ude splendor that was barbaric. It was the grandeur of
primeval man, of majesty resting on him who fought best. After a
thousand years of roof and tableware a man may be no longer primeval,
but he is no longer quite a man either if his primeval state does not
sometimes appeal to him. As for the young Missourian, he was enthralled.

During that winter, the Spaniard and the American were a recruiting
squad of two, picking up the seeds of rebellion among the fertile rocks.
The vago, or poor Indito, was drafted wherever caught. Guerrilla
fugitives rejoined their leader. The little band grew slowly, but in
appearance merited Mendez's contemptuous epithet of brigand thieves.
Fluttering yellow rags revealed only leathery-hided bones. Sandals
sloughed away. There were a few machetes, and one or two venerable
musketoons. But the commoner weapon was a heavy wooden staff, used for
trudging up the steep paths. Imagine a Mexican abandoning his horse! But
pursuers often tracked "the brigand thieves" by their mounts dying here
and there--a pitiful blazed trail. And their exhausted riders often lay
down as well, and would not rise, though Regules lashed them, though the
terrible Mendez followed close behind. If at this time the Republic
compared its conditions with the tapestried court in Mexico, then hope
of success must have seemed lugubrious irony. Yet there was the
watchword still, "Viva la Intervencion del Norte!" Regules looked to the
United States to drive away the French. Driscoll's face would twist to a
grimace. It was a peculiar position for an ex-Confederate.

The Republicans in Michoacan were cut off from all outside help, while
those along the Rio Grande drew from the friendly Americans in Texas
much aid and comfort. Driscoll pondered on this, until in June he got
leave to go to the Cordova colony and there enlist, if possible, his old
comrades of Shelby's brigade. The result is known. After the affair at
Tampico, he came back with a troop of colonels. They were the nucleus of
a cavalry which he loved more than Demijohn, more than his ugly pistols,
more than his pipe.

It was a grim affection that Driscoll bore his regiment of horse. He was
no longer the same man as when he left. He returned from Cordova with a
mood on him, which settled more and more heavily as he nursed his troops
into a splendid fighting machine. There was a dangerously quiet
exultation in the patience with which he built the regiment up to full
stren