Then gallant Din Driscoll appeared among them, the dry-humored, reckless Jack Driscoll of other days, attired now in the brave, dashing regimentals of the Republic[!] From out the wilds of distant Michoacan he came with the long gallop that never would tire, and pausing at cabin after cabin in the Colony's broad acres, summoned his old comrades to arms ... to arms against the invader.... Who, now, will argue bucolic content? Those lusty young planters smelled the battle from afar. What now were waving tassels to the glory of deeds?--_a cuspide corona_--to a wreath of powder-burned laurel? That very day the Iron Brigade rallied again, gathered once again at the oft remembered bugle's full, resonant blare. Fighting came sooner than the Missourians hoped. Even as they started for Michoacan, a ragged Indito, whose village had been razed by the Cossacks, met the command and asked for the Senor Coronel Gringo. Driscoll heard what he had to tell, and was greatly concerned, though the others laughed at first and scoffed. For it seemed that the Indito did not know who sent him, except that it was a senor chaparrito, a short little senor. "Then you must be a Shorter Yet?" said Driscoll. "Well, what do you bring?" The Indito produced from his ragged shirt a bit of parchment, whereon Colonel Driscoll was urged to join with his new recruits in an attack on Maximilian's escort, for Maximilian was on his way to Vera Cruz. The parchment was signed, "El Chaparrito." "Shorty! That word means 'Shorty'," the troopers guffawed. But Driscoll showed them another handwriting at the bottom. The parchment had been countersigned in blank, thus: "Benito Juarez, Libertad y Reforma." The Missourians were respectful after that. Many thought that the mysterious guardian angel of the Republic's battles must be the Presidente himself, though the Presidente was thousands of miles away. * * * * * After the victory won against Dupin's Contra Guerrillas [so the chronicle goes on], the Missourians found their ally to be none other than that picturesque buccaneer of the Sierras, Don Rodrigo, wild as a prairie wolf, handsome as Lucifer; and their captives to be not the Emperor and suite but two beautiful women....