The Worth men might move in at last. The street was so blocked that the end files of the companies were obliged to brush the people from the way. In the plaza the Second Dragoons band was playing "Yankee Doodle." The plaza also was crowded. There seemed to be hundreds of blanketed, dirty beggars under foot. The dragoons rode right and left, clearing the plaza with the flats of their sabers, but careful to harm nobody.
"Column, halt!"
Just as General Worth was about to give orders a volley burst from the top of a building; the balls pelted in, aimed at him and his staff; but they passed over. Colonel Garland clapped his hand to his side, and in Company B Lieutenant Sidney Smith sank limply.
As if the volley had been a signal other shots sounded; paving stones rained down. It looked like a trap. Here were five thousand Americans, almost the whole army, in the plaza and surrounded by buildings and two hundred thousand people.
The orders were quick. In an instant Duncan's battery and the Reno howitzers galloped to the plaza corners; Steptoe's and Drum's and Taylor's guns were being unlimbered. Aides from General Scott were spurring hither thither; skirmish squads were being told off, and ordered to search the streets and buildings. The dragoons galloped. The howitzers battered the building from which the first volley had issued. Now all around the plaza there echoed the clatter of hoofs, the thud of running feet, and the ringing reports of musket and rifle.
A number of leading Mexican citizens apolo-
