themselves shut in between two fires. It seems to be a good plan, and
I have agreed to it. The cattle-path to the town is much too rough for
our guns, so Captain Heinze and the gun detail will remain here and
co-operate with General Garcia. Let your men get all the sleep they
can now. They must march again at midnight. They will carry nothing
but their guns and ammunition and rations for one meal. If everything
goes as we expect, we will breakfast in Santa Barbara."

I like to remember the happiness I got out of the excitement of that
moment. I lived at the rate of an hour a minute, and I was as upset
from pure delight as though I had been in a funk of abject terror. And
I was scared in a way, too, for whenever I remembered I knew nothing
of actual fighting, and of what chances there were to make mistakes, I
shivered down to my heels. But I would not let myself think of
thechances to make a failure, but rather of the opportunities of doing
something distinguished and of making myself conspicuous. I laughed
when I thought of my classmates at the Point with their eyes bent on a
book of tactics, while here was I, within three hours of a real
battle, of the most exciting of all engagements, an attack upon a
city. A full year, perhaps many years, would pass before they would
get the chance to hear a hostile shot, the shot fired in anger, which
every soldier must first hear before he can enter upon his
inheritance, and hold his own in the talk of the mess-table. I felt
almost sorry for them when I thought how they would envy me when they
read of the fight in the newspapers. I decided it would be called the
battle of Santa Barbara, and I imagined how it would look in the head-
lines. I was even generous enough to wish that three or four of the
cadets were with me; that is, of course, under me, so that they could
tell afterward how well I had led them.