behind trees.  Richard Harding Davis was with us, and as we scanned the landscape with our glasses it was he who first pointed out to us some Spaniards in a trench some three-quarters of a mile off.  It was difficult to make them out.  There were not many of them.  However, we finally did make them out, and we could see their conical hats, for the trench was a poor one.  We advanced, firing at them, and drove them off.

What to do then I had not an idea.  The country in front fell away into a very difficult jungle-filled valley.  There was nothing but jungle all around, and if I advanced I was afraid I might get out of touch with everybody and not be going in the right direction.  Moreover, as far as I could see, there was now nobody in front who was shooting at us, although some of the men on my left insisted that our own men had fired into us—­an allegation which I soon found was almost always made in such a fight, and which in this case was not true.  At this moment some of the regulars appeared across the ravine on our right.  The first thing they did was to fire a volley at us, but one of our first sergeants went up a tree and waved a guidon at them and they stopped.  Firing was still going on to our left, however, and I was never more puzzled to know what to do.  I did not wish to take my men out of their position without orders, for fear that I might thereby be leaving a gap if there was a Spanish force which meditated an offensive return.  On the other hand, it did not seem to me that I had been doing enough fighting to justify my existence, and there was obviously fighting going on to the left.  I remember that I kept thinking of the refrain of the fox-hunting song, “Here’s to every friend who struggled to the end”; in the hunting field I had always acted on this theory, and, no matter how discouraging appearances might be, had never stopped trying to get in at the death until the hunt was actually over; and now that there was work, and not play, on hand, I intended to struggle as hard as I knew how not to be left out of any fighting into which I could, with any possible propriety, get.

So I left my men where they were and started off at a trot toward where the firing was, with a couple of orderlies to send back for the men in case that proved advisable.  Like most tyros, I was wearing my sword, which in thick jungle now and then got between my legs—­from that day on it always went corded in the baggage.  I struck the trail, and began to pass occasional dead men.  Pretty soon I reached Wood and found, much to my pleasure, that I had done the right thing, for as I came up word was brought to him that Brodie had been shot, and he at once sent me to take charge of the left wing.  It was more open country here, and at least I was able to get a glimpse of my own men and exercise some control over them.  There was much firing going on, but for the life of me I could not see any Spaniards, and neither could any one else.  Finally we made up our minds that they were shooting at us from a set of red-tiled ranch buildings a good way in front, and these I assaulted, finally charging them.  Before we came anywhere near, the Spaniards, who, as it proved, really were inside and around them, abandoned them, leaving a few dead men.