106 The Rough Riders 



to hum, "My Country 'Tis of Thee," and one by one 

 the others joined in the chorus, which swelled out 

 through the tropic woods, where the victors lay in 

 camp beside their dead. I did not see any sign 

 among the fighting men, whether wounded or un- 

 wounded, of the very complicated emotions as- 

 signed to their kind by some of the realistic modern 

 novelists who have written about battles. At the 

 front everyone behaved quite simply and took things 

 as they came, in a matter-of-course way; but there 

 was doubtless, as is always the case, a good deal of 

 panic and confusion in the rear where the wounded, 

 the stragglers, a few of the packers, and two or 

 three newspaper correspondents were, and in conse- 

 quence the first reports sent back to the coast were 

 of a most alarming character, describing, with mi- 

 nute inaccuracy, how we had run into an ambush, 

 etc. The packers with the mules which carried the 

 rapid-fire guns were among those who ran, and 

 they let the mules go in the jungle; in consequence 

 the guns were never even brought to the firing- 

 line, and only Fred Herrig's skill as a trailer enabled 

 us to recover them. By patient work he followed 

 up the mules' tracks in the forest until he found the 

 animals. 



Among the wounded who walked to the tem- 

 porary hospital at Siboney was the trooper, Row- 

 land, of whom I spoke before. There the doctors 



