190 The Rough Riders 



or a building in which there were Spanish troops, 

 the shock was seemingly so great that the Spaniards 

 almost always showed themselves, and gave our 

 men a chance to do some execution. 



As the evening of the loth came on, the men 

 began to make their coffee in sheltered places. By 

 this time they knew how to take care of themselves 

 so well that not a man was touched by the Spaniards 

 during the second bombardment. While I was 

 lying with the officers just outside one of the bomb- 

 proofs I saw a New Mexican trooper named Mor- 

 rison making his coffee under the protection of a 

 traverse high up on the hill. Morrison was origi- 

 nally a Baptist preacher who had joined the regiment 

 purely from a sense of duty, leaving his wife and 

 children, and had shown himself to be an excellent 

 soldier. He had evidently exactly calculated the 

 danger zone, and found that by getting close to the 

 traverse he could sit up erect and make ready his 

 supper without being cramped. I watched him sol- 

 emnly pounding the coffee with the butt end of his 

 revolver, and then boiling the water and frying his 

 bacon, just as if he had been in the lee of the round- 

 up wagon somewhere out on the plains. 



By noon of next day, the nth, my regiment with 

 one of the Catlings was shifted over to the right 

 to guard the Caney road. We did no fighting in 

 our new position, for the last straggling shot had 



