"Draw an extra breath or two, Phil," said Bill Breakstone, "because you won’t have another chance for some time. We’ve driven back the flank, but the main army of the Mexicans will be on us in a few minutes." Phil did as he was bid. He was glad to see those Mexicans gone from their front, and, for the moment at least, he felt the thrill of victory. Yet, while there was rest for him, at that instant the battle was going on all about him. He seemed to hear somewhere the distant notes of a band playing, cheering the soldiers on to death. Now and then came the call of a bugle, shrill and piercing, and the rifles crashed incessantly. The air quivered with the roar of the cannon, and the echoes came rolling back from the gorges. Now that he was really in the great battle, Phil felt an abnormal calmness. His heart ceased to beat so fast, and his blood cooled a little. He saw that the main army of the Mexicans was advancing in three columns. Two of these columns, one under Lombardini, and the other under Pacheco, came straight toward the little plateau by the side of the pass, upon which most of the American army now stood. The front of each column was a mass of lancers, and rumbling batteries of twelve-pounders came behind. The third column advanced toward the pass. It was now about nine o’clock in the morning. General Taylor had not yet arrived from Saltillo, but General Wool, his second, had thrown the whole American force in a line across the plateau and the pass, where, less than forty-five hundred in number, it awaited the full impact of twenty thousand Mexican troops. The moment was more than critical. It was terrible. It required stout hearts among the young volunteers, not trained regulars at all, as they watched the Mexican masses heave forward. Lucky it was for them that they had been born in new countries, where every boy, as a matter of course, learned the use of the rifle. And it was lucky, too, that the battery of O’Brien, a most daring and skillful officer, was on their flank to help them. "Have you drawn those easy breaths yet, Phil?" asked Breakstone. "Yes." "Good, because the chance is gone now. Hark, there go our cannon! Look, how the balls are smashing into them!" The American battery opened at a range of only two hundred yards, and the balls and shells tore through the Mexican lines, but the Mexicans are no cowards, and they were well led that day. Their ranks closed up, and they marched past the fallen, their flags still flying, coming with steady step toward the plateau. Now their own artillery opened, and their numerous guns swept the plateau with a perfect hurricane of shot and shell. The volunteers began to fall fast. The Mexican gunners were doing deadly work, and the Kentuckians where Phil stood raised their rifles again. "Fire, Phil! Fire as fast as you can reload and pull trigger. It’s now or never!"