Animal voices occasionally disturbed the quietness of the night.

Nobody would have supposed that between the Rito and the mesas opposite San Ildefonso of to-day several hundred Indian warriors were hidden, patiently waiting or slowly moving forward.

It was a quiet, still night, cool, as the nights mostly are in the rainy season, and dark.

The sky was partly overcast; but the clouds did not drift, they formed and dissolved overhead; and the stars appeared and disappeared alternately as the nebulous fleeces disclosed or shrouded them.

Behind the mountain, thunderclouds rested, and occasional flashes of lightning illuminated the crests, and faint thunder muttered in the distance.