Page:Into Mexico with General Scott (1920).djvu/216

 When bivouac was made this evening in a cornfield eight miles from Chalco the division was in fine spirits. Old Fuss and Feathers and General Worth were up to something, nobody knew exactly what; but all, including Santa Anna, would soon find out.

The next day's march rounded the lake and turned into the west among olive groves. Emerging from these the leading ranks broke into a cheer. In the north, far beyond the lake, there might be seen El Peñon hill, a dark, bulky mass, with the Mexican flag still flying defiantly from its top. Across the head of another lake, in the northwest, Mexicalcingo village was just visible with the Mexican flags marking its batteries also. The division was side-stepping these forts out of range.

"Faith, they don't see us at all, at all. They're settin' over their traps, an' prisently we'll be lookin' at their backs!"

The road was getting bad. It wound along the base of a bare mountain range that extended ridges right into the new lake, Xochimilco. The horses of Duncan's battery had to be helped by hand; the baggage train in the rear struggled with the steep ravines cut into the sharp rock between ridges.

At ten o'clock in the morning another village, San Gregorio, was reached. Here an aide came up with dispatches for General Worth; the word spread that an attack had been made upon one of the columns behind. The division was to wait for instructions.

Then, at evening, all Colonel Harney's cavalry brigade, eight hundred dragoons, trotted in. They said that a force of Mexican infantry and lancers