"Do you think you can carry me?" the trooper asked.
"Yes."
"Well," exclaimed the boy admiringly, "you certainly know your
business!"
Another of the Rough Riders was brought to the dressing station with
a shattered ankle, and Church, after bandaging it, gave him his
choice of riding down to Siboney on a mule, or of being carried, a
day later, on a litter.
"If you think you can manage to ride the mule with that broken foot,"
he said, "you can start at once, but if you wait until to-morrow,
when I can spare the men, you can be carried all the way."
The cowboy preferred to start at once, so six hospital stewards
lifted him and dropped him on the mule, and into a huge Mexican
saddle.
He stuck his wounded ankle into one stirrup, and his untouched one
into the other, and gathered up the reins.
"Does it pain you? Can you stand it?" Church asked anxiously. The
cowboy turned and smiled down upon him with amused disdain.
"Stand THIS?" he cried. "Why, this is just like getting money from
home."
Toward the last, the firing from the enemy sounded less near, and the
bullets passed much higher. Roosevelt, who had picked up a carbine
and was firing to give the direction to the others, determined upon a
charge. Wood, at the other end of the line, decided at the same time
upon the same manoeuvre. It was called "Wood's bluff" afterward, for
he had nothing to back it with; while to the enemy it looked as
though his whole force was but the skirmish-line in advance of a
regiment. The Spaniards naturally could not believe that this thin
line which suddenly broke out of the bushes and from behind trees and
came cheering out into the hot sunlight was the entire fighting force
against it. They supposed the regiment was coming close on its
heels, and as Spanish troops hate being rushed as a cat hates water,
they fired a few parting volleys and broke and ran. The cheering had
the same invigorating effect on our own side as a cold shower; it was
what first told half the men where the other half were, and it made
every individual man feel better. As we knew it was only a bluff,
the first cheer was wavering, but the sound of our own voices was so
comforting that the second cheer was a howl of triumph.
As it was, the Spaniards thought the Rough Riders had already
disregarded all the rules of war.
"When we fired a volley," one of the prisoners said later, "instead
of falling back they came forward. That is not the way to fight, to
come closer at every volley." And so, when instead of retreating on
each volley, the Rough Riders rushed at them, cheering and filling
the hot air with wild cowboy yells, the dismayed enemy retreated upon
Santiago, where he announced he had been attacked by the entire
American army.
