would flash out amidst the lingering shadows in all the colors of a diamond; while, farther on, lilac mountain rose above lilac mountain and purple range looked over purple range until the crowning peaks touched the firmament. In one town after
another grapes, figs and pomegranates delighted the eye, and, as an officer quoted to himself,
"The air was heavy with the sighs of orange groves."
And finally, as night came on, the jagged blue Sierras, growing almost black, were silhouetted perhaps against a pale yellowish-green streaked with crimson. A spice of danger added zest, for about a thousand Mexican cavalry hovered constantly in the front, and once near Ramos McCulloch's rangers got near enough to exchange shots with a party of them. But Torrejón's men employed themselves principally in driving the Mexicans from their homes under Santa Anna's and Ampudia's instructions; and on September 17, after passing through Papagallos, the Americans now marching with Taylor concentrated near Marín.[1]
Very early the next morning a bugle broke the silence of the camp; other bugles answered it; the drums awoke; the fifes joined in; the army sprang to its feet. As soon as possible the advance guard moved off. The First Division followed at eight o'clock, and the others at intervals of an hour. After sleeping that night at San Francisco the army, completed by the arrival of the Texas Division, set out again at about sunrise on the nineteenth. Since reaching Marín Taylor had rather come to the conclusion that he would scarcely reach Saltillo on time — that first he would have something to do at Monterey; and this opinion was now confirmed. At about nine o'clock, accompanied by his staff and an escort of Texas mounted men, he came to the edge of the plain, and passed on down the gentle slope of the San Juan valley.[2]
In front lay a stretch of broken ground. Beyond it cattle were feeding peacefully in green fields, and corn was ripening under a hot sun. Farther away still lay Monterey, the holy city of the frontier, as if in a niche of the vast sierra, its white houses partly hidden with green and the spires of its cathedral soaring above; and now and then the music of a bell, a bugle or a drum came faintly across the plain. A little at the right
