That ended the German's comment, and, taking his pipe, he smoked and listened. But his face, lighted up by the flames, was sad. It was habitually sad, although Phil believed that the man was by nature cheery and optimistic. But Arenberg still kept his secret.
They learned, also, that there had been an armistice between the Americans and the Mexicans, but that Santa Anna had used all the time for preparations. Then the negotiations were broken off, and the war was to pass into a newer and fiercer phase. Taylor was at Saltillo, about two hundred miles beyond the line, but Scott, who had been on the Rio Grande some time earlier, had taken most of his good officers and troops for the invasion by way of Vera Cruz, and Taylor, with his small remaining force, was expected to stand on the defensive, even to retreat to the Rio Grande. Instead of that, he had advanced boldly into the mountains. Politics, it was said, had intervened, and Taylor was to be shelved. Middleton, usually reserved, commented on this to Phil, Breakstone, and Arenberg, who, he knew, would not repeat his words.
"I've no doubt that this news is true," he said, "and it must be a bitter blow to old Rough and Ready--that's what we call Taylor in the army. He's served all his life with zeal and efficiency, and now he's to be put aside, after beginning a successful and glorious campaign. It's a great wrong that they're doing to Zachary Taylor."
"But we're going to join him anyhow, are we not?" asked Phil.
"Yes, that's our objective. I should have to do so, because my original instructions were to report to him, and they have not been changed. And, with Santa Anna leading the Mexicans, what our Government expects to happen at one place may happen at another."
The train itself was now in splendid condition. All the wounded men had fully recovered. The sick horses and mules were well again. The weather had been good, game was plentiful, their diet was varied and excellent, and there was no illness. Moreover, their zeal increased as they drew near the seat of war, and the reports, some true, some false, and all lurid, came thick and fast. It was hard to keep some of them from leaving the train and going on ahead, but Middleton and Woodfall, by strenuous efforts, held them in hand.
They shifted back now toward the east, and came at last to the Rio Grande. Phil was riding ahead of the train, when he caught the first view of it--low banks, an immense channel, mostly of sand, with water, looking yellow and dangerous, flowing here and there in two or three streams. The banks were fringed but sparsely with trees, and beyond lay Mexico, the Mexico of Cortez and the Aztecs, the Mexico of gold and romance, and the Mexico of the lost one whom he had come so far to find.
It was one of the most momentous events in Philip Bedford's life, this view of Mexico, to which he had come over such a long trail. It was not beautiful, there across the Rio Grande; it was bare, dark, and dusty, with rolling hills and the suggestion of mountains far off to the right. The scant foliage was deep in autumn brown. Human life there was none. Nothing stirred in the vast expanse of desolation. The train was so far behind him that he did not hear the rumbling of the wagon wheels, and he sat there, horse and rider alike motionless, gazing into the misty depths of this Mexico which held so much of mystery and which attracted and repelled at the same time. Question after question throbbed through his mind. Would the Americans succeed in penetrating the mountains that lay beyond? And if so, in what direction was he to go? Which way should he look! It seemed so vast, so inscrutable, that he was appalled. For the first time since he had left that little Paris in Kentucky he felt despair. Such a search as his was hopeless, doomed in the beginning. His face turned gray, his chin sank upon his chest, but then Bill Breakstone rode up beside him, and his loud, cheery voice sounded in his ear.
"Well, here we are at last, Phil," he exclaimed. "We've ridden all the way across Texas, and it must have been a hundred thousand miles. Now we stand, or rather sit, on the shores of the Rio Grande.
"Behold the river!
But I don't quiver.
They call it grand.
It's mostly sand.