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 enough to have it fitted. He needed the uniform. His clothes were rather thin for use seven thousand feet up in the mountains, and besides, what was a drummer boy without a uniform? Luckily he had gained a pair of shoes from the spoils captured at Cerro Gordo; and at Perote he would be full rigged, with sword, cap and all; and Dick Sykes, the drummer of Company B, had agreed to exchange companies with him.

General Worth was in a hurry. He moved the division early in the morning. About noon they saw Perote town, near at hand on the plain; and the great castle, detached from it, guarding the road and the Chest.

The column hastened, eager for action. The castle remained grim and silent. General Worth sent forward a staff officer to demand its surrender. The Mexican flag fluttered down. The staff officer returned. Perote had yielded.

General Worth established his headquarters in the town, but the camp was ordered upon the plain, near the castle, about a mile from the town. Colonel Vasquez, of the Mexican army, had been left here by General Santa Anna to turn the castle over to the Americans—and that seemed odd, for it contained fifty-four cannon (one of which had a bore of seventeen inches across), eleven thousand balls, fourteen thousand bombs and hand grenades, and five hundred muskets. It covered two acres; and when the men were permitted to inspect it they found that the walls were eight feet thick and sixty feet high, surrounded by a moat fifteen feet deep and seventy-five feet wide.

Nevertheless, the castle sat by itself on the plains;