Page:Into Mexico with General Scott (1920).djvu/285

 Lieutenant Grant closed his glass.

"The battle is over," he rapped. "Now we can take Chapultepec. If General Scott has the rest of the army in readiness we can take the city itself before night." Then, as he glanced quickly about: "Aha! A counter-attack!"

Another body of the enemy had appeared—five or six thousand infantry, marching in along the north side of Chapultepec. And the lancers were threatening the Sumner column in the northwest.

"We're getting reinforcements, too, lieutenant!"

Down from Tacubaya village a fresh American column was hurrying, the Stars and Stripes dancing at the fore. Now Duncan's battery section, Drum's section, the Huger twenty-four-pounders, and the guns of the captured Casa-Mata were all thundering at the retreating Mexicans. Bugles were blowing, drums rolling.

"We'd better find our stations, boy," said the lieutenant. They two piled down by way of the cart shafts.

Jerry was scarcely in time to help beat the recall for gathering the men. The reinforcements arrived. They were the General Pierce brigade—Ninth, Twelfth and Fifteenth Infantry—of the Pillow Third Division. Advancing at the double, amidst cheers, they deployed beyond the mill, challenging the enemy to come on. The new Mexican column hesitated, and well it did so, for here was still another brigade, sent by General Scott; the Riley Fourth Artillery, Second and Seventh Infantry, of the Twiggs Second Division, who from the south had