and chapparal. On the other side of the trail there was not a foot
of free ground; the bushes seemed absolutely impenetrable, as indeed
they were later found to be.

When we halted, the men sat down beside the trail and chewed the long
blades of grass, or fanned the air with their hats. They had no
knowledge of the situation such as their leaders possessed, and their
only emotion was one of satisfaction at the chance the halt gave them
to rest and to shift their packs. Wood again walked down the trail
with Capron and disappeared, and one of the officers informed us that
the scouts had seen the outposts of the enemy. It did not seem
reasonable that the Spaniards, who had failed to attack us when we
landed at Baiquiri, would oppose us until they could do so in force,
so, personally, I doubted that there were any Spaniards nearer than
Santiago. But we tied our horses to the wire fence, and Capron's
troop knelt with carbines at the "Ready," peering into the bushes.
We must have waited there, while Wood reconnoitred, for over ten
minutes. Then he returned, and began deploying his troops out at
either side of the trail. Capron he sent on down the trail itself.
G Troop was ordered to beat into the bushes on the right, and K and A
were sent over the ridge on which we stood down into the hollow to
connect with General Young's column on the opposite side of the
valley. F and E Troops were deployed in skirmish-line on the other
side of the wire fence. Wood had discovered the enemy a few hundred
yards from where he expected to find him, and so far from being
"surprised," he had time, as I have just described, to get five of
his troops into position before a shot was fired. The firing, when
it came, started suddenly on our right. It sounded so close that--
still believing we were acting on a false alarm, and that there were
no Spaniards ahead of us--I guessed it was Capron's men firing at