r, who was
simply a malingerer and had nothing the matter with him whatever, of
course recovered; the third was Tiffany, who, I believe, would have
lived had we been allowed to take him with us, but who was sent home
later and died soon after landing.

I was very anxious to keep the men amused, and as the quarters were
so crowded that it was out of the question for them to have any
physical exercise, I did not interfere with their playing games of
chance so long as no disorder followed. On shore this was not allowed;
but in the particular emergency which we were meeting, the loss of a
month's salary was as nothing compared to keeping the men thoroughly
interested and diverted.

By care and diligence we succeeded in preventing any serious
sickness. One man died, however. He had been suffering from dysentery
ever since we landed, owing purely to his own fault, for on the very
first night ashore he obtained a lot of fiery liquor from some of the
Cubans, got very drunk, and had to march next day through the hot sun
before he was entirely sober. He never recovered, and was useless from
that time on. On board ship he died, and we gave him sea burial.
Wrapped in a hammock, he was placed opposite a port, and the American
flag thrown over him. The engine was stilled, and the great ship
rocked on the waves unshaken by the screw, while the war-worn troopers
clustered around with bare heads, to listen to Chaplain Brown read the
funeral service, and to the band of the Third Cavalry as it played the
funeral dirge. Then the port was knocked free, the flag withdrawn, and
the shotted hammock plunged heavily over the side, rushing down
through the dark water to lie, till the Judgment Day, in the ooze that
holds the timbers of so many gallant ships, and the bones of so many
fearless adventurers.

We were favored by good weather during our nine days' voyage, and
much of the time when there was little to do we simply sat together
and talked, each man contributing from the fund of his own
experiences. Voyages around Cape Horn, yacht races for the America's
cup, experiences on foot-ball teams which are famous in the annals of
college sport; more serious feats of desperate prowess in Indian
fighting and in breaking up gangs of white outlaws; adventures in
hunting big game, in breaking wild horses, in tending great herds of
cattle, and in wandering winter and summer among the mountains and
across the lonely plains--the men who told the tale