away."

"I never thought of that," remarked Travis. "There's sense in it."

"Bully!" said Bowie. "And all they had to do was to cart it farther."

"No carts," said Crockett. "No mules, either. Not a pony among them."

"That makes no difference," replied Bowie. "Those Indian carriers can tote the biggest loads you ever saw. One of 'em can back a man right up a mountain."

"That's it," said Crockett. "A thousand dollars' worth of gold weighs three pounds. Sixty pounds is twenty thousand. A hundred men could tote two millions. That's what I want."

"All right," laughed Travis, "but only part of it was gold. Part of it was silver. But, then, Guatamoczin could send a thousand carriers and keep 'em going till 'twas all loaded into his cave."

Tetzcatl understood them, and he not only nodded assent, but went on to describe the process of transportation very much as if he had been there. According to him, moreover, the largest deposit was within a few days' ride of what was now the Texan border. A great deal of it, he said, had not come from the south at all, but from the north, from California, New Mexico, and Arizona.

They could not dispute him, but at that day all the world was still in ignorance of the gold placers of the Pacific coast. California was as yet nothing more than a fine country for fruit, game, and cattle-ranches.

"I've heard enough," said Travis, at last. "It's as good as a novel. But I guess I won't go."

"I think I'll take a ride with Castro, anyhow," replied Bowie. "If it's only for the fun of it. Great Bear and his Comanches can have a hunt after Bravo's lancers. But it's awfully hot in here. I'm going to have a siesta."

That meant a sleepy swing in a hammock slung in one of the lower rooms, and the other white men were willing to follow his example.

It was pretty well understood that the proposed raid into Mexico was to be joined by several paleface warriors. Castro wore a half-contented face, but the great war-chief of the Comanches stalked out of the building uttering words of bitter disappointment and anger. He had hoped for hundreds of riflemen, with whose aid he could have swept on across a whole Mexican state, plundering, burning, scalping.

The Lipans and Comanches were not at peace with each other. They never had been, and nothing but a prospect of fighting their common enemy, the Mexicans, could have brought them together.

During all this time, however, one Lipan, and a proud one, had been very busy. Red Wolf, with a name of his own that any Indian boy might envy him, did not need a siesta. He had a whole fort to roam around in, and there were all sorts of new things to arouse his curiosity.

The walls themselves, particularly those of the fort and the church, were wonders. So were the cannon, and he peered long and curiously into the gaping mouth of the solitary eighteen-pounder that stood in the middle of the enclosure, ready to be whirled away to its embrasure. It was a tremendous affair, and he remarked "heap gun" over it again and again.

He was having a red-letter day. At last, however, he was compelled to give up sightseeing, and he marched out through the sentried gate with his father toward the place where their ponies had been picketed.

Great Bear and his chiefs also left the fort, but they went in an opposite direction. If there had been any thought of a temporary alliance between them and their old enemies, the Lipans, for Mexican raiding purposes, it had disappeared in the up-stairs council. Of course they parted peaceably, for even according to Indian ideas the fort and its neighborhood was "treaty ground," on which there could be no scalp-taking. Besides that, there were the rangers ready to act as police.

As for Tetzcatl, he and his mule were nowhere to be seen.

Siestas were the order of the day inside the walls of the Alamo, but one man was not inclined to sleep.

Out by the eighteen-pounder stood the tall form of Colonel Travis, and he was glancing slowly around him with a smile that had anxiety in it.

Near a door of one of the lower rooms of the convent swung the hammock that contained Davy Crockett. He was lazily smoking a Mexican cigarette, but he was not asleep. He could see a great many things through the open door, and he was a man who did a great deal of thinking.

"What's the matter with Travis?" he asked. "What's got him out thar? Reckon I'll go and find out if there's anything up."

In half a minute more the two celebrated borderers were leaning against the gun, side by side, and there was a strong contrast between them.

Travis was not without a certain polish and elegance of manner, for he was a man of education and had travelled. If, however, Crockett was said to have killed more bears than any other man living, Travis was believed to have been in more hard fights than any other, unless, it might be, Bowie. Utterly fearless as he was, he nevertheless commanded the Alamo, and he could feel his military burdens.

"What's the matter with me?" he replied to Crockett's question. "Look at this fort. If I had five hundred men I could hold it against the whole Mexican army. That is, unless they had heavy guns. But I've less than a hundred just now. We couldn't work the guns nor keep men at all the loop-holes."

