Rio Pecos, where a large fort had been established. It was occupied by
a strong garrison of infantry and cavalry.

I had found social life in Santa Fé very pleasant during my brief stay
there, so I was not overjoyed when I received the order to march my
company to Los Valles Grandes, there to relieve the California company
already referred to. But the order being peremptory, we packed our
baggage during the first hours of the night, and were on the road soon
after daybreak.

It was the 3d of October when the boy corporals and myself, mounted on
sturdy Mexican ponies, rode out of Fort Marcy for our new station, one
hundred miles due west. The regimental band escorted the company
through the plaza and for a mile on our way, playing, after
immemorial custom, "The Girl I Left Behind Me," and adding, I thought
with a vein of irony, "Ain't Ye Glad You've Got Out th' Wilderness?"

On the morning of the 8th, after four days of gradual and constant
ascent from the valley of the Rio Grande, which we had forded at San
Ildefonso, we began the slower ascent of the most difficult portion of
our march.

The woods were full of wild turkeys and mountain grouse, made fat on
the pine-nuts, and Frank and Henry and the soldier huntsmen secured a
generous supply for our first meal in our new military home.

It took us from early morning until noon of the last day's march to
reach the highest point of the road. What with the frequent halts for
the men to fasten a rope to the wagon-poles and aid the severely taxed
mules up the steepest places, to fill gullies and sloughs with stones