you git the picture of it in your mind.

"Well, they received us very kindly and furnished us with rations, sech ez they were—mostly peppers and beans and a kind of batter-cake that's much in favour in them parts, made out of corn pounded up fine and mixed with water and baked ag'inst a hot rock. Ef a man didn't keer fur the peppers, he could fall back on the beans, thus insurin' him a change of diet, and the corn batter-cakes were certainly right good-tastin'.

"Some few of our dark-complected friends kin make a stagger at speakin' English, so frum one of 'em Billy inquires where is the Confederacy? They explains that it has moved on further South but tells us that first General Shelby sold 'em the artillery he'd fetched with him that fur to keep it frum failin' into the Yankees' hands. Sure enough there're the guns—four brass field-pieces. Two of 'em are twelve-pounders and the other two are four-teen-pounders. The Mexicans are very proud of their artillery and appear to set much store by it.

"Well, that evenin' their commandin' general comes over to where we've made camp, accompanied by his coffee-coloured staff, and through an interpreter he suggests the advisability of our j'inin' in with them, he promisin' good pay and offerin' to make us all high-up officers. He seems right anxious to have us enlist with his glorious forces right away. In a little while it leaks out why he's so generous with his promises and so wishful to see us enrolled beneath his noble banner. He's expectin' a call inside of the next forty-eight hours frum the Imperials that're reported to be movin' up frum the South, nearly two thousand strong, with the intention of givin' him battle.

"Billy Priest, speakin' fur all of us, says he'll give him an answer later. So the commandin' general conceals his disappointment the best he kin and retires on back to his own headquarters, leavin' us to discuss the proposition amongst ourselves. Some of the boys favour thro win' in with the Liberals right away, bein' hongry fur a fight, I reckin, or else sort of dazzled by the idea of becomin' colonels and majors overnight. But Billy suggests that mebbe we'd better jest sort of hang 'round and observe the conduct and deportment of these here possible feller warriors of our'n whilst they're under hostile fire. 'Speakin' pusson-ally,' he says, 'I must admit I ain't greatly attracted to them ez they present themselves to the purview of my gaze in their ca'mmer hours. Before committin' ourselves, s'posen we stand by and take a few notes on how they behave themselves in the presence of an enemy. Then, there'll be abundant time to decide whether we want to stay a while with these fellers or go long about our business of lookin' fur the Southern Confederacy.'

"That sounded like good argument, so we let Billy have his way about it, and we settled down to wait. We didn't have long to wait. The next day about dinner-time, here come the Imperial army, advancin' in line of battle. The Liberals moved out acrost the desert to meet 'em and we-all mounted and taken up a position on a little rise close at hand, to observe the pur-ceedin's.

"Havin' had consider'ble experience in sech affairs, I must say I don't believe I ever witnessed such a dissa'pintin' battle ez that one turn't out to be. The prevailin' notion on both sides seemed to be that the opposin' forces should march bravely toward one another ontil they got almost within long range and then fur both gangs to halt ez though by simultaneous impulse, and fire at will, with nearly everybody shootin' high and wide and furious. When this had continued till it become mutually bore-some, one side would charge with loud cheers, ashootin' ez it advanced, but prudently slowin' down and finally haltin' before it got close enough to inflict much damage upon the foe or to suffer much damage either. Havin' accomplished this, the advancin' forces would fall back in good order and then it was time fur the other side to charge. I must say this in justice to all concerned—there was a general inclination to obey the rules ez laid down fur the prosecution of tie kind of warfare they waged. Ez a usual thing, I s'pose it would be customary fur the battle to continue ez described until the shades of night descended and then each army would return to its own base, claimin' the victory. But on this occasion something in the nature of a surprise occurred that wasn't down on the books a-tall.

"Right down under the little rise where us fellers sat waitin', stood them four guns that the Liberals bought off of Shelby. Ef brass cannons have feelin's—and I don't know no reason why they shouldn't have—them cannons must have felt like something was radically wrong. The crews were loadin' and firin' and swabbin' and loadin' and firin' ag'in—all jest ez busy ez beavers. But they plum overlooked one triflin' detail which the military experts have always reguarded ez bein' more or less essential to successful artillery operations. They forgot to aim in the general direction at the enemy. They done a plentiful lot of cheerin', them gun crews did, and they burnt up a heap of powder and they raised a powerful racket and hullabaloo, but so fur ez visible results went they mout jest ez well have been bombardin' the clear blue sky of heaven.

"Well, fur quite a spell we stayed up there on the brow of the hill, watchin' that there engagement. Only you couldn't properly call it an engagement—by rights it wasn't nothin' but a long distance flirtation. Now several of our boys had served one time or another with the guns. There was one little feller named Vince Hawley, out of Lyon's Battery, that had been one of the crack gunners of the Western Army. He held in ez long ez he could and then he sings out:

"'Boys, do you know whut's ailin' them pore mistreated little field-pieces down yonder? Well, I'll tell you. They're Confederate guns, born, bred, and baptised; and they're cravin' fur Confederate hands to pet 'em. It mout be this'll be the last chance a Southern soldier will ever git to fire a Southern gun. Who'll go 'long with me fur one farewell sashay with our own cannons?'

"In another minute eight or ten of our command were pilin' off their horses and tearin' down that little hill behind Vince Hawley and bustin' in amongst the Mexies and laying violent but affectionate hands on one of the twelve-pounders. Right off, the natives perceived whut our fellers wanted to do and they fell back and gave 'em elbow-room. Honest, son, it seemed like that field-piece recognised her own kind of folks, even 'way off there on the aidge of a Mexican desert, and strove to respond to their wishes. The boys throwed a charge into her and Hawley sighted her and then—kerboom—off she went!

"Off the Imperial forces went, too. The charge landed right in amongst their front ranks ez they were advancin'—it happened to be their turn to charge—takin' 'em absolutely by surprise. There was a profound scatteration and then spontaneous-like the enemy seemed to come to a realisation of the fact that the other side had broke all the rules and was actually tryin' to do 'em a real damage. With one accord they turned tail and started in the general direction of the Isthmus of Panama. Ef they kept up the rate of travel at which they started, they arrived there inside of a week, too—or mebbe even sooner. I s'pose it depended largely on whether their feet held out.

"Hawley and his gang run the gun forward to the crest of a little swale ready to give the retreatin' forces another treatment in case they should rally and re-form, but a second dose wasn't needed. Howsomever, before the squad came back, they scouted acrost the field to see whut execution their lone charge had done. Near to where the shell had busted they gathered up six skeered soldiers—fellers that had dropped down, skeered but unhurt, when the smash come and had been layin' there in a hollow in the ground, fearin' the worst and hopin' fur the best. So they brung 'em back in with 'em and turned 'em over to the Liberals ez prisoners of war.

"The