After this we made no doubt that we should soon have a visit from the worthy Dons.  Nevertheless the evening and the night passed away without incident.  Day broke—­still no signs of the Mexicans.  This treacherous sort of calm, we thought, might forbode a storm, and we did not allow it to lull us into security.  We let the men get their breakfast, which they had hardly finished when the picket from the upper ford came in with news that a strong body of cavalry was approaching the river, and that their vanguard was already in the hollow way leading to the ford.  We had scarcely received this intelligence when we heard the blare of the trumpets, and the next moment we saw the officers push their horses up the declivitous bank, closely followed by their men, whom they formed up in the prairie.  We counted six small squadrons, about three hundred men in all.  They were the Durango dragoons—­smart troops enough to all appearance, capitally mounted and equipped, and armed with carbines and sabres.

Although the enemy had doubtless reconnoitred us from the opposite shore, and ascertained our position, he could not form any accurate idea of our numbers, for with a view to deceive him, we kept the men in constant motion, sometimes showing a part of them on the prairie, then causing them to disappear again behind the vines and bushes.  This was all very knowing for young soldiers such as we were; but, on the other hand, we had committed a grievous error, and sinned against all established military rules, by not placing a picket on the further side of the river, to warn us of the approach of the enemy, and the direction in which he was coming.  There can be little doubt that if we had earlier notice of their approach, thirty or forty good marksmen—­and all our people were that—­might not only have delayed the advance of the Mexicans, but perhaps even totally disgusted them of their attempt to cross the Salado.  The hollow way on the other side of the river, leading to the ford, was narrow and tolerably steep, and the bank was at least six times as high as on our side.  Nothing would have been easier than to have stationed a party, so as to pick off the cavalry as they wound through this kind of pass, and emerged two by two upon the shore.  Our error, however, did not strike us till it was too late to repair it; so we were fain to console ourselves with the reflection that the Mexicans would be much more likely to attribute our negligence to an excess of confidence in our resources, than to the inexperience in military matters, which was its real cause.  We resolved to do our best to merit the good opinion which we thus supposed them to entertain of us.

When the whole of the dragoons had crossed the water, they marched on for a short distance in an easterly direction:  then, wheeling to the right, proceeded southward, until within some five hundred paces of us, where they halted.  In this position, the line of cavalry formed the chord of the arc described by the river, and occupied by us.