appeared among them, the dry-humored, reckless
Jack Driscoll of other days, attired now in the brave, dashing
regimentals of the Republic[!] From out the wilds of distant Michoacan
he came with the long gallop that never would tire, and pausing at cabin
after cabin in the Colony's broad acres, summoned his old comrades to
arms ... to arms against the invader.... Who, now, will argue bucolic
content? Those lusty young planters smelled the battle from afar. What
now were waving tassels to the glory of deeds?--_a cuspide
corona_--to a wreath of powder-burned laurel? That very day the Iron
Brigade rallied again, gathered once again at the oft remembered bugle's
full, resonant blare.

Fighting came sooner than the Missourians hoped. Even as they started
for Michoacan, a ragged Indito, whose village had been razed by the
Cossacks, met the command and asked for the Senor Coronel Gringo.
Driscoll heard what he had to tell, and was greatly concerned, though
the others laughed at first and scoffed. For it seemed that the Indito
did not know who sent him, except that it was a senor chaparrito, a
short little senor. "Then you must be a Shorter Yet?" said Driscoll.
"Well, what do you bring?" The Indito produced from his ragged shirt a
bit of parchment, whereon Colonel Driscoll was urged to join with his
new recruits in an attack on Maximilian's escort, for Maximilian was on
his way to Vera Cruz. The parchment was signed, "El Chaparrito."

"Shorty! That word means 'Shorty'," the troopers guffawed. But Driscoll
showed them another handwriting at the bottom. The parchment had been
countersigned in blank, thus: "Benito Juarez, Libertad y Reforma." The
Missourians were respectful after that. Many thought that the mysterious
guardian angel of the Republic's battles must be the Presidente himself,
though the Presidente was thousands of miles away.

* * * * *

After the victory won against Dupin's Contra Guerrillas [so the
chronicle goes on], the Missourians found their ally to be none other
than that picturesque buccaneer of the Sierras, Don Rodrigo, wild as a
prairie wolf, handsome as Lucifer; and their captives to be not the
Emperor and suite but two beautiful women....

When the prisoners had been exchanged--i. e., the two fair girls
restored to Dupin, and Rodrigo freed--and Rodrigo had hurried away to
gather his scattered vagabonds from among the foothills, the Missourians
realized their