"Now make it three times three for old Rough and Ready!" cried Phil in his enthusiasm, and they did it with zeal and powerful vocal organs. Middleton smiled and walked on. Immediately everything was haste and excitement. The men began to pack. Arms and ammunition were made ready for the march. Youth looked forward only to victory, thinking little of the risks and dangers. Breakstone smiled to himself and said under his breath the words: "We would not seek a battle as we are, Nor as we are, we say we will not shun it. So tell your master. "Old Rough and Ready perhaps does not seek a battle, but he is willing to go forward and meet it. Ah! these brave boys! these brave boys!" Then he turned to Phil and Arenberg, who were among his tent-mates. "We three must stick together through everything," he said. "We’ve lost Middleton for the time, because he’s got to return to his duties as an officer." "What you say iss good," said Arenberg. "It’s a bargain," said Phil. They looked to the horses--they were in the cavalry--and at midnight went to sleep. But they were up before dawn, still full of energy and enthusiasm. As the sun cast its first rays on the cold peaks of the Sierra Madre, they mounted, fully armed and equipped, and marched out of Saltillo, although Taylor left a strong guard in the city, wishing to preserve it as a base. Phil rode knee to knee with Arenberg and Breakstone, and the thrill that he had felt the night before, when Middleton told the news, he felt again this morning. Horse, foot, and artillery, they were only between four and five thousand men, but the whole seemed a great army to the boy. He had never seen so many men under arms before. Breakstone saw his eye kindling. "They are stained by travel and tanned by weather, but it’s fine crowd, just as you think it is, Sir Philip of Saltillo. Don’t you agree with me, Hans, Duke of the Sierra Madre?" "It can fight," said Arenberg briefly. "And that’s what it has come out to do." Phil saw the people of Saltillo watching them as the army left the suburbs and moved on toward the mountains. But the spectators seemed to be silent. Even the children had little to say. Phil wondered what they thought in their hearts. He did not doubt that most of them were sure that this army, or what was left of it, would come back prisoners of Santa Anna. He was glad when they left them behind, and henceforth he looked toward the mountains, which upreared cold peaks in the chilly sunshine of winter. But the air was dazzlingly clear and crisp. Pure and fresh, it filled all on that high plateau with life, and Phil’s mood was one that expected only the best. "We are not going to ride straight over those mountains, are we?" he said to Bill Breakstone.