to ordinary camp duties, believing their
first serious work would be begun by an attack on Guantanamo.

_June 11._ It was three o'clock on Saturday afternoon; Colonel
Huntington's marines were disposed about the camp according to duty or
fancy; some were bathing, and a detail was engaged in the work of carrying
water. Suddenly the sharp report of a musket was heard, followed by
another and another until the rattle of firearms told that a skirmish of
considerable importance was in progress on the picket-line.

The principal portion of the enemy's fire appeared to come from a small
island about a thousand yards away, and a squad of men was detailed with a
3-inch field-gun to look out for the enemy in this direction, while the
main force defended the camp.

After perhaps an hour had passed, during which time the boys of '98 were
virtually firing at random, the men on the picket-line fell back on the
camp. Two of their number were missing. The battalion was formed on three
sides of a hollow square, and stood ready to resist an attack which was
not to be made until considerably later.

The firing ceased as abruptly as it had begun. Skirmishers were sent out
and failed to find anything save a broad trail, marked here and there by
blood, which came to an end at the water's edge.

There were no longer detonations to be heard from the island. The 3-inch
gun had been well served.

The skirmishers which had been sent out returned, bearing the bodies of
two boys in blue who had been killed by the first shots, and, after death,
mutilated by blows from Spanish machetes.

Night came; heavy clouds hung low in the sky; the force of the wind had
increased almost to a gale; below in the bay the war-ships were anchored,
their search-lights streaming out here and there like ribbons of gold on a
pall of black velvet.

No signs of the enemy on land or sea, and, save for those two cold,
lifeless forms on the heights, one might have believed the previous rattle
of musketry had been heard only by the imagination.

Until nine o'clock in the evening the occupants of the camp kept careful
watch, and then without warning, as before, the crack of repeating rifles
broke the almost painful stillness.

[Illustration: U. S. S. MARBLEHEAD.]

The enemy was making his presence known once more, and this time it became
evident he was in larger force.

Another 3-inch gun was brought into play; a launch from the _Marblehead_,
with a Colt machine