so little protection, and swept across
the open towards the deadly intrenchments crowning the main ridge of
San Juan Heights. There was no order for this glorious charge. The
commanding generals had not even contemplated such a bit of splendid
but reckless daring. Even now, so hopeless did it seem, they would
have stopped it if they could; but they might as well have tried to
arrest the rush of an avalanche by wishing. It was a voluntary
movement of men goaded beyond further endurance by suffering and
suspense. As one of the foreign military spectators afterwards said,
"It was a grand popular uprising, and, like most such, it proved
successful."

The Rough Riders and the negro troopers who charged with them had no
bayonets, and did but little firing until more than half-way up the
hill they had undertaken to capture. With carbines held across their
breasts, they simply moved steadily forward without a halt or a
backward glance. Behind them the slope was dotted with their dead and.
wounded, but the survivors took no heed of their depleted ranks.
Roosevelt, with the silken cavalry banner fluttering beside him, led
the way, and there was no man who would not follow him to the death.

Half-way up the hill-side Ridge Norris pitched headlong to the ground,
and some one said: "Poor fellow! News of his promotion came just in
time." As the young Lieutenant fell, another officer, cheering on his
men immediately behind him, also dropped, pierced with bullets. The
sword that he had been waving was flung far in advance, and as Ridge,
who had only stumbled over an unnoticed mound of earth, regained his
feet unharmed, he saw it lying in front of him and picked it up. He
was entitled to carry a sword now, and here was one to his hand.

The Spaniards could not believe that these few men, frantically
climbing that bullet-swept hill-side, would ever gain the crest. So
they doggedly held their position, firing with the regularity of
machines, and expecting with each moment to see the American ranks melt
away or break in precipitate night. They did melt away in part, but
not wholly, and their only flight was a very slow one that bore them
steadily upward.

Just under the brow of the hill they paused for a long breath, and then
leaped forward in a fierce final rush. Over the rifle-pits they
poured, tearing down the barbed-wire barricades with their bare hands,
and making a dash for the block-house. Already the dismayed Spa