Now it was apparent that the Yankees were going to assist the Federal troops. What would be the outcome? Would they attempt to attack the rebels at Barrancas and Coyotepe? If they did they could never take those positions. No troops had ever yet wrested those strongholds from the soldiers defending them. It had never been done in the history of the republic and its many wars. Secretly General Rivas despatched bodies of mounted men to augment the rebels in the vicinity of the threatened points. When the artillery train stopped for watering the engine at La Paz, hundreds of Federal troops met it with a band at their head and cheering vociferously: "Viva los Americanos! Viva los Federales!" they shouted till their throats were hoarse. "Let’s get off and buy some fruit, Sergeant," said Dick, who was riding on the engine with his companion. "You go along, Dick, but hurry back, as I heard the engineer say we’ll be pullin’ out o’ here in a jiffy." Climbing down from his seat, Dick elbowed his way through the crowd till he came to a fruit stand at the far side of the station platform. After selecting some oranges and mangoes he was hurrying back when the broad shoulders, red neck and blond, bristly hair of a foreigner standing at the edge of the crowd drew his attention. Beside him was a tall man whose tanned face could not hide the fact that he too was a stranger from another land. Under the brim of the taller man’s hat was a white spot of hair over and behind one ear, and the left hand, as he raised it, showed half the middle finger missing. "The German and the Englishman!" Dick almost said the words aloud in his excitement over the discovery. Both men were watching the crowd in front of them with great interest, and conversing in rather loud tones in order to make themselves heard above the din made by the enthusiastic soldiers cheering the train. Unobserved, Dick stopped directly behind them. "Just our blooming bad luck to have them go through during daylight, after we have been waiting for this very move for several days," said the Englishman in a drawling voice. "I never expected they would make the move by day, or I should have made better arrangements. If it were dark, as we expected it would be, we could pull off the same kind of game we worked in Masaya when Butler’s Battalion went through there. I had to do that trick against General Zeladon’s wishes. If he had consented to let me work it as I wished that train-load of marines never would have lived to get through as they did. I had to make it appear an unpremeditated affair, and as a result not half the people joined in the fight. A single defeat of these Yankees to the credit of the rebels, and the whole country would have joined us, Mena would have been president without a doubt, and our plans would be well under way towards consummation."