“How long do you think we may be gone?” I inquired.
“Long? Only a day. If I stay overnight in the chaparral, may a wolf eat me! Oh, no! if the mules don’t turn up soon, somebody else may go fetch ’em—that’s all.”
“I may ration them for one day?” said I.
“Two—two; your fellows’ll be hungry. Roberts, of the Rifles, who’s been out in the country, tells me there isn’t enough forage to feed a cat. So you’d better take two days’ biscuit. I suppose we’ll meet with beef enough on the hoof, though I’d rather have a rump-steak out of the Philadelphia market than all the beef in Mexico. Hang their beef! it’s as tough as tan leather!”
“At four o’clock then, Major, I’ll be with you,” said I, preparing to take my leave.
“Make it a little later, Captain. I get no sleep with these cursed gally-nippers and things; but, stay—how many men have you got?”
“In my company eighty; but my order is to take only fifty.”
“There again! I told you so; want me killed—they want old Bios killed! Fifty men, when a thousand of the leather-skinned devils have been seen not ten miles off! Fifty men! great heavens! fifty men! There’s an escort to take the chaparral with!”
“But they are fifty men worth a hundred, I promise you.”
“Bring all—every son of a gun—bugler and all.”