“Don’t run to him,” commanded Dave Darrin.  “We’ll reach him soon enough.”

Close at hand it was seen that the man was in the uniform of a Mexican officer.  His insignia proved him to be a major.

“Dead,” said Riley.  “Two pills reached him, and either would have killed.”

Dave nodded his head in assent, adding: 

“Leave him.  Our work is to keep the point moving.”

When they had gone a quarter of a mile further, a sound of firing attracted the attention of the American detachment.

“Lieutenant Trent’s compliments, sir,” panted a breathless messenger, saluting, “and you will turn down the next corner, Ensign, and march toward the firing.”

After a few minutes Dave sighted a large building ahead.  He did not know the building, then, but learned afterwards that it was the Hotel Diligencia.

Almost as soon as Darrin perceived the building, snipers on its roof espied the Navy men.

Cr-r-rack!  The brisk fire that rang out from the roof of the hotel was almost as regular as a volley of shots would have been.

Darrin ordered his men to keep close to the buildings on either side of the street, and to return the fire as rapidly as good shooting permitted.

“Drive ’em from that roof,” was Darrin’s order.

Lieutenant Trent arrived on the double-quick with the rest of the detachment.

“Give it to ’em, hot and heavy!” ordered Trent, and instantly sixty rifles were in action.

Suddenly a window, a some distance down the street from the Americans opened, and a man thrust a rifle out, taking aim.  That rifle never barked, for Dave, with a single shot from his revolver, sent the would-be marksman reeling back.

“Watch that window, Riley, and fire if a head appears there,” Dave directed.  “There may be others in that room.”

Cat-like in his watchfulness, Riley kept the muzzle of his weapon trained on that window.

“Look out overhead!” called Danny Grin, suddenly.

From the roofs of three houses overlooking the naval detachment fire opened instantly after the warning.  Two of the “Long Island’s” men dropped, one of them badly wounded.

Then the sailormen returned the fire.  Two Mexicans dropped to the street, one shot through the head; the other wounded in the chest.  Other Mexicans had been seen to stagger, and were probably hit.  Thereafter a dozen seamen constantly watched the roofs close at hand, occasionally “getting” a Mexican.

“I know what I would do, if I had authority,” Darrin muttered to his superior.  “I’d send back for dynamite, and, whenever we were fired on from a house I’d bring it down in ruins.”

It was a terrible suggestion, but being fired upon from overhead in a city makes fighting men savage.

Evidently the Mexicans on the hotel roof had been reinforced, for now the fire in that direction broke out heavier than ever.