Ten days after the battle of Vittoria, Napoleon despatched Soult, one of the best of his generals, to displace Joseph and assume the supreme command of the French troops. Traveling with great speed, he reached the frontier upon the 11th of July and took command. He soon collected together the divisions which had retired beaten but not routed from Vittoria, drew together the troops from Bayonne and the surrounding towns, and in a few days found himself at the head of an army, including the garrisons, of 114,000 men. Besides these there were the armies of Aragon and Catalonia, numbering 60,000 men. After spending a few days in organizing the army, Soult moved forward to relieve Pampeluna, and then in the heart of the Pyrenees were fought those desperate combats at Maya, Roncevalles, Buenza, Sauroren, and Dona Maria, which are known in history as the battles of the Pyrenees. In these terrible nine days' fighting there were ten serious combats, in which the allies lost 7300 men, the French, including prisoners, over 15,000, and Soult fell back baffled and beaten across the frontier. Throughout this account of the short and sanguinary campaign by which in two short months Wellington shattered the power of the French and drove them headlong from the Peninsula, but little has been said respecting the doings of the Scudamores. Their duties had been heavy, but devoid of any personal achievements or events. Wellington, the incarnation of activity himself, spared no one around him, and from early dawn until late at night they were on horseback, carrying orders and bringing back reports. At night their quarters were sometimes in a village hut, sometimes in a straggling chateau, which afforded accommodation to the commander-in-chief and his whole staff. Sam, a good horseman now, was in the highest of spirits at being able to accompany his masters, and, although the Spanish women crossed themselves in horror when they first saw his black face, the boys would hear shouts of laughter arising before they had been a quarter of an hour in fresh quarters. He was a capital cook, and a wonderful hand at hunting up provisions. There might not be a sign of a feathered creature in a village when the staff came in, but in half an hour Sam would be sure to return from foraging with a couple of fowls and his handkerchief full of eggs. These were, of course, paid for, as the orders against pillaging were of the strictest character, and the army paid, and paid handsomely for everything it ate.