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 citizens smiled and bowed as if to friends. It struck Jerry as a game; he couldn't put much stock in all that palaver. He remembered the two Manuels.

The town was not anything great to look at. It manufactured saddles and fine inlaid spurs, and the best building was the principal church. The church sat inside a fenced yard shaded by immense yew trees covered with crimson-flowering vines—very curious. Two or three officers were gazing about and talking with the priests. The doors were open. Taking off his cap Jerry sidled in; Tom followed.

"Dare you to climb that," Tom challenged.

It was a ladder, seen through the doorway of a closet in one corner, and extending almost straight up into the belfry.

"Never take a dare You watch me," said Jerry.

"I'll hold your drum."

"No, you won't!"

Lugging the drum slung behind him, Jerry was out of breath when he emerged into the dusty belfry, beside the great copper bell. But he was glad that he had come. What a view! He could see the road, in the east, connecting with the plateau that they had crossed from El Pinal; he could see the top of Pizarro Peak at Perote; and he didn't know but that he could see the dust of the Second Brigade and the Quitman Mohawks coming on one day's march late.

He crept around the bell, and could see the brigade camp below. The men, like specks, were washing up and mending clothes and whitening belts in the corral and in the plaza where the artillery companies had been quartered. He could see the specks of