"That's so," said Crockett. "The Greasers could swarm over in onto ye. But Sam Houston could throw in men if Santa Anna should cross into Texas. I don't reckon he'd try to haul heavy cannon across country. He'd only leave 'em in the sloughs if he did."

"That's so," said Travis. "But he's coming some day. I want to be here when he comes. I want you and Bowie and all our old crowd."

"I'll be fifin' 'round," said Crockett; "but just now I've got to go and blow my whistle in Washington. Durned long trip to make, too."

"Come back as soon as you can," replied Travis, with unusual earnestness. "I've a job on hand. Houston has ordered me to scout along the Nueces. I'll only take a squad, but it weakens the garrison. Bowie has made up his mind to take a ride with Castro. Some of the men that are not enlisted yet will go with him, most likely."

"Let him go," said Crockett. "He'll learn a heap of things. He kind o' gets me as crazy as he is about our new Southwest enterprise. Tell you what! Just a smell o' gold 'd fetch the immigrants in like blazes. Prairie fire's nothin' to it."

"He won't smell any," laughed Travis; but they had turned away from the gun, and were pausing half-way between the Alamo and the church. They were glancing around them as if to take a view of the military situation.

It was quiet enough now, and there was no prophet standing by to tell them of the future. What their cool judgment now told them as entirely possible was surely to come. From beside that very gun they were to see the "Greasers," as they called the soldiers of Santa Anna, come swarming over the too thinly guarded wall. There, at the left, by the four-pounder, was Travis to fall across the gun, shot through the head. Here, on the spot where he now stood, was Crockett to go down, fighting to the last and killing as he fell. In the upper corner room of the Alamo, where the conference with Tetzcatl and the chiefs had been held, was Bowie himself to perish, like a wounded lion at bay, the last man in the Alamo.

CHAPTER IV.
THE RACE FOR THE CHAPARRAL

It was a bugle and not a drum that summoned the garrison to answer at their morning roll-call.

"Bowie," said Colonel Travis, just after he had dismissed the men, "I don't want to ask too much. You're not under my orders, but I wish you'd take a pretty strong patrol and scout off southerly. The Lipans camped off toward San Antonio, but I'd like to feel sure that Great Bear kept his promise and rode straight away. He isn't heavy on promise-keeping."

"Not where scalps are in it," said Bowie. "He's in bad humor. I'll go."

"You bet," remarked Crockett. "Castro hasn't many braves with him. He'll be bare-headed before night if the Comanches can light onto him."

"All right," said Bowie; "but they won't strike us just now. I don't want Castro wiped out. We're old friends."

"Mount your men well," said Travis to Bowie. "You may have hard riding. Don't fight either tribe if you can help it. I must be off on Houston's orders as soon as I can get away."

"I'll take a dozen," replied Bowie. "The fort 'll be safe enough just now."

No further orders were given, but he picked both his men and his horses, and he seemed to know them all.

They were good ones, the riders especially. They were all veterans, trained and tried and hardened in Indian warfare, and ready for anything that might turn up. They went into their saddles at the word of command as if they were setting out for a merry-making, and the little column passed through the gate-way two abreast, followed a minute later by their temporary commander.

The Texan rangers were armed as well as was possible at that date. The Colt's revolver had but just been invented, and the first specimens of that deadly weapon found their way to Texas a few months later. Barely two small six-shooters came in 1836, but these opened the market, and there was a full supply, large pattern, sent on in 1837.

Just now, however, each man had horse-pistols in holsters at the saddle. In each man's belt were smaller weapons, of various shapes and sizes, and not one of them failed to carry a first-rate rifle. All had sabres as well as knives, but they were not lancers. On the contrary, they were inclined to despise the favorite weapon of the plains red men and of the Mexican cavalry.

Bowie was now at the front, and he appeared to have some reason of his own for making haste.

No such indication was given, however, by an entirely different body of horsemen, five times as numerous, which was at that hour riding across the prairie, several miles to the southeastward. These, too, seemed to have a well-understood errand.

Their leader was about two hundred yards in advance of the main body, and he paused upon the crest of every "rising ground" as he went, to take swift, searching glances in all directions.

"Great Bear is a great chief!" he loudly declared. "He will teach Castro and the Lipan dogs a lesson. They have set Travis against the Comanches. Castro shall not ride into Chihuahua. I will hang his scalp to dry in my own lodge. I will strike the Mexicans. Ugh!"

He spoke in his own tongue, and then he seemed to be inclined to repeat himself in Spanish, for he was an angry man that day. It was not at all likely that he would prove over-particular whether his next victims were red or white, and he evidently did not consider himself any longer within neutral territory.

