es before we got to them; and their bodies were mangled, the
eyes and wounds being torn.

The Rough Rider who had been thus treated was in Bucky O'Neill's
troop; and as we looked at the body, O'Neill turned to me and asked,
"Colonel, isn't it Whitman who says of the vultures that 'they pluck
the eyes of princes and tear the flesh of kings'?" I answered that I
could not place the quotation. Just a week afterward we were shielding
his own body from the birds of prey.

One of the men who fired first, and who displayed conspicuous
gallantry was a Cherokee half-breed, who was hit seven times, and of
course had to go back to the States. Before he rejoined us at Montauk
Point he had gone through a little private war of his own; for on his
return he found that a cowboy had gone off with his sweetheart, and
in the fight that ensued he shot his rival. Another man of L Troop who
also showed marked gallantry was Elliot Cowdin. The men of the plains
and mountains were trained by life-long habit to look on life and
death with iron philosophy. As I passed by a couple of tall, lank,
Oklahoma cow-punchers, I heard one say, "Well, some of the boys got it
in the neck!" to which the other answered with the grim plains proverb
of the South: "Many a good horse dies."

Thomas Isbell, a half-breed Cherokee in the squad under Hamilton
Fish, was among the first to shoot and be shot at. He was wounded no
less than seven times. The first wound was received by him two minutes
after he had fired his first shot, the bullet going through his neck.
The second hit him in the left thumb. The third struck near his right
hip, passing entirely through the body. The fourth bullet (which was
apparently from a Remington and not from a Mauser) went into his neck
and lodged against the bone, being afterward cut out. The fifth bullet
again hit his left hand. The sixth scraped his head and the seventh
his neck. He did not receive all of the wounds at the same time, over
half an hour elapsing between the first and the last. Up to receiving
the last wound he had declined to leave the firing-line, but by that
time he had lost so much blood that he had to be sent to the rear. The
man's wiry toughness was as notable as his courage.

We improvised litters, and carried the more sorely wounded back to
Siboney that afternoon and the next morning; the others walked. One of
the men who had been most severely wounded was Edward Marshall, the
correspondent, and he showed a