delight of English boys. Our readers may,
perhaps, like to know something of the writer who has given them so much
pleasure; especially as his own life was full of adventure and of brave
deeds.

Mayne Reid was born in the north of Ireland in 1819; his father was a
Presbyterian minister, and wished that his son should also be a
clergyman; but the boy longed for adventure, and to see the world in its
wildest places, and could not bring himself to settle down to a quiet
life at home.

When he was twenty years old he set out on his travels, and, landing at
New Orleans, began a life of adventure in the prairies and forests of
America--good descriptions of which were given by him in his books.

In 1845 a war broke out between the United States and Mexico, and young
Reid instantly volunteered his services to fight on the United States'
side.

He received the commission of lieutenant in a New York regiment, and
fought all through the campaign with the most dauntless courage. He
received several wounds, and gained a high reputation for generous good
feeling.

The castle of Chapultepec commanded the high road to the city of Mexico,
and as it was _very_ strongly defended, and the Mexicans had thirty
thousand soldiers to the American six thousand, to take it was a work
requiring great courage.

Reid was guarding a battery which the Americans had thrown up on the
south-east side of the castle, with a grenadier company of New York
volunteers and a detachment of United States' marines under his command.
From thence he cannonaded the main gate for a whole day. The following
morning a storming party was formed of five hundred volunteers, and at
eleven o'clock the batteries ceased firing, and the attack began.

Reid and the artillery officers, standing by their guns, watched with
great anxiety the advance of the line, and were alarmed when they saw
that half-way up the hill there was a halt.

"I knew," he said in his account, "that if Chapultepec was not taken,
neither would the city be; and, failing that, not a man of us might ever
leave the Valley of Mexico alive." He instantly asked leave of the
senior engineering officer to join the storming-party with his
grenadiers and marines. The officer gave it, and Reid and his men at
once started at a swift run, and came up with the storming-party under
the brow of the hill, where it had halted to wait for scaling ladders.

The fire from the castle was constant, and very fatal.