One of
the men, when he felt the sensation consequent upon being "high and
dry," roused himself, and, sitting upright, looked around for some time
with an expression of bewildered amazement. At length he seemed to
realize the true state of the case, and exclaimed, in a tone of
energetic soliloquy,--
"Well, who _wouldn't_ be a soldier and fight for California?"
"You are mistaken," I replied.
Rubbing his eyes, he gazed at me with astonishment, as if having been
entirely unconscious of my presence; but, reassuring himself, he said:
"How mistaken?"
"Why," I answered, "you are not fighting for California."
"What the d----l, then, am I fighting for?" he inquired.
"For TEXAS."
"Texas be d----d; but hurrah for General Jackson!" and with this
exclamation he threw himself back again upon his wooden pillow, and was
soon snoring in a profound slumber.
Making a platform composed of sticks of wood upon the soft mud, I
stripped myself to the skin, wringing the water from each garment as I
proceeded. I then commenced drying them by the fire in the order that
they were replaced upon my body, an employment that occupied me until
daylight, which sign, above the high mountain to the east, down which
we had rolled rather than marched yesterday, I was truly rejoiced to
see.
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