Suddenly the Comanche war-chief straightened in his saddle, turned his head, and sent back to his warriors a prolonged, ear-piercing whoop.

A chorus of fierce yells answered him, and the slow movement of the wild-looking array changed into a swift, pell-mell gallop.

It had been a whoop of discovery. At no great distance from the knoll upon which Great Bear had sounded his war-cry a voice as shrill and as fierce, although not as powerful, replied to him with the battle-yell of the Lipans. In another instant, the wiry mustang which carried an Indian boy was springing away at his best pace eastward. Probably it was well for his rider that the race before him was to be run with a light weight.

Red Wolf was all alone, but if Great Bear was hunting Lipans, they, on their part, were on the lookout for Comanches. Their cunning chief had read, as clearly as had Travis, the wrathful face of Great Bear. He had camped for one night in the comparatively secure vicinity of San Antonio. Shortly after he and his braves began their homeward ride that morning, he had given to his son and to several others orders which were accompanied by swift gesticulations that rendered many words needless. What he said to Red Wolf might have been translated, —

"We are to strike the chaparral on a due south line from the fort. Ride a mile to the west of our line of march. Keep your eye out for enemies. If you see any, get back to us full speed. Great Bear has sixty braves. Maybe more. We are only twenty. He would wipe us out."

Away went Red Wolf. He was only a scout, but he was a youngster doing warrior duty, and he felt as if the fate of the whole band depended upon him. It was another big thing to add to his remarkable experiences of the day before, – a fort, guns, a grand cock-fight, and the heroes of the border, – white chiefs who were famous among all the tribes. More than all, and he said so as he rode onward, he had been spoken to by the Big Knife of the palefaces, and he had not only seen but had handled the "heap medicine knife" itself. He was now almost a brave, with a name given him by the hero, his father's friend, and he was burning all over with a fever to do something worthy of the change in his circumstances.

He was well mounted, for he was the son of a chief, and there had been a drove of all sorts to select from. The mustang under him was a bright sorrel, – a real beauty, full of fire, and now and then showing that he possessed his full share of the high temper belonging to his half-wild pedigree.

Mile after mile went by at an easy gait, and the watchful scout had seen nothing more dangerous than a rabbit or a deer. He was beginning to feel disappointed, as if his luck were leaving him. It was hard upon a fellow who was so tremendously ready for an adventure if none was to be had. He even grew less persistently busy with his eyes, and let his thoughts go back to the fort.

"Heap big gun," he was remarking to himself. "Kill a heap. Shoot away off."

At that instant his pony sprang forward with a nervous bound, for his quick ears had caught the first notes of Great Bear's thrilling war-whoop. Red Wolf went with him as if he were part of him, while he drew the rein hard and sent back his shrill reply.

"Great Bear!" he exclaimed. "Catch Red Wolf? Ugh! No! Take heap Comanche hair."

The other warriors were not yet in sight, but there was a great deal of "boy" in his boastful threat, considering the known prowess of their leader.

The sorrel pony was having his own way, and the horse carrying Great Bear must have been not only fast but strong, or he would have been left behind in short order. It was not so, however; and now, as higher rolls of the prairie were reached and climbed, the entire yelling band were now and then seen by the young Lipan.

"Poor pony!" he remarked of some of them, for their line was drawing out longer as the better animals raced to the front and the slower fell to the rear. All were doing their best, and some were even catching up with Great Bear. It would, therefore, be really of no use for Red Wolf to stop and kill him, unless he were ready, also, to take in hand and scalp a number of other warriors.

"What Red Wolf do now? Ugh!"

It was a question which was running through his mind hot-footed, and it was not at first easy to shape a satisfactory answer.

A white boy would have been likely to have let it answer itself. He would have ridden as straight as he could to rejoin the band of Lipans and to tell his father that the Comanches were coming. He would have thought only of getting them to help him in his proposed fight with Great Bear.

Red Wolf was an Indian boy. All his life, thus far, he had been getting lessons in Indian war-methods. He had heard the talks and tales of chiefs and noted braves in their camps and councils. He had, therefore, been taught in a redskin academy of the best kind, and he was a credit to his professors.

"Ugh! No!" he exclaimed, at last. "Comanche find chaparral. No find Lipan."

