d,
and began deploying his troops out at either side of the trail. Capron
he sent on down the trail itself. G Troop was ordered to beat into the
bushes on the right, and K and A were sent over the ridge on which we
stood down into the hollow to connect with General Young's column on the
opposite side of the valley. F and E Troops were deployed in
skirmish-line on the other side of the wire fence. Wood had discovered
the enemy a few hundred yards from where he expected to find him, and so
far from being "surprised," he had time, as I have just described, to get
five of his troops into position before a shot was fired. The firing,
when it came, started suddenly on our right. It sounded so close
that--still believing we were acting on a false alarm, and that there
were no Spaniards ahead of us--I guessed it was Capron's men firing at
random to disclose the enemy's position. I ran after G Troop under
Captain Llewellyn, and found them breaking their way through the bushes
in the direction from which the volleys came. It was like forcing the
walls of a maze. If each trooper had not kept in touch with the man on
either hand he would have been lost in the thicket. At one moment the
underbrush seemed swarming with our men, and the next, except that you
heard the twigs breaking, and heavy breathing or a crash as a vine pulled
some one down, there was not a sign of a human being anywhere. In a few
minutes we broke through into a little open place in front of a dark
curtain of vines, and the men fell on one knee and began returning the
fire that came from it.

The enemy's fire was exceedingly heavy, and his aim was excellent. We
saw nothing of the Spaniards, except a few on the ridge across the
valley. I happened to be the only one present with field glasses, and
when I discovered this force on the ridge, and had made sure, by the
cockades in their sombreros, that they were Spaniards and not Cubans, I
showed them to Roosevelt. He calculated they were five hundred yards
from us, and ordered the men to fire on them at that range. Through the
two hours of fighting that followed, although men were falling all around
us, the Spaniards on the ridge were the only ones that many of us saw.
But the fire against us was not more than eighty yards away, and so hot
that our men could only lie flat in the grass and return it in that
position. It was at this moment that our men believed they were being
attacked by Capron's troop,