The brigade marched as victors, but they remembered how they had formerly skulked as hunted guerrillas, and also, how Mendez had scourged the dissident villages. They found bodies hanging to trees. At Morelia a citizen who cried "Viva la Libertad!" had been brained with a sabre. It was the hour for reprisals. And Regules exacted suffering of the _mocho_, or clerical, towns that had sheltered the "traitors." Requisitions for arms, horses, and provisions marked his path. Deserters swelled his ranks. He had enough left-overs from the evacuation to organize what in irony he called his Foreign Legion. At Acambaro a second Republican army, under General Corona--"welcomer than a stack of blues," as Boone said--more than doubled their force, and together they hastened on to Queretero. But at Celaya, when men were thinking of rest in the cool monasteries there, they learned that they must not pause. The word came from El Chaparrito, who ever watched the Empire as a hawk poised in mid-air. General Escobedo of the Army of the North had pursued Miramon south into Queretero, but only to find him reinforced there by Mendez and the troops from the capital. This superior array meant to attack Escobedo, then turn and destroy Corona and Regules. The Republicans, therefore, must be united at once. The message was no sooner heard than the two weary brigades of Corona and Regules set forth again. They covered the remaining thirty miles that night, expecting a victorious Imperialist army at each bend in the road. But they met instead, toward morning, a lone Imperialist horseman galloping toward them. Regules's sharp eyes caught the glint of the stranger's white gold-bordered sombrero, and with a large Castilian oath he plucked out his revolver. Driscoll touched his arm soothingly. "But, Maria purisima," cried Regules, "he's an Explorador!" The Exploradores were Mendez's scouts, his bloodhounds for a Republican trail, and the most hated of all that breed. "Aye, Senor General," the stranger now spoke, "I was even the capitan of Exploradores, who kisses Your Mercy's hand." There was a familiar quality in the man's half chuckle, and Driscoll hastily struck a match. In its light a face grew before him, and a pair of malevolent eyes, one of them crossed and beaming recognition, met his. "Well, Tibby?" said Driscoll quietly. "First your pistols, then what you know," commanded Regules. "Here, in between us. Talk as we ride, or----" Don Tiburcio complied. Such had been his intention. "I am no more a loyal Imperialist," he announced, with a gruesome contortion of the mouth. "Nor a live deserter for long," said Regules. "Quick, what's the news at Queretero?" "Carrai, my news and more will jolt out if I open my mouth. Eh, mi coronel," he added to Driscoll, "you've taught this barbarous gait to the Republic too, I see?" "Better obey orders," Driscoll warned him gently. "But there's no need of hurry, senores. Not now, there isn't."