troubled
dreams.

When next he awoke the sun was shining, and there was a confusion of
voices close at hand. He could not catch the drift of conversation;
but, as the tongue spoken was Spanish, he lay motionless and listened,
expecting each moment to be discovered by some straggler. For several
hours his unseen neighbors cooked, ate, smoked cigarettes, laughed, and
talked without suspecting his presence within a few yards of them;
while he, desperately hungry, cramped, and filled with impatience at
this aggravating detention, wondered if they were going to stay there
forever.

When, after what seemed an eternity of suspense, those who had
unwittingly kept him prisoner took their departure, the sun had passed
its meridian, and Ridge, parched with thirst, was suffering as much
from the breathless heat as he had with cold a few hours earlier. As
he cautiously approached the scene of the recent bivouac he found it to
be where a small stream crossed a narrow trail, and, after quenching
his thirst, he followed the latter in what he believed to be the
direction of Daiquiri. At any rate, it was the opposite one from that
taken by his recent unwelcome neighbors. Up hill and down the dim
trail led him, across streams and through dark ravines, but always
buried in dense foliage, through which he could gain no outlook.

After our young trooper had followed the devious course of this rough
pathway for several miles, he suddenly came to a halt, and stood
spellbound. From directly ahead of him came a burst of music swelling
grandly through the solemn stillness of the forest. A regimental band
was playing "The Star-spangled Banner," and never before had such
glorious notes been borne to his ears. Tears started to his eyes; but
without pausing to brush them away he dashed forward. A minute later
he stood on the brow of a declivity looking down upon the sea-coast
village of Siboney, which he instantly recognized, though its
transformation from what it was when he had last seen it was wonderful.
Then it had been a stronghold of Spanish troops. Now the
fortifications crowning its encircling hills, abandoned by those who
had erected them, stood empty and harmless; while in the village, and
on the narrow plain surrounding it, an advance-guard of the American
army was pitching its tents. Over a building on a hill-side opposite
to where Ridge stood, which he remembered as headquarters of the
Spanish Commandant, floated an Americ