On the 26th of January Walker received news of the advance of the Allies toward Obraje, a small village on the south side of the Gil Gonzales, and about three leagues distant from Rivas. The same afternoon O’Neal with his Rifles, about 160 strong, and with a twelve-pound howitzer and a small four-pound brass piece, went to meet the enemy, reported as numbering 800 or 1,000 men. A company of Rangers also accompanied O’Neal; and Finney riding to the edge of Obraje came suddenly on a strong picket of the Allies and received their fire, himself mortally wounded, almost before he was aware of their presence. When O’Neal ascertained that the enemy held Obraje he halted for the night about a mile from the village. The next morning he sent forward a skirmishing party to feel the strength of the Allies, and the latter came out to meet the skirmishers in such force that O’Neal judged it prudent to recall his riflemen. In the skirmishing with the enemy O’Neal lost several men; and when his report of the apparent strength and confidence of the Allies reached Rivas, Henningsen was sent to Obraje to reconnoitre the position of the enemy. After a short time Henningsen reported the Allies occupying the principal square of the village, strongly barricaded and also protected by earthworks; and that the place could not be carried without a loss entirely disproportionate to its value and importance. On the receipt of Henningsen’s report Walker ordered the Rifles to fall back to Rivas. The enemy remained in Obraje during the morning of the 28th; but about nightfall of that day some Americans from San Jorge brought the news of small bodies of the Allies being seen in the outskirts of this village, situated near the lake shore and about two miles to the east of Rivas. By eight o’clock in the evening Cañas was in San Jorge, and his force was busily engaged in building barricades and other defences. The rapidity with which Central American troops throw up barricades is almost incredible, and long practice has made them more expert at such work than even a Parisian mob. Hence, in a few hours, all the streets leading into the square of San Jorge, as well as the houses around the Plaza, were strongly barricaded. The secrecy, however, of the march from Obraje, no less than the rapidity with which the barricades at San Jorge had been built, showed that the Allies were not disposed to meet the Americans in the open field or to come to a decisive action. It was clear that they desired to hold San Jorge in order to communicate with Mora on the lake, and thus to secure more strength for future offensive operations. Therefore, Walker determined to attack them at once.