"If you officers go in," they cried, "the General can't blame us,"
and they dug their spurs into the ponies.

"Wait!" shouted Her Majesty's representative. "That's all very well
for you chaps, but what protects me if the Admiralty finds out I have
led a charge on a Spanish garrison?"

But Paget's pony refused to consider the feelings of the Lords of the
Admiralty. As successfully Paget might have tried to pull back a
row-boat from the edge of Niagara. And, moreover, Millard, in order
that Jimmy might be the first to reach Ponce with despatches, had
mounted him on the fastest pony in the bunch, and he already was far
in the lead. His sporting instincts, nursed in the pool-rooms of the
Tenderloin and at Guttenburg, had sent him three lengths to the good.
It never would do to have a newsboy tell in New York that he had
beaten the correspondents of the papers he sold in the streets; nor
to permit commissioned officers to take the dust of one who never
before had ridden on anything but a cable car. So we all raced
forward and, bunched together, swept into the main street of Coamo.
It was gratefully empty. There were no American soldiers, but, then,
neither were there any Spanish soldiers. Across the street stretched
more rifle-pits and barricades of iron pipes, but in sight there was
neither friend nor foe. On the stones of the deserted street the
galloping hoofs sounded like the advance of a whole regiment of
cavalry. Their clatter gave us a most comfortable feeling. We
almost could imagine the townspeople believing us to be the Rough
Riders themselves and fleeing before us.

And then, the empty street seemed to threaten an ambush. We thought
hastily of sunken mines, of soldiers crouching behind the barriers,