"Don’t be downhearted, Hans, old boy," said Breakstone with genuine feeling. "I know you have things on your mind--though I don’t ask you what they are--that keep you from being cheerful, but don’t forget that we’ve the habit of victory. Our boys are Bonaparte’s soldiers in the campaign of Italy, they don’t mean to be beaten, and they don’t get beaten. And you can put that in your pipe, too, and smoke it, Sir Philip of the Horse Battle and the Night Retreat. Look, we’re approaching the Pass. See the lights come out one by one. Don’t the lights of a friend look good?" Phil agreed with him. It was a satisfying thing to come safely out of a battle in which they had done what they had wanted to do, and return to their own army. It was now nearly morning, but the troops still marched, while the last wagons rumbled on ahead. Scouts came forward to hail them and to greet them warmly when they found that they were friends. There was exultation, too, when they heard the news of the fine fight that the little division had given to Santa Anna. Lieutenant Washington, who was in charge of the division that commanded the road, met Middleton and Marshall a hundred yards from the mouths of his guns, and Phil heard them talking. General Taylor had not yet returned from Saltillo, where he had gone to strengthen and fortify the division at that place, as he greatly feared a flank movement of Santa Anna around the mountain to seize the town and cut him off. Wool, meanwhile, was in command, and he listened to the reports of Marshall and Middleton, commending them highly for the splendid resistance that they had offered to overwhelming numbers. Phil gathered from their tone, although it was only confirmation of a fact that he knew already, that their little force was in desperate case, indeed. Never before had the omens seemed so dark for an American army. For in a desolate and gloomy country, with every inhabitant an enemy and spy upon them, with an army outnumbering them five to one approaching, brave men might well despair. It struck Phil with sudden force that the odds could be too great after all, and that he might never finish his quest. In another hour or two he might see his last sunrise. He shook himself fiercely, told himself that he was foolish and weak, and then rode toward the pass. They tethered their horses on the edge of the plateau, and at the advice of Middleton all sought sleep.