ow. The fire
beginning to blaze freely, I dug a ditch with my hands and a sharp
stick of wood, which drained off the pool surrounding the tent. 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. Distance 3 miles.

_December 26_.--Parties were detailed early this morning, and
despatched up the mountain to bring down the cannon, and collect the
living horses and baggage. The destruction of horse-flesh, by those who
witnessed the scene by daylight, is described as frightful. In some
places large numbers of dead horses were piled together. In others,
horses half buried in the mud of the ravines, or among the rocks, were
gasping in the agonies of death. The number of dead animals is
variously estimated at from seventy-five to one hundred and fifty, by
different persons. The cannon, most of the missing baggage, and the
living horses, were all brought in by noon. The day was busily employed
in cleansing our rifles and pistols, and drying our drenched baggage.

_December 27_.--Preparations were commenced early for the resumption of
our march; but such was the condition of everything around us, that it
was two o'clock, P.M., before the battalion was in readiness; and then
so great had been the loss of horses