“But about two hundred of 'em had stayed behind and enlisted at Monterey, havin' been given a bounty of six hundred dollars apiece and a promise of one hundred dollars a month in pay ef they'd fight fur Maximilian. The delegation that had rode out to meet us now were part and parcel of that two hundred. They seemed tickled to death to see us and they bragged about the money they were gittin', but ef you watched 'em kind of clos't you could tell, mighty easy, they weren't exactly overjoyed and carried away with enthusiasm over their present jobs. They told us in confidence that the French officers in their army were fine soldiers and done the best they could with the material they had, but that the rank and file were small potatoes and few in the hill. In fact, we gathered frum remarks let fall here and there that after servin' ez a Confederate fur a period of years and fightin' ag'inst husky fellers frum Indiana or Kansas or Michigan or somewheres up that way, bein' a soldier of fortune with the Imperials and fightin' ag'inst the Liberals was, comparatively speakin', a mighty tame pursuit--that you'd probably live longer so doin', but you wouldn't have anywheres near the excitement. On top of all that, though, they extended a cordial invitation to us to go on back to Monterey with 'em and enlist under the Maximilian government. “Some of our outfit seemed to sort of lean toward the proposition and some to sort of lean ag'inst it, without exactly statin' their reasons why and wherefore. But amongst us all there wasn't a man but whut relied mighty implicit on Billy Priest's judgment, and besides which, you've got to remember, son, that discipline had come to be a sort of an ingrained habit with us. We'd got used to lookin' to our leaders to show us the way and give us our orders and then we'd try to obey 'em, spite of hell and high water. That's the way it had been with us for four long years and that's the way it still was with us. So under the circumstances, with sentiment divided ez it was, we-all waited to see how Billy Priest felt, because ez I jest told you, we imposed a heap of confidence in his views on purty near any subject you mout mention. The final say-so bein' put up to him, he studied a little and then he said to the Missoury boys that hearin' frum them about the Confederacy havin' split up into pieces had injected a new and a different aspect into the case and in his belief it was a thing that needed thinkin' over and mebbe sleepin' on. Accordin'ly, ef it was all the same to them, he'd like to wait till next mornin' before comin' to a definite decision and he believed that in this his associates would concur with him. That was agreeable to the fellers that had brung us the invitation, or ef it wasn't they let on like it was anyhow, and so we left the matter standin' where it was without further argument on their part.