XXII
The superintendent's house stood on a low bench above the town, looking out over all the valley, but protected by a high hill behind, upon the summit of which was placed a mammoth black water-tank.
In its architecture the casa grande was an exact replica of a hot-country hacienda, a flat-roofed, one-storied square of adobe bricks, whitewashed to keep off the sun and presenting on three sides nothing but the dead walls of house and garden, with dense trees planted near for shade. Along the front was a long arcade, the corredor, graced by a series of massive arches which let in the light and air. Inside were low chambers and long passages; and, behind, the patio and garden of orange and fig trees.
Built for a sumptuous dwelling, it became in a moment a fort and, with men on the high hill by the tank, it was practically impregnable to direct assault.
As Hooker stepped out onto the covered porch with his saddle-gun in his hand he became simply one more of a band of excited Americans, all armed and ready to defend the house to the last. Some were pacing back and forth in the corredor, others were hurrying up from the Mexican quarters with a last belated handful of women, but the major portion were out on the open bench, either gazing north and south at the scenes of the distant firing or engaging in a curio-mad scramble for any spent bullet that struck.
The fighting, such as there was, was mostly up the cañon, where a large party of Sonoran miners had rushed in pursuit of the rebels. The firing down the cañon in the direction of Old Fortuna had died away to nothing, and for the moment if seemed as if the futile charge and retreat were the beginning and the end of the battle.
A party of rebels had penetrated clear into the town, but it was apparently more by accident than intention, and they had been quick to beat a retreat. As for the main command of the insurrectos, they were reported at Chular, six miles up the railroad, where they had surrounded and taken a small mining camp and captured a train at the summit.
The column to the south—the one which Hooker had encountered—had taken to the high hills west of the town, and, along the sky-line of the buttelike summits, they could now be seen in scattered bands making their way to the north.
The defenders of Fortuna consisted of a rag-tag garrison of twenty Federals and the hot-headed, charging miners. But apparently that was a combination hard to beat, for, while the Federals entrenched themselves behind the black tank on the hill and prepared to protect the town, the Sonorans in shouting masses drove everything before them and marched on to attack Chular.
But in this they made a mistake, for the rebel scouts, seeing the great body of defenders pressing on up the narrow cañon, rode back and informed the tricky Bernardo Bravo. He would be a poor general indeed who could not see the opening that was offered and, while the valiant Sonorans pursued the rebel cavalry up the pass, Bernardo Bravo sent the half of his thousand men to cut off their retreat from behind.