“Here he comes! Old Fuss and Feathers himself! ’Tis like a smell o’ powder—the sight of him. Are ye all primed, boys? We’re in for a fight.”
General Scott and staff galloped up. General Worth received him at division headquarters in a ranch house near the rear; they all proceeded to examine the country again from the roof of the house. Pretty soon the engineers under Major J. L. Smith and Captain James Mason (said to be almost the equal of Captain Lee in cleverness) set out to reconnoitre over the lava bed on the left; Captain Seth B. Thornton’s company of the Second Dragoons detachment filed along the edge of the lava to support them.
Both parties disappeared. The camp waited; had dinner beside their stacked arms, the remaining detachment of dragoons loafing likewise. Some of the men slept in the warm sun. Jerry was dozing off like an old campaigner, his shoulders bolstered against his drum, when a “Boom! Boom” awakened him with a start. The men around him were listening and gazing, their faces a little paled. The officers had stiffened, alert.
A cavalry horse galloped down the road, its saddle empty, its stirrups flapping.
“Cap’n Thornton’s horse! It’s Cap’n Thornton’s horse!”
As the horse swerved for the dragoons, all might see that the saddle was bloody. When the Thornton troopers rode in, they brought Captain Thornton’s body, cut almost in two by a cannon ball. They had reconnoitred too close to a masked battery.
The Mexican batteries were sending an occasional shot in the direction of the division, bidding “Stand off!” The engineers toiled back. They evidently had found no route either by the left or the right of the road, for toward evening the First Brigade was moved a short distance aside and everybody knew that the attack had been postponed. The Fourth Regiment secured quarters in a large stone barn—and just in time. A cold rain began to fall.
The Mexican batteries kept firing at the barn with a twenty-four-pounder; once in a while a round shot landed upon the mud roof or shook the solid walls, but the rain and the gathering dusk made poor practice for them, and after a time the men grew used to the bombardment.
Finally the shots ceased. Up the road the San Antonio soldiers were having a celebration. There was much singing and howling and squawking of bands, together with the firing of muskets.
“Now I wonder what’s the reason of all that?” Henry Brewer of Jerry’s mess remarked. “Is it because they killed one man, or do they think they’ve beaten us off? Seems to me it takes mighty little to make those fellows happy.”