Page:Into Mexico with General Scott (1920).djvu/169

 *call, Jerry boldly appeared to answer the drum-*major's inspection. Not much of a figure he cut, either, in his rags, and he had no little fun poked at him; but he stuck and kept his place when the drums and fifes formed at the head of the regiment for the march.

It was a fine morning. General Scott had ridden on, with an escort, to make his headquarters at Jalapa, sixteen miles beyond the pass. The road was all littered with the spoils of war. The fleeing Mexicans had thrown away everything: guns and overcoats and cartridge boxes, knapsacks and haversacks. And soon worse signs of battle were to be noted. Bodies of Mexican soldiers, cold and bloody, became thicker and thicker. The dragoons had spurred along here, hot in pursuit of the enemy. The skulls of most of the dead men had been split asunder by sabers. The bodies were mainly those of Mexican lancers who had tried to cover the retreat; but evidently the lancers had been no match for the Second Dragoons led by Major Ben Beall, and Captain Phil Kearny's one company of the First.

The bodies lay in the road and upon both sides all the way to Encerro, eight miles. The majority of the dragoon horses had given out here; but from Encerro (which was General Santa Anna's country-*place—or one of several such places) to Jalapa there were still a few bodies, for some of the dragoons had kept on through the whole sixteen miles.

The road climbed. It was a paved road, broken into holes by the rains. Beyond Encerro the country grew much better. More mountains loomed before, huge and blue. As the road wound upward, there