"Yes, sir. It is just over the rise lying a little to the left of the road." "Take twenty men with you and go forward, and see what you can make out." The young officer touched his Highland bonnet, and then with twenty men, who carried their arms at the trail, marched swiftly away up the slope and disappeared. In about half-an-hour he returned alone. "I have left my men hidden under the fence of a small quinta," he said. "The enemy are encamped just beyond in the open, to the left of the Quinta de Perdriel." "Do they cover much ground?" "They seem to have a great many horses picketed all about, they stretch as far as I could see, but they have not many bivouac fires, and those are close up to the quinta." "Is the ground all open between here and there?" "This small quinta where I have left the men is all that is in the way, and it will hide our approach. On both sides of it the ground is quite open." "Have they no outposts or videttes?" "None that I could see." "Then the sooner we are on to them the better. Lead on straight for this small quinta you tell me of." In low, gruff tones the word "march" passed from front to rear, and again the small column was in motion, winding along like a grey serpent up the slope, over the crisp, frozen grass, where each footprint left a black mark on the glistening surface, bringing on with it in the rear of the column the two guns, like a serpent which carries a double sting in its tail. The stars had faded away out of the heavens, the eastern sky was tinged with ruddy gold, birds hopped about in the short grass, or flew hither and thither chirping a welcome to the new-born day, for the birds do not sing in Buenos Aires, as this column of armed men, strong in their discipline, blindly obedient to the command of an experienced leader, marched swiftly and stealthily towards their prey. And what was their prey? A body of men nearly twice their own number, as strong of arm and as stout in heart as they, but men who knew no discipline, and were strangers to the use of arms; men who knew just as much of war as did their leaders, that is to say, just nothing at all, and thus had no confidence or trust in them, but would perchance follow where they led, if they saw no faltering in them, and had no personal antipathy to them.