For just then, riding unceremoniously through the close-packed crowd of natives at the left of the dais, appeared a horseman in the fatigue uniform of a colonel of cavalry. His uniform was stained and old, and was further disfigured by a coating of white dust and foam-fleck. The big sorrel horse was sweat-streaked and evidently half-exhausted.
The man took in the scene in a single quick look. Touching his tired horse with the spur, he rode straight up to the dais, almost tramping the Mexican dignitary under foot; saluted mechanically, and then sat blinking in moody reverie at General Scott.
There was a moment’s hush through which a bugle call was drifted, faint but wholly audible from the American camp far to the east of the plaza. Scott squinted in annoyed perplexity at the newcomer.
The latter suddenly straightened in the saddle, saluted again and rasped out:
“Lieutenant-Colonel James Brinton of General Taylor’s personal staff. Present in reply to General Scott’s request that General Taylor send a representative to this celebration.”
Real pleasure effaced the annoyance in Scott’s face. Even as no Roman triumph was complete without the presence of humbled rivals, so his day of glory was immeasurably sweetened by the fact that the general whose prowess had all but overshadowed his own was, by proxy at least, a witness to the scene.
Scott beamed with lofty graciousness on Lieutenant-Colonel James Brinton. He would vastly have preferred that his rival’s delegate should have looked more like a military tailor’s dummy, on this day of days, and less like a dust-sprinkled scarecrow.
But Scott had sent somewhat belated word—an afterthought—to Taylor.
The distance was long. He had scarce expected that any representative of the other would be able to reach the spot on time. Even more likely his rival would plead lack of time as excuse for failure to comply.
The evidences of haste and hard riding on Brinton’s part were, perhaps, in their way as high a tribute to the occasion as could well have been paid by more gaudy costume. Wherefore, the smile of lofty welcome.