The Quest of the Four: A Story of the Comanches and Buena Vista

by Joseph A. Altsheler

"It iss well to be patient," said Arenberg.

The sun went on down the heavens. The light came more obliquely, but it was as brilliant as ever. In two more hours the sun would be gone behind the mountains, when Phil, still watching the Mexican army, saw a flash of fire near the center of the line. A shell rose, flashed through the air, and burst on the plateau held by the Americans. Phil, despite himself, uttered a shout, and so did many other youthful soldiers. They thought the battle would now begin. A battery of Mexican howitzers also opened fire, and the smoke rolled toward the north. The Mexican general, Mejia, on the American right, began to press in, and Ampudia, on the left, threatened with great force. But there was not yet any reply from the American line. Old Rough and Ready rode along the whole battle front, saw that all was in order, and at times surveyed the Mexican advance through powerful glasses.

But the Mexican movements were still very slow, and Phil fairly quivered with impatience. If they were going to fight, he was anxious for the fighting to begin, and to have it over. Up from the plain came the calls of many bugles, the distant playing of bands, and the beat of drums, broken now and then by the irregular discharges of the cannon and the crackling of rifle shots.

But it was not yet a battle, and the sun was very low, threatening to disappear soon behind the mountains. Its parting rays lighted up the plateau, the ravines and promontories, and the pass with a vivid red light. Phil saw the general turn his horse away from the edge of the plateau, as if convinced that there would be no battle, and then suddenly turn him back again, as a great burst of cannon and rifle fire came from the left. Ampudia, having attained a spur of the mountain, was making a fierce attack, pushing forward both horse and foot and trying to get around the American flank. The firing for a little while was rapid. The rifle flashes ran in a continuous blaze along both lines, and the boom of the cannon came back in hollow echoes from the gorges of the Sierra Madre. The black smoke floated in coils and eddies along the ridges and peaks.

Phil and his comrades had nothing to do with this combat except to sit still and listen.

"They are merely feeling for a position," said Bill Breakstone. "They want a good place from which they can crash down on our left flank in the morning, but I don't think they'll get it."

Already the sun was gone in the east, and its rays were dying on the mountains. Then the night itself came down, with the rush of the south, and the firing from both cannon and rifles ceased. Ampudia had failed to secure the coveted position, but presently the two armies, face to face in the darkness, lay down to rest, save for the thick lines of pickets almost within rifle shot of one another. Once more the night was heavy with chill, but Phil did not feel it now. He and his comrades looked to their horses and secured places for rest. The General, still deeply anxious about his rear guard at Saltillo and fearing a flanking movement by Santa Anna, around the mountain, rode back once more to the town, under the escort of Jefferson Davis, leaving the army, as before, under command of Wool. In this emergency an officer past three score showed all the physical energy and endurance of a young man, spending two days and two nights in the saddle.

Phil slept several hours, but he awoke after midnight, and did not go to sleep again. He, Arenberg, and Breakstone were under the immediate command of Middleton, who allowed them much latitude, and they used it for purposes of scouting. They crept through gullies and ravines and along the edges of the ridges, the darkness and the stone projections giving them shelter. They passed beyond the outermost American pickets, and then stopped, crouching among some bushes. All three had heard at the same time low voices of command, the clank of heavy wheels, and the rasping of hoofs over stones. The three also divined the cause, but Breakstone alone spoke of it in a whisper:

"They are dragging artillery up the side of the mountain in order that they may rake us to-morrow. That Santa Anna calls himself the Napoleon of Mexico, and he's got some of the quality of the real Napoleon."

By raising up a little they could see the men and horses with the guns, and they crept back to their own camp with the news. The American force was too small to attempt any checking movement in the darkness, and that night Santa Anna dragged five whole batteries up the mountainside.