lose quarters with the enemy, and also by the
conviction that in Tizoc's company--though in his company we were like
to have hot fighting and plenty of it--we would have better chances of
safety than anywhere else in all our camp.

For this expedition we put on for the first time our armor of quilted
cotton cloth; and the look of these garments certainly did justify
Young's comments upon them. "It's a pity we can't get photographed now,"
he said, "so's t' send our likenesses in this rig home t' our folks.
You'd just jolt the Cap Cod folks, Rayburn, with that pair o' telegraph
poles you call your legs stickin' out from under th' tails o' that thing
that looks like a cross between a badly made frock-coat and an
undersized night-shirt. And I guess your college boys 'd be jolted, too,
Professor, if they could get a squint at you. And I s'pose that if some
o' th' hands on th' Old Colony happened t' ketch up with me dressed this
way they'd think I'd gone crazy. But I haven't got anything t' say
against these little night-shirts except about their looks. When you get
right down t' th' hard-pan with 'em, they're a first-rate thing."

For three American citizens, belonging to the nineteenth century, we
certainly presented a strange appearance, and appeared also in very
strange company, as we marched out from the town late that afternoon
with Tizoc and his men. Each of us carried half a dozen darts, and
strapped around our waists, outside our cotton-cloth armor, we each wore
a maccahuitl--the heavy sword with a jagged double edge that we knew
from experience was an excellent weapon when wielded by a strong hand.
Indeed, Young and I carried the darts rather to satisfy Tizoc than
because we expected to make any very effective use of them, and all of
our reliance both for assault and defence was upon what we could do with
our swords at close quarters. Rayburn, however, had been practising
dart-throwing very diligently, and as he naturally was an
extraordinarily dextrous man he had made rapid progress in this savage
art. The soldiers in our company, naked creatures, lithe and sinewy,
were armed for the most part with spears and slings; and the officers
wore each a sword and carried each a handful of darts. As we all stepped
out briskly together I could not but think how amazed would be the
President of the University of Michigan, and my fellow-members of the
Faculty of that institution of learning, should they happen to encounter
me