He had no need to urge his pony, but he rode southward, not eastward. Already, in the distance, he could see the endless, ragged border of the chaparral. It began with scattered trees and bushes out on the prairie. These increased in number and in closeness to each other, until they thickened into the dense, many-pathed labyrinth. The pursuers also could see, and they could understand that if the fugitive they were following was leading them toward Castro's party, they must close up to him now or never.

The whoops which burst from them as they dashed along were loud, but short, sharp, excited.

"Whoop big!" shouted Red Wolf. "Heap yell! Castro hear whoop."

He had noted that the wind was blowing in the right direction. It could carry a sound upon its wings far away to the eastward, but two very different kinds of human ears received and understood the fierce music the chasers were making.

"Forward! Gallop!" rang from the heavily-bearded lips of the commander of horsemen coming from the northward.

"Comanches! Colonel Bowie!" shouted a grizzled veteran behind him. "That's Great Bear's band, you bet!"

Another whoop swept by them on the wind as Bowie replied to him, —

"And they've struck the Lipans, I'm afraid. We must try and get into it before too much mischief's done. On, boys! We'll give him a lesson."

Silence followed, but the men looked at the locks of their rifles and felt of their belt pistols as they went forward. It was no light matter to act as police, or even as peacemakers, in that part of the world.

The other listeners were nearer and could hear more distinctly, but no sound was uttered by the warriors with Castro when their chief drew his rein and held up a hand. Every man of them knew, or thought he knew, just what it all meant, but more news was coming.

One brave who had been some distance in their rear, as a lookout in that direction, came on at full speed, followed by another whose duties had detailed him more to the westward. Both brought the same errand, for the first exclaimed, as he came within speaking range, —

"Ugh! Heap Texan," and the other, whose eyes may have been sharper, added, "Big Knife! Many rifle?"

"Comanche! Great Bear!" roared Castro, in a deep-toned, wrathful voice. "Red Wolf lose hair! Ugh! Chaparral!"

He knew that his son must in some way have been the immediate cause of that whooping, but his first duty as a leader was to save his party, letting his vengeance wait for a better opportunity. He led on, therefore, toward the only possible refuge, muttering as he went.

"Ugh!" he said. "Heap boy. Run against Comanche! Young chief! Ugh! Go to bushes. No good wait for Big Knife. Not enough Texan. Too many Comanche."

He might well be anxious concerning his promising son, but Red Wolf's hair was yet upon his head, for the wind tossed it well as his fleet mustang carried him past the outermost clump of mesquit-bushes.

"Whoop!" he yelled. "Red Wolf beat Great Bear! All Lipans get away. Ugh!"

He had not beaten his pursuer by more than two hundred yards, however, and several other Comanches were now as near as was their chief.

Could there be such a thing as an escape from all of them? Would not the entire swarm go in after him and surely find him, no matter what path he might take? The situation looked awfully doubtful in spite of the moderate advantage which he had thus far maintained.

Closer grew the trees. Nearer to each other were the thick "tow-heads" of bushes. On went Red Wolf, veering to the left around each successive cover, but seeming to push directly into the chaparral. It was a complete cover now, and he was well hidden at the next sharp, sudden turn that he made to the eastward.

Paths, paths, paths, fan-like, but that none of them were straight, and fan-like was the spreading out of the wily Comanches. Or perhaps they were more like a lot of mounted, lance-bearing spiders, that were going in to catch a young Lipan fly in that web.

As for him, he had whooped his very loudest just before he reached the chaparral, and a gust of wind had helped him like a brother. Again Castro had raised a hand, but now he shouted fiercely, —

"Hear heap boy! Red Wolf! No lose hair yet. Ugh! Whoop!"

For all he knew, nevertheless, he may have been listening to the last battle-cry of his brave son. He and his braves were at that moment riding in among the bushes, while more than half a mile away, upon the prairie, galloped Bowie and his riflemen.

"Reckon we'll git thar jest about in time to see 'em count the skelps," remarked one ranger.

"Reckon not," replied another. "Those Lipans are as safe as jack-rabbits if once they kin fetch the chaparral."

Red Wolf had reached it, but he was by no means safe. Great Bear himself had dashed in so recklessly that he and his first handful of fast racers were galloping upon the wrong paths. They discovered their error, or thought they did, in a minute or so, but a minute was of importance just then. They lost it before a kind of instinct told them to wheel eastward if they expected to find the Lipans.

That had been the direction taken by one of their best-mounted comrades on entering the chaparral, and the soft thud of his horse's hoofs had now reached the quick ears of Red Wolf.

"Ugh!" he exclaimed. "One!"