feature of the tangled politics of Mexico, and why ambitious military
men were every now and then able to set up for themselves, and defy the
central government until it could manage to capture them, and have them
shot as rebels. Wiser men than he, looking at the matter from the
outside, might also have understood how greatly it was to the credit of
President Paredes that he was making so good a stand against the power
of the United States while hampered by so many difficulties. Ned was no
politician at all, and it was a mere impulse, or a tired feeling, which
led him to pull in his pony and let the men catch up with him, so that
he might chat with them, one after another, and get acquainted. He found
that they were under no orders not to talk. On the contrary, every man
of them seemed to know that Ned had come home from the school which he
had been attending in England, and that he had been instrumental in
procuring powder and bullets for them and for the Mexican army. They
were full of patriotism of a peculiar kind. It would have made them
fight gringos or any other foreigners to-day, and to-morrow to fight as
readily in any causeless revolution which their local leaders might see
fit to set going. They were eager for all the news Ned could give them,
and he was soon on good terms with them, for he took pains not to let
them know how uncomfortable he felt in that saddle. They surely would
have despised any young Mexican who had forgotten how to ride while he
was travelling in Europe.

Hour after hour went by, and on every level stretch of road the wheeled
vehicles were driven at a moderate trot. The horses of what Ned called
the cavalry also trotted occasionally, but it was well for him that his
pony did not seem to know how. Whenever he was asked to go faster, he
struck into a rocking canter, which was as easy and about as lazy as a
cradle, so that his rider received hardly any shaking, and was able to
keep both his seat and his stirrups. Brief halts for rest were made now
and then. Bridges were crossed which Ned understood were over small
branches of the Blanco River, but they were still in the lowlands when,
at about midnight, the little column wheeled out of the road and went on
for a hundred yards or more into a magnificent forest, where the
moonlight came down among the trees to show how old and large they were.

"Halt! Dismount!" came sharply from Colonel Tassara. "It is twelve
o'clock. We have made over twenty