"On a little village half a league tharabouts."
"And their right?"
"On a little cluster of shanties that Old Silvano says is called Rancho Nuevo—nigh enough to be seen in the crack o' day from hyar."
"Can the signal rockets of the hacienda be seen from the two points you mention, and the road occupied by the mass of the rebels?"
"For why not? They are three high p'ints over the sink they are in."
"This looks promising enough."
"What! Do you think to cut up three or four thousand niggers?"
"My dear Oliver, I am sure that you have your idea in your head fully matured, and that we have nothing to do but put it into execution."
"I don't know rightly about that. In any event, I am going to execute what the army men call a divarsion. If the innymy accept it as divarting, I'm satisfied. I should give it another name, myself, but thar! Thar's no 'counting for tastes. Besides the bulk of the Yaquis, thar is a long straggling train, with the plunder, the fat, cowardly, and cunning, who are drinking and singing, and dancing like all possessed. They are coming almost dead to'rds us, and we hev no more 'n time to receive them properly. If we turn them back, scattered, they wilt not be in condition to reinforce the army. That's the first article on the bill o' fare."
He beckoned the tiger hunter to him.