Page:Vol 4 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/411

Rh Doctor Cos at Dolores engaged himself in organizing and bringing together the armed parties of that region. With him was Rafael Rayon, one of the president's brothers, and Matías Ortiz, who from this time began with his brothers to acquire distinction, and were generally known as Los Pachones. With the force he had organized, Cos marched on the 27th of November against Guanajuato; but his movement was attended with no result, and he had to return to Dolores. He did not remain there permanently, however, as that town was on the line of transit for produce and other merchandise to and from the inland provinces; and when trains approached he usually abandoned the place for the purpose of attacking them. It often happened that reinforcements had to be sent from Querétaro to save the trains from capture.

On the opposite side of the sierra of Guanajuato, separating on the north the Bajío from the plains of Dolores and the province of San Luis Potosí, the operation of escorting live-stock from the latter place to Querétaro, and transporting merchandise from Mexico, furnished opportunities for repeated hostile encounters. One of the hottest of these took place on the 3d of February, at the Santuario de Atotonilco near San Miguel el Grande, on which occasion Ildefonso de la Torre, the royalist commander, who had advanced to that place to receive 500 silver bars from Zacatecas, saw a refulgent palm in the sky. Another train was convoyed by the royalist priest