Page:Into Mexico with General Scott (1920).djvu/267

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an' Worth an' Gin'ral Scott himself on another trip. I've a feelin' in me bones that a fight's due."

"Guess we'll have to take Grasshopper Hill for exercise," said Hannibal, lazily.

"Faith, then why don't you tell Gin'ral Scott?" the sergeant rebuked. "Belike he's only waitin' for some smart drummer boy to make his plans for him."

"Well, we've got to take it, haven't we?" Fifer O'Toole asked.

"Yis, barrin' a better way. 'Tis the city we're after, an' what wid? Wid an' army o' less than eight thousand, to-day, outside a walled city o' two hundred thousand an' dayfinded by twinty thousand, snug beyant ditches an' stone. A job that, me lads, to open the gates. Thim dons know we're up to somethin'. Did yez mark quite a movement o' troops down below this mornin'? Says I to meself: 'Gin'ral Santy Annie is startin' out to envelop our lift, or else he's rayinforcin' the mill so as to get his cannon matayrial finished up.' Faith, there's a storm brewin', but I've been in the service too long to daypind on camp gossip. I've my own ways o' findin' out."

So the sergeant arose and strolled off.

"Same here," Hannibal declared. He darted away for his brigade camp.

"I'll get the correct news meself at the hospital when I ask the doctor to take wan more look at my leg," Corporal Finerty, asserted, starting out with a great pretense at hobbling.

"Well, I'll bide a wee jist where I am," spoke Scotty MacPheel, smoking his pipe. "I've gotten a dream, this nicht past, an' I ken mysel' there'll be