But it was not by numbers that the loss of the Americans was to be computed. The chivalrous spirit of Kewen would have weighed against a host of common men; and the death of Crocker was a loss hardly to be repaired. A boy in appearance, with a slight figure, and a face almost feminine in its delicacy and beauty, he had the heart of a lion; and his eye, usually mild and gentle, though steady in its expression, was quick to perceive a false movement on the part of an adversary, and then its flash was like the gleam of a scimetar as it falls on the head of the foe. With little military experience and less military reading, he was a man to lead others where danger was to be met; and none who knew him feared he would get a command into any position from which his courage and address would be unable to extricate them. To Walker he was invaluable; for they had been together in many a trying hour, and the fellowship of difficulty and danger had established a sort of freemasonry between them. There had been with the Americans during most of the day, at Rivas, two natives, one of them a boy, the other a man, familiar with the country about Rivas. Under the guidance of the latter the little band retreated through cacao plantations, seeking some road which might lead them toward the Transit. Their march was of course slow, and they were obliged to wait often for the wounded to come up. Among those most seriously hurt were De Brissot and Anderson (afterward Colonel Anderson), the former having a wound through the fleshy part of the thigh, and the latter, in addition to a wound in the thigh, having a scratch in the scalp and a cut in the foot. Capt. Doubleday, a volunteer in the expedition, was useful by his knowledge of native character and the modes of native warfare; and although having a painful wound in the head, he did not for a moment lose his spirits or presence of mind. Two or three times in their wanderings through plantations, the retreating party came upon native laborers, who are accustomed to fly at the sight of armed men, through fear of being pressed into military service; and once overtaking a slow, cautious old man who, after some hesitation, half opened his jacket, to show a red rose under it, they were amused by seeing a white rose at the same time fall to the ground. After a doubtful day in revolutionary times, the poor fellow thought it best to have the white emblem for the Legitimists as well as the red for the Democrats. Nor were the Americans themselves altogether lacking in such prudence; for many of them had torn the red ribbon from their hats, in order to escape the notice of hostile parties. This, however, was a vain precaution, since their tongue, as well as their dress and manners, plainly told the race, and therefore the party, to which they belonged.