Page:Vol 4 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/689

Rh Linan advanced through Querétaro into Guanajuato, incorporating all the troops possible, and encouraging them by placing a price on the heads of Mina and his followers. This leader had just met with a repulse—his first—in an attack on Leon, and had retired into Fort Sombrero with 650 men, to whom were added some 300 women, children, and laborers. Shortly after, on July 30th, Liñan appeared before it at the head of about 4,000 men, and a train of artillery, with which he at once invested Ihe place, maintaining a constant and wasteful fire upon it—wasteful because the natural features of the fort afforded protection. It stood on a cudgel-headed