"By God," the man said, "those ain't poisonous spiders;
they're only townsmen scared of their own shadow. Come
in here until they stop."

"How many of them are there?" asked Demetrio.

"There were only twelve of them. But last night they
were scared out of their wits so they wired to the town
beyond for help. I don't know how many of them there
are now. Even if there are a hell of a lot of them, it
doesn't cut any ice! Most of them aren't soldiers, you
know, but drafted men; if just one of them starts mu-
tinying, the rest will follow like sheep. My brother was
drafted; they've got him there. I'll go along with you
and signal to him; all of them will desert and follow you.
Then we'll only have the officers to deal with! If you want
to give me a gun or something. . . ."

"No more rifles left, brother. But I guess you can
put these to some use," Anastasio Montanez said, passing
him two hand grenades.

The officer in command of the Federals was a young
coxcomb of a captain with a waxed mustache and blond
hair. As long as he felt uncertain about the strength of the
assailants, he had remained extremely quiet and prudent;
but now that they had driven the rebels back without al-
lowing them a chance to fire a single shot, he waxed bold
and brave. While the soldiers did not dare put out their
heads beyond the pillars of the building, his own shadow