Before sunrise next morning, Fernando Silveyra, fully dressed, came into the room and said calmly to get up, that the _colorados_ were coming. Juan Vallejo laughed: "How many, Fernando?" "About a thousand," he answered in a quiet voice, rummaging for his bandolier. The patio was unusually full of shouting men saddling horses. I saw Don Petronilo, half dressed, at his door, his mistress buckling on his sword. Juan Santillanes was pulling at his trousers with furious haste. There was a steady rattle of clicks as cartridges slipped into rifles. A score of soldiers ran to and fro aimlessly, asking everyone where something was. I don’t think we any of us really believed it. The little square of quiet sky over the patio gave promise of another hot day. Roosters crowed. A cow that was being milked bellowed. I felt hungry. "How near are they?" I asked. "Near." "But the outpost—the guard at the Puerta?" "Asleep," Fernando said, as he strapped on his cartridge-belt. Pablo Arriola clanked in, crippled by his big spurs. "A little bunch of twelve rode up. Our men thought it was only the daily reconnaissance. So after they drove them back, the Puerta guard sat down to breakfast. Then Argumedo himself and hundreds—hundreds——" "But twenty-five could hold that pass against an army until the rest got there...." "They’re already past the Puerta," said Pablo, shouldering his saddle. He went out. "The ————!" swore Juan Santillanes, spinning the chambers of his revolver. "Wait till I get at them!" "Now meester’s going to see some of those shots he wanted," cried Gil Tomas. "How about it, meester? Feel scared?" Somehow the whole business didn’t seem real. I said to myself, "You lucky devil, you’re actually going to see a fight. That will round out the story." I loaded my camera and hurried out in front of the house. There was nothing much to see there. A blinding sun rose right in the Puerta. Over the leagues and leagues of dark desert to the east nothing lived but the morning light. Not a movement. Not a sound. Yet somewhere out there a mere handful of men were desperately trying to hold off an army. Thin smoke floated up in the breathless air from the houses of the peons. It was so still that the grinding of _tortilla_ meal between two stones was distinctly audible—and the slow, minor song of some woman at her work way around the Casa Grande. Sheep were maaing to be let out of the corral. On the road to Santo Domingo, so far away that they were mere colored accents in the desert, the four peddlers sauntered behind their burros. Little knots of peons were gathered in front of the hacienda, pointing and looking east. And around the gate of the big enclosure where the soldiers were quartered a few troopers held their horses by the bridle. That was all.