those left behind, waving their handkerchiefs and shouting words of
farewell, felt their eyes fill with sudden tears. Until this moment
the war had been merely a subject for careless discussion, a thing
remote from them and only affecting far-away people. Now it was real
and terrible. Their nearest and dearest was concerned in it. They had
witnessed the going of those who might never return. From that moment
it was their war.

On Thursday, June 2d, with their long, dusty journey ended, the last of
the Rough Riders reached Tampa, hot and weary, but in good spirits, and
eager to be sent at once to the front. They found 25,000 troops,
cavalry, infantry, and artillery, most of them regulars, already
encamped in the sandy pine barrens surrounding the little city, and
took their place among them.

At Port Tampa, nine miles away, lay the fleet of transports provided to
carry them to Cuba. Here they had lain for many days. Here the army
had waited for weeks, sweltering in the pitiless heat, suffering the
discomforts of a campaign without its stimulant of excitement,
impatient of delay, and sick with repeated disappointments. The
regulars were ready for service; the volunteers thought they were, but
knew better a few weeks later. Time and again orders for embarkation
were received, only to be revoked upon rumors of ghostly warships
reported off some distant portion of the coast. Spain was playing her
old game of _mañana_ at the expense of the Americans, and inducing her
powerful enemy to refrain from striking a blow by means of terrifying
rumors skilfully circulated through the so-called "yellow journals" of
the great American cities, which readily published any falsehood that
provided a sensation. At length, however, the last bogie appeared to
be laid, and one week after the Riders reached Tampa a rumor of an