ed
of itself. Captain Collins thereupon became "Harry;" and the private
"Ben" or "Jim," or whatever else.

Driscoll's troop wanted for nothing. Regimentals, luckily, were not
considered a want. But in replacing worn-out slouch hats and cape-coats,
the Americans set an approximate standard, which was observed also by
their fellow troopers among the Mexicans. They were able to procure
sombreros, wide-brimmed and high-peaked, of mouse-colored beaver with a
rope of silver. The officers and many of the men had long Spanish capas,
or cloaks, which were black and faced in gray velvet. Their coats were
short charro jackets. As armor against cacti, they either had "chaps" or
trousers "foxed" over in leather, with sometimes a Wild Western fringe.
They came to be known as the Gray Troop, or the Gringo Grays. The
natives themselves were proudest of the latter title.

The brigade marched as victors, but they remembered how they had
formerly skulked as hunted guerrillas, and also, how Mendez had scourged
the dissident villages. They found bodies hanging to trees. At Morelia a
citizen who cried "Viva la Libertad!" had been brained with a sabre. It
was the hour for reprisals. And Regules exacted suffering of the
_mocho_, or clerical, towns that had sheltered the "traitors."
Requisitions for arms, horses, and provisions marked his path. Deserters
swelled his ranks. He had enough left-overs from the evacuation to
organize what in irony he called his Foreign Legion. At Acambaro a
second Republican army, under General Corona--"welcomer than a stack of
blues," as Boone said--more than doubled their force, and together they
hastened on to Queretero.

But at Celaya, when men were thinking of rest in the cool monasteries
there, they learned that they must not pause. The word came from El
Chaparrito, who ever watched the Empire as a hawk poised in mid-air.
General Escobedo of the Army of the North had pursued Miramon south into
Queretero, but only to find him reinforced there by Mendez and the
troops from the capital. This superior array meant to attack Escobedo,
then turn and destroy Corona and Regules. The Republicans, therefore,
must be united at once.

The message was no sooner heard than the two weary brigades of Corona
and Regules set forth again. They covered the remaining thirty miles
that night, expecting a victorious Imperialist army at each bend in the
road. But they met instead, toward morning, a lone Imperialist horseman
gallo