At the very first detonations four Americans in the hotel facing the plaza sprang from their beds.
Dick Travers and Cranny Beaumont occupied a room together. As a faint, rosy light from the eastern sky dimly illumined the interior, they stared at one another, their eyes brightening with excitement.
“Great Scott!” cried Dick, breaking a strained silence, “so it’s come at last, eh! We’d better tumble into our togs, and get out of this!”
“Listen!” exclaimed Cranny breathlessly.
The report of a shell, bursting not far away, had drowned, for an instant, the steady rattling and booming of guns which came from the distance.
“There’s going to be a hot time, all right!” almost shouted Dick, with a leap reaching the window.
The big plaza, quiet but a few moments before, began echoing to the tread of hurried feet. The sound of loud and excited voices, and the sharp clatter of horses’ hoofs as a mounted rurale galloped across jarred noisily on the air.
Cranny sprang to his companion’s side. A soft glow from the early morning sun suffused the scene, lighting up the bell tower of the ancient adobe church with poetic effect.
Somewhere a bugle was blown; from another point came an answer, in the same musical notes.
As another loud explosion was heard and a cloud of white smoke rose above the roofs of a group of buildings to the north the boys concluded to lose no more time.