near the
Indian village of San Bernardo.

Texas, for which Jim Bowie and many another brave man fought and died,
had won independence ten years back. Last year it had been admitted
into the United States, and the boundaries of the United States had
been extended to the Rio Grande River at last.

To this boundary Mexico objected; she said that it had not been the
boundary of the Louisiana Territory nor of Texas. Now she was prepared
to hold Texas and the Rio Grande. War neared and in March of 1846 the
United States troops under General Zachary Taylor had marched across
Texas to the north bank of the river.

An American column from Fort Leavenworth on the Kansas side of the
Missouri River had marched eight hundred miles through the southwest
desert, and captured Santa Fe and the province of New Mexico. From
Santa Fe the First Dragoons had set out upon a desert trail of one
thousand miles more, to capture California.

Here they were, less then one hundred of them "fit for service,"
reinforced by a detachment sent by Commodore Robert Stockton of the
navy, who had seized San Diego; all commanded by General Stephen Watts
Kearny of the army, and their advance stopped short. The "Horse-Chief
of the Long Knives," as the Plains Indians called him, had met with
misfortune.

There had been a battle. After their long, toiling march of close to
the thousand miles the California irregular cavalry under Captain
Andres Pico had attacked them among the California hills; had caught
them at disadvantage; killed eighteen, wounded fifteen including
General Kearny himself; and driven them to refuge upon this other hill.
Indians could not have been more swift and wary than those light-riding
Californians armed with lances.

Rain had been falling. The ground, cold and wet, was so rocky and
cactus-covered that even the wounded could not be placed comfortably.
The morning following the battle had "dawned on the most tattered and
ill-fed detachment of men that ever the United States mustered under
her colors"--"provisions were exhausted, horses dead, mules on their
last legs, men, reduced to one-third of their number, were ragged, worn
and emaciated."

On this second day, here upon the hill, there was no water except that
which gathered in holes. For the dragoon mules no water at all, and no
forage except the stiff brush. The fattest mule was killed, as food,
but he proved very tough. The wounded could not be moved save in rude