“Santa Fe! La ciudad muy grande (The great city)! Mira (See)!”
Those were the urgent exclamations from the dragoons and militia.
“‘Great city,’ they say?” Hugh uttered, to Stub. “Huh! Faith, it looks like a fleet o’ flatboats, left dry an’ waitin’ for a spring rise!”
It was larger than the other villages or towns, and lay along both flanks of a creek. There were two churches, one with two round-topped steeples; but all the other buildings were low and flat-roofed and ugly, ranged upon three or four narrow crooked streets. At this side of the town there appeared to be the usual square, surrounded by the mud buildings. Yes, the two-steepled church fronted upon it.
As they rode down from the mesa, by the road that they had been following, the town seemed to wake up. They could hear shouting, and might see people running afoot and galloping horseback, making for the square.
A bevy of young men, gaily dressed, raced, ahorse, to meet the column. The whole town evidently knew that the Americans were coming. The square was filled with excited men, women and children, all chattering and staring.
Lieutenant Bartholomew cleared the way through them, and halted in front of a very long, low building, with a porch supported on a row of posts made of small logs, and facing the square, opposite the church. He swung off. The dragoons and militia kept the crowd back.
Lieutenant Pike, in his old clothes, swung off.
“Dismount!” he called. “We are to enter here, lads. Bear yourselves boldly. We are American soldiers, and have nothing to fear.”
He strode on, firm and erect, following the guidance of Lieutenant Bartholomew.