Thar's thirty-eight hundred bold and buoyant sperits rides outen Austin on these military experiments we plans, an' as evincin' the luck we has, I need only to p'int out that nine months later we returns with a scant eight hundred.

Three thousand of 'em killed, wounded an' missin' shows that efforts to list the trip onder the head of "picnics" would be irony.
"'Comin', as we-all does, from one thousand miles away, thar ain't one of us who saveys, practical, as much about the sand-blown desert regions we invades as we does of what goes on in the moon.

That Gen'ral Canby, who later gets downed by the Modocs, is on the Rio Grande at Fort Craig.

While we're pirootin' about in a blind sort o' fashion we ropes up one of Canby's couriers who's p'intin' no'th for Fort Union with despatches.

This Gen'ral Canby makes the followin' facetious alloosion: After mentionin' our oninvited presence in the territory, he says: "'"But let 'em alone.