or three minutes--an antagonist
like that was quite well known to their philosophy. So breathing hard,
they valiantly marched up the hill. They suffered cruelly under the
scattered fusillades, yet were not materially resisted. At last they
were near enough, and the bugles sounded for the final rush.

Now what was odd, the Republicans stopped firing altogether. But they
were waiting for shorter range, and a moment later, at a hundred paces,
their reopening volley had all the clockwork dispatch of platoon drill.
Yet the Imperialists took the dose as a thing expected, and sprang over
their wounded to gain the trenches. They required only the lull of
reloading. But instantly a second volley prolonged the first. The column
staggered, and faces blanched. In a sudden despair they realized the
enemy's tactics, for the enemy did have those terrible rifles, after
all. From the trenches a low sheet of flame had spread, searing the
breasts of rank after rank that pressed against its edge. Scarlet-coated
Dragoons, the last of them, flecked the rocks, and over them fell green
uniformed troopers, as grass will cover a bloody field, and the
Municipal Guards, swaying up from behind, paid out a sprinkling of
blue--a ghastly pousse-cafe, as one grim jester described it afterward.
The long massed lines wavered.

"They've stopped, they've stopped!" cried Rodrigo. "Now we'll close with
them, eh, senor--por Dios, _now_!"

"All you fellows," shouted Driscoll, "just fill your rifles while they
wait. Stopped nothing, Rod! And anyhow, who'd hold the hill if we left
it? Who?"

The answer came at once, and in dramatic form. One of the pickets
stationed on the flank ran among them.

"There's another big slew of 'em a-coming!" he yelled excitedly.
"Yonder, over yonder!"

Driscoll rose and followed the man to the east slope. From there he
beheld an overpowering force, advancing diagonally across the llano
below. It came by the Carretas road, which skirted Queretaro on that
side, and it was hurrying toward the Cimatario. The colonel of Grays
watched them anxiously through his glasses.

"Shucks," he said at last, "the fight's over. It's Escobedo. He's sent
his reserve. Don't you see those black shakos, Jim, and those gray
coats? They're the Cazadores de Galeana, and the best yet. Now we'll
have someone to hold the hill!"

But getting back to the trenches, Driscoll saw that the help might not
come soon enough. For however the Imperialists squan