Page:Into Mexico with General Scott (1920).djvu/72

 booming, and the crashing, and the yelling and running, assuredly Vera Cruz was no place in which to stay. Jerry resolved to get out before he, an American boy, was killed by shots from his own country.

This afternoon another norther set in, as if to help Vera Cruz. It silenced the mortars, and drove the American gunners to cover. Nobody could see to shoot in such a dust storm. The people were happy over it. They knew that the northers and the yellow fever would come to their rescue. The Americans were crazy, their guns useless, their trenches would be filled faster than they could be dug. But to Jerry the norther looked like a lucky stroke for one American, at least. To slip over the walls and sneak across the flat strip and enter the American camp would be as easy as—well, as cutting a watermelon.