And they drank the red wine through the helmet barred.'

THE LAY OF THE LAST MINSTREL.

LAST Summer the wild and lonely banks of the Upper Arkansas beheld for the first time the passage of an army. General Kearny on his march to Santa Fe, adopted this route in preference to the old trail of the Cimanon. When we came down, the main body of the troops had already passed on; Price's Missouri regiment, however, was still on the way, having left the frontier much later than the rest; and about this time we began to meet them moving along the trail, one or two companies at a time. No men ever embarked upon a military expedition with a greater love for the work before them than the Missourians; but if discipline and subordination be the criterion of merit, these soldiers were worthless indeed. Yet when their exploits have rung through all America it would be absurd to deny that they were excellent troops. Their victories were gained in the teeth of every established precedent of warfare; they were owing to a singular combination of military qualities in the men themselves. Without discipline or a spirit of subordination, they knew how to keep their ranks and act as one man. Doniphan's regiment marched through New Mexico more like a band of free companions than like the paid soldiers of a modern government. When General Taylor complimented Doniphan on his success at Sacramento and elsewhere,

the Colonel's reply very well illustrates the relations which subsisted between the officers and men of his command:

'I don't know any thing of the manœuvres. The boys kept coming to me, to let them charge; and when I saw a good opportunity, I told them they might go. They were off like a shot, and that's all I know about it.'

The backwoods lawyer was better fitted to conciliate the good will than to command the obedience of his men. There were many serving under him, who both from character and education could better have held command than he.

At the battle of Sacramento his frontiersmen fought under every possible disadvantage. The Mexicans had chosen their own position; they were drawn up across the valley that led to their native city of Chihuahua; their whole front was covered by entrenchments and defended by batteries of heavy cannon; they outnumbered the invaders five to one. An eagle flew over the Americans, and a deep murmur rose along their lines. The enemy's batteries opened; long they remained under fire, but when at length the word was given, they shouted and ran forward. In one of the divisions when midway to the enemy a drunken officer ordered a halt; the exasperated men hesitated to obey.

Forward, boys, for God's sake!' cried a private from the ranks; and the Americans rushed like tigers upon the enemy; they bounded over the breast work. Four hundred Mexicans were slain upon the spot and the rest fled, scattering over the plain like sheep. The standards, cannons and baggage were taken, and among the rest a wagon laden with cords, which the Mexicans, in the fulness of their confidence, had made ready for tying the American prisoners.

Doniphan's volunteers, who gained this victory, with others equally remarkable, passed up with the main army; but Price's soldiers whom we now met, were men from the same neighborhood, precisely similar in character, manners and appearance. One forenoon as we were descending upon a very wide meadow, where we meant to rest for an hour or two, we saw a dark body of horsemen approaching at a distance. In order to find water, we were obliged to turn aside to the river bank, a full half mile from the trail. Here we put up a kind of awning, and spreading buffalo-robes on the ground, Shaw and I sat down to smoke beneath it.

'We are going to catch it now,' said Shaw; look at those fellows, there'll be no peace for us here.'

And in good truth about half the volunteers had straggled away from the line of march, and were riding over the meadow toward us. 'How are you?' said the first who came up, alighting from his horse and throwing himself upon the ground. The rest followed close, and a score of them soon gathered about us, some lying at full length and some sitting on horseback. They all belonged to a company raised in St. Louis. There were some ruffian faces among them, and some haggard with debauchery; but on the whole they were extremely good looking men, superior beyond measure to the ordinary rank and file of an army. Except that they were booted to the

knees, they wore their belts and military trappings over the ordinary dress of citizens. Beside their swords and holster pistols, they carried slung from their saddles the excellent Springfield carbines, loading at the breech. They inquired the character of our party, and were anxious to know the prospect of killing buffalo, and the chance that their horses would stand the journey to Santa Fe. All this was well enough, but a moment after a worse visitation came upon us.

'How are you, strangers, whar are you going and whar are you from?' said a fellow, who came trotting up with an old straw hat on his head. He was dressed in the coarsest brown homespun cloth. His face was rather sallow from fever and-ague, and his tall figure, though strong and sinewy, was quite thin, and had besides an angular look, which together with his boorish seat on horseback, gave him an appearance any thing but graceful. Plenty more of the same stamp were close behind him. Their company was raised in one of the frontier counties, and we soon had abundant evidence of their rustic breeding; dozens of them came crowding round, pushing between our first visitors and staring at us with unabashed faces.

'Are you the captain?' asked one fellow.

'What's your business out here?' asked another.

'Where do you live when you're at home?' said a third.

'I reckon you're traders,' surmised a fourth; and to crown the whole one of them came confidentially to my side and inquired in a low voice, What's your partner's name?'

As each new comer repeated the same questions, the nuisance became intolerable. Our military visitors were soon disgusted at the concise nature of our replies, and we could overhear them muttering curses against us, not loud but deep. While we sat smoking, not in the best imaginable humor, Tête Rouge's tongue was never idle. He never forgot his military character, and during the whole interview he was incessantly busy among his fellow soldiers. At length we placed him on the ground before us, and told him that he might play the part of spokesmen for the whole. Tête Rouge was delighted, and we soon had the satisfaction of seeing him talk and gabble at such a rate that the torrent of questions was in a great measure diverted from us. A little while after to our amazement, we saw a large cannon with four horses come lumbering up behind the crowd; and the driver who was perched on one of the animals, stretching his neck so as to look over the rest of the men, called out :

Whar are you from and what's your business?'

The captain of one of the companies was among our visitors, drawn by the same curiosity that had attracted his men. Unless their bold, intelligent faces belied them, not a few in the crowd might with great advantage have changed places with their commander.

'Well, men,' said he, lazily rising from the ground where he had been lounging, its getting late, I reckon we had better be moving.' 'I sha' n't start yet any how,' said one fellow who was lying half asleep with his head resting on his arm.

'Don't be in a hurry, captain,' added the lieutenant.

'Well, have it your own way, we 'll wait awhile longer,' replied the obsequious commander.

At length however our visitors went straggling away as they had come, and we to our great relief, were left alone again.

No one can deny the intrepid bravery of these men, their intelligence and the bold frankness of their character, free from all that is mean and sordid. Yet for the moment the extreme roughness of their manners, half inclines one to forget their heroic qualities. Most of them seem without the least perception of delicacy or propriety, though among them individuals may be found in whose manners there is a plain courtesy, while their features bespeak a gallant spirit equal to any enterprise. The bravery of the Missourians is not exclusively their own; the whole American nation are as fearless as they; but in roughness of bearing and fierce impetuosity of spirit they may bear away the palm from almost any rival.

No one was more relieved than Delorier by the departure of the volunteers; for dinner was getting colder every moment. He spread a well-whitened buffalo-hide upon the grass, placed in the middle the juicy hump of a fat cow, ranged around it the tin plates and cups, and then acquainted us that all was ready. Tête Rouge, with his usual alacrity on such occasions, was the first to take his seat. In his former capacity of steamboat clerk he had learned to prefix the honorary Mister to every body's name, whether of high or low degree; so Jim Gurney was Mr. Gurney, Henry was Mr. Henry, and even Delorier, for the first time in his life, heard himself addressed as Mr. Delorier. This did not prevent his conceiving a violent enmity against Tête Rouge, who in his futile though praiseworthy attempts to make himself useful, used always to intermeddle with cooking the dinners. Delorier's disposition knew no medium between smiles and sunshine and a downright tornado of wrath; he said nothing to Tête Rouge, but his wrongs rankled in his breast. Tête Rouge, as I observed before, had taken his place at dinner; it was his happiest moment; he sat enveloped in the old buffalo coat, the sleeves turned up in preparation for the work and his short legs crossed on the grass before him; he had a cup of coffee by his side and his knife ready in his hand, and while he looked upon the fat hump ribs, his large eyes dilated with anticipation. Delorier sat just opposite to him, and the rest of us by this time had taken our seats.

How is this, Delorier? You have n't given us bread enough.' At this Delorier's placid face flew instantly into a paroxysm of contortions. He grinned with wrath, chattered, gesticulated and hurled forth a volley of incoherent words in broken English at the astonished Tête Rouge. It was just possible to make out that he was accusing him of having stolen and eaten four large cakes which had been laid by for dinner. Tête Rouge, utterly confounded at this sudden attack, stared at Delorier for a moment in dumb amazement, with mouth and eyes wide open. At last he found speech, and protested that the accusation was false; and that he could not conceive how he had offended Mr. Delorier, or provoked him to use such ungentlemanly expressions. The tempest of words raged with such fury that nothing

else could be heard. But Tête Rouge from his greater command of English had a manifest advantage over Delorier, who after sputtering and grimacing for awhile, found his words quite inadequate to the expression of his wrath. He jumped up and vanished, jerking out between his teeth one furious sacre enfan de gurce, a Canadian title of honor, made doubly emphatic by being usually applied together with a cut of the whip to refractory mules and horses.

The next morning we saw an old buffalo-bull escorting his cow with two small calves over the prairie. Close behind came four or five large white wolves, sneaking stealthily through the long meadowgrass, and watching for the moment when one of the children should chance to lag behind his parents. The old bull kept well on his guard, and faced about now and then to keep the prowling ruffians at a distance.

As we approached our nooning place we saw five or six buffalo standing at the very summit of a tall bluff. Trotting forward to the spot where we meant to stop, I flung off my saddle and turned my horse loose. By making a circuit under cover of some rising ground, I reached the foot of the bluff unnoticed, and climbed up its steep side. Lying under the brow of the declivity, I prepared to fire at the buffalo, who stood on the flat surface above, not five yards distant. Perhaps I was too hasty, for the gleaming rifle-barrel levelled over the edge caught their notice; they turned and saw. Close as they were, it was impossible to kill them when in that position, and stepping upon the summit, I pursued them over the high arid table-land. It was extremely rugged and broken; a great sandy ravine was channelled through it, with smaller ravines entering it on each side, like tributary streams. The buffalo scattered, and I soon lost sight of most of them as they scuttled away through the sandy chasms; a bull and a cow alone kept in view. For a while they ran along the edge of the great ravine, appearing and disappearing as they dived into some chasm and again emerged from it. At last they stretched out upon the broad prairie; a boundless plain, nearly flat and almost devoid of verdure, for every short grass-blade was dried and shrivelled by the glaring sun. Now and then the old bull would face toward me; whenever he did so I fell to the ground and lay motionless. In this manner I chased them for about two miles, until at length I heard in front a deep hoarse bellowing. A moment after, a band of about a hundred bulls, before bidden by a slight swell of the plain, came at once into view. The fugitives ran toward them. Instead of mingling with the band, as I expected, they passed directly through, and continued their flight. At this I gave up the chase, and kneeling down, I crawled to within gunshot of the bulls, and with panting breath and trickling brow sat down on the ground to watch them; my presence did not disturb them in the least. They were not feeding, and indeed there was nothing to eat; but they seemed to have chosen that parched and scorching desert as the scene of their amusements. They were sporting together, after their clumsy fashion, under the burning sun. Some were rolling on the ground amid a cloud of dust; others, with a hoarse rumbling bel