ying to drive the Americans back. But
there was no heavy attack, and presently all became as quiet as before.

"They'll not give up yet," said one of the officers of the Rough Riders.
"They mean to retake this hill if they can."

Just at daybreak the Spaniards opened the attack on San Juan Hill once
more. Theodore Roosevelt was resting under a little tree when a shrapnel
shell burst close by, killing or wounding five men of the command. He at
once ordered the eight troops under him to a safer position, where the
Spanish battery and the sharpshooters could not locate them so readily.

If the fight had been hard, guarding the trenches was almost equally so.
The sun beat down fiercely, and the newly turned up earth made many of
the Rough Riders sick. Added to this, provisions were, as usual, slow in
arriving. Those in the trenches were kept there six hours, and then
relieved by the others who were farther to the rear.

"Running from the cover of brush to the trenches was no easy matter,"
says one Rough Rider who was there. "We had dug the trenches in a hurry,
and had no passages from the rear leading to them. All we could do was
to wait for a signal, and then rush, and when we did that, the Spaniards
would open a hot fire and keep it up for perhaps fifteen minutes. The
sun was enough to turn a man's brain, and more than one poor fellow
caught a fever there that proved fatal to him."

Through the entire day the firing continued, but no advances were made
upon either side. The Americans were waiting for reinforcements, and the
Spaniards were doing likewise. On our side a dynamite gun and two Colt's
guns were used, but with little success. But the Gatling guns proved
very effective, and caused a great loss to the enemy.

The city of Santiago lies on the northeast coast of a large bay of the
same name. This bay is shaped somewhat like a bottle, with a long neck
joining it to the Caribbean Sea.

In the harbor, at the time of the battles just described, the Spaniards
had a fleet of war-ships under the command of Admiral Cervera, an old
and able naval commander. In the fleet were four large cruisers and two
torpedo-boats. Three of the cruisers were of seven thousand tons burden
each, and all could make from eighteen to nineteen knots an hour. Each
carried a crew of about five hundred men, and all were well supplied
with guns and ammunition.

To keep this fleet "bottled up," our own navy had a fleet of its own
just outside