“‘Wal,’ said ole Bill, ‘me an’ this feller here’—pintin’ to me—’war in Monterey yesterday, an’ heered an order read to Cap’n Morgan to march out o’ the city at midnight, an’ jine Cap’n Davis at Alamo. Now, if you want to ketch him, all you have got to do is to take fifty men, an’ wait for him in the mountains. He has got jest twenty-eight men in his company.’
“‘I’ll do it,’ said the Greaser. ‘But I’ll take a hundred men, to make sure of him. Which road is he going to take?’
“‘That’s what we can’t tell exactly,’ said ole Bill. ‘But me an’ this feller thought that we would come an’ tell you, so that you could have every thing ready, an’ then go back and find out all their plans.’
“‘Very well,’ said the Greaser; an’, arter writin’ somethin’ on a piece o’ paper, he handed it to ole Bill, sayin’: ‘Here’s a pass for you an’ your friend to go in an’ out o’ the lines whenever you please. Now, you go back to Monterey, an’ find out all Cap’n Morgan’s plans, an’ I’ll go out with a hundred men an’ ketch him.’
“This war exactly what me an’ Bill wanted. We were afeered at first that he would send some one else instead o’ goin’ himself; but now we knowed that we war all right; the gen’ral war ourn, an’ no mistake.
“As soon as we got out o’ sight o’ the camp, we made good time, an’ afore midnight we war in the kurnel’s head-quarters. As soon as he heered our story, he sent for one o’ his officers, an’ told him to march ’arly the next evenin’ with eighty men, an’ draw up an ambush, in a deep gorge, through which ran the road that led to Alamo. An’ he ordered Cap’n Morgan, who had reached Monterey the day afore, to be ready to march through that gorge at midnight.
“Arter me an’ Bill had rested a little while, we set out on fresh hosses, an’, in a few hours, were back in the Mexikin camp agin. That arternoon we rid out, side by side, with Gen’ral Cortinas, an’ about ten o’clock in the evenin’ we reached the gorge. Every thing war as silent as death; but I knowed that eighty Western rifles war stowed away among the trees, on each side o’ the road, an’ behind ’em war sturdy hunters an’ trappers, achin’ to send a bullet in among us.
“Arter the gen’ral had fixed his men to suit him, we drawed back into the bushes, an’ waited for Cap’n Morgan to come up. Jest a little afore midnight we heered a faint tramp, an’ in a few minits the rangers swept down into the gorge. For a minit nothin’ war heered but the noise o’ their hosses’ hoofs on the road. It war a fine sight to see them brave men ridin’ right down into that ambush, knowin’, as they did, that death war on each side o’ them. Nigher an’ nigher they come; an’ the gen’ral war about to give the order to fire, when, all to onct, a yell like an Injun’s burst from among the trees, an’ the reports of eighty rifles echoed through the mountains. You never seed a more astonished Greaser nor that Gen’ral Cortinas war about that time.
“‘Carrajo,’ he yelled, ‘you have betrayed me.’