“’Twas only a scratch.  Is Altimira down there with Pico, do you know?  He is a brave fellow!  I respect that man; but we have an account to settle, and I hope it will be done on the battle-field.”

“He is with Pico, and he has done some good fighting.  Most of the Californians have.  They know how to fight and they are perfectly fearless.  Kearney will find it out to-morrow.  He is mad to attack them.  Why, his men are actually cadaverous.  Bueno! as they say here; Stockton sent me to guide him to San Diego.  If he prefers to go through the enemy’s lines, there is nothing for me to do but take him.”

“Yes, but we may surprise them.  I wish to God this imitation war were over!”

“It will be real enough before you get through.  Don’t worry.  Well, good night.  Luck to your skin.”

At daybreak the little army marched down the butte, shivering with cold, wet to the skin.  Those on horseback naturally proceeded more rapidly than those mounted upon the clumsy stubborn mules; and Captain Johnson, who led the advance guard of twelve dragoons, found himself, when he came in sight of the enemy’s camp, some distance ahead of the main body of Kearney’s small army.  To his surprise he saw that the Californians were not only awake, but horsed and apparently awaiting him.  Whether he was fired by valour or desperation at the sight is a disputed point; but he made a sudden dash down the hill and across the river, almost flinging himself upon the lances of the Californians.

Captain Moore, who was ambling down the hill on an old white horse at the head of fifty dragoons mounted on mules, spurred his beast as he witnessed the foolish charge of the advance, and arrived upon the field in time to see Johnson fall dead and to take his place.  Pico, seeing that reenforcements were coming, began to retreat, followed hotly by Moore and the horsed dragoons.  Suddenly, however, Fernando Altimira raised himself in his stirrups, looked back, laughed and galloped across the field to General Pico.

“Look!” he said.  “Only a few men on horses are after us.  The mules are stumbling half a mile behind.”

Pico wheeled about, gave the word of command, and bore down upon the Americans.  Then followed a hand-to-hand conflict, the Californians lancing and using their pistols with great dexterity, the Americans doing the best they could with their rusty sabres and clubbed guns.

They were soon reenforced by Moore’s dragoons and Gillespie’s battalion, despite the unwilling mules; but the brutes kicked and bucked at every pistol shot and fresh cloud of smoke.  The poor old horses wheezed and panted, but stood their ground when not flung out of position by the frantic mules.  The officers and soldiers of the United States army were a sorry sight, and in pointed contrast to the graceful Californians on their groomed steeds, handsomely trapped, curvetting and rearing and prancing as lightly as if on the floor of a circus.  Kearney cursed his