"My boy, your father won't lose a cent, after all--not unless we find Vera Cruz blockaded. But our danger isn't all over yet, and it's well for us that we've slipped out of this part of it." "Captain Kemp!" exclaimed Ned, "I believe father'd be willing to lose something, rather than have the Mexicans get that ammunition." "Very likely he would," laughed the captain, "but I'm an Englishman, and I don't care. What's more, I'm like a great many Americans. Millions of them believe that the Mexicans are in the right in this matter." That was a thing which nobody could deny, and Ned was silenced so far as the captain's sense of national duty was concerned. Hundreds of miles to the westward, at that early hour of the evening, far beyond the path of the storm which had been sweeping the eastern and southern waters of the gulf, the American army, under General Taylor, lay bivouacked. It was several miles nearer the besieged fort than it had been in the morning, for this was the 8th of May. There had been sharp fighting at intervals since the middle of the forenoon, beginning at a place called Palo Alto, or "The Tall Trees," and the Mexicans had been driven back with loss. Any cannonading at the fort could be heard more plainly now, and it was certain that it had not yet surrendered. Near the centre of the lines occupied by the Seventh Regiment, a young officer sat upon the grass. He held in one hand a piece of army bread, from which he now and then took a bite, but he was evidently absorbed in thought. He took off his hat at last and stared out into the gloom. "The Mexican army is out there somewhere," he remarked, slowly. "We are likely to have another brush with them to-morrow. Well! this is real war. I've seen my first battle, and I know just how a fellow feels under fire. I wasn't at all sure how it would be, but I know now. He doesn't feel first-rate, by any means. Those fellows that say they like it are all humbugs. I've seen my first man killed by a cannon-ball. Poor Page! Poor Ringgold! More of us are to go down to-morrow. Who will it be?" Very possibly, the list of American slain would contain the announcement that a mere second lieutenant, named Ulysses S. Grant, had been struck by a chance shot from one of the Mexican batteries. CHAPTER III. THE FORTUNE OF WAR