the Volunteer Battalion, in which they had enrolled themselves "more by way of recreation than for glory or patriotism." They were not easy to understand, having passed most part of their lives in the Rocky Mountains, a district which has its own peculiar phraseology. "We soon became quite sociable, and, after a hearty supper of fried beef and biscuit, by some miraculous dispensation a five gallon keg of whisky was uncorked, and, after a thirty days' thirst, our new-found friends slaked away unremittingly. Many were the marvellous adventures narrated of huntings, fightings, freezings, snowings, and starvations; and one stalwart, bronzed trapper beside me, finding an attentive listener, began:--'The last time, captin, I cleared the Oregon trail, the Ingens fowt us amazin' hard. Pete,' said he, addressing a friend smoking a clay pipe by the fire, with a half pint of corn-juice in his hand, which served to moisten his own clay at intervals between every puff--'Pete, do you notice how I dropped the Redskin who put the poisoned arrow in my moccasin! Snakes, captin! the varmints lay thick as leaves behind the rocks; and, bless ye, the minit I let fall old Ginger from my jaw, up they springs, and lets fly their flint-headed arrers in amongst us, and one on 'em wiped me right through the leg. I tell yer what it is, hoss, I riled, I did, though we'd had tolerable luck in the forenoon;--for I dropped two and a squaw, and Pete got his good six--barrin' that the darned villains had hamstrung our mule, and we were bound to see the thing out. Well, captin, as I tell ye, I'm not weak in the jints, but it's no joke to hold the heft of twenty-three pounds on a sight for above ten minits on a stretch; so Pete and me scrouched down, made a little smoke with some sticks, and then we moved off, a few rods, whar we got a clar peep. For better than an hour we see'd nothin'; but on a suddin I see'd the chap--I know'd him by his paintin'--that driv the arrer in my hide: he was peerin' round quite bold, thinkin' we'd vamosed; I jist fetched old Ginger up and drawed a bee line on his cratch, and, stranger, I giv him sich a winch in the stomach that he dropped straight into his tracks: he did! In five jumps I riz his har, and Pete and me warn't troubled again for a week.'"