n to
him and cheer and laugh. Soon we got the troopers in hand, and made
them cease firing; then, after awhile, the Spanish fire died down. At
the time we spoke of this as a night attack by the Spaniards, but it
really was not an attack at all. Ever after my men had a great regard
for Ayres, and would have followed him anywhere. I shall never forget
the way in which he scolded his huge, devoted black troopers,
generally ending with "I'm ashamed of you, ashamed of you! I wouldn't
have believed it! Firing; when I told you to stop! I'm ashamed of
you!"

That night we spent in perfecting the trenches and arranging
entrances to them, doing about as much work as we had the preceding
night. Greenway and Goodrich, