rations.

"You come to my house," she said, "and I will give you something fit to
eat, and that is a good deal to say in Vera Cruz in these days. Santa
Maria! How these ragged banditti do devour everything. We are to be
devoured by the accursed gringos, too, and we must eat while we can."

Her idea, as a good cook, appeared to be that, if several thousands of
people were about to be shut up and starved to death, they ought all to
feed themselves as liberally as possible before the actual process of
starvation should begin. Ned felt a strong sympathy with that notion, as
he walked along with her, and he was ready to tell her anything but the
perilous truth concerning the lost battle at the north. As to that, it
was quite enough to assure her and half a dozen other patriotic Mexican
women, who were at her humble home when he went in, that the great and
successful General Santa Anna was hastening to rescue them from the
American barbarians who were at this hour getting ashore with a great
deal of difficulty through the surf, which was wetting every uniform
among them. If anything at all resembling a "norther" had been blowing,
the landing would necessarily have been postponed until it had blown
over. Among other things, however, Ned told Anita of his visit to the
house, and when the very good supper was ended, she led him to a room
which must have contained at least a third of all the space under her
roof. It was anything but hollow space now, for it was heaped to the
ceiling with furniture, beds, bedding, and a miscellaneous collection of
other household goods.

"There, Senor Carfora!" she said, exultingly. "The Puebla robbers did
get some things, but we saved all these. They were not ready to carry
off heavy stuff, and when they came again, with a cart, at night, it had
all been cared for. The senora has not lost so much, after all."

"You are a faithful woman!" said Ned, admiringly. "I'm glad, too, that
they could not steal the house, for I want to sleep there."

"It's the best place you can find," she told him. "But you had better
always bar the door at night, and sleep with your machete and pistols
where you can reach them."

CHAPTER XV.

UNDER FIRE

"Where am I?" exclaimed Ned, as his eyes came lazily open the next
morning, and in a moment more they were open very widely.

He knew the room he was in, and his thoughts came swiftly back to him.
There hung his sheathed machete at the head of the hammo