The first shot!

"Ready!"

Even with the cry at El Poso came another sullen, low boom and another
aggressive roar from Caney: then a great crackling in the air, as though
thousands of schoolboys were letting off fire-crackers, pack after pack.

"Fire!"

Every ear heard, every eye saw the sudden white mist at a gun-muzzle and
followed that first shell screaming toward the little Christmas toy
sitting in the sun on that distant little hill. And yet it was nothing.
Another and yet another mass of shrapnel went screaming, and still there
was no response, no sign. It was nothing--nothing at all. Was the
Spaniard asleep?

Crittenden could see attaché, correspondent, aid, staff-officer,
non-combatant, sight-seer crowding close about the guns--so close that
the gunners could hardly work. He could almost hear them saying, one to
another:

"Why, is this war--really war? Why, this isn't so bad."

Twanged just then a bow-string in the direction of San Juan hill, and
the twang seemed to be getting louder and to be coming toward the little
blue farm-house. No cannon was in sight; there was no smoke visible, and
many, with an upward look, wondered what the queer sound could be.
Suddenly there was a screeching, crackling answer in the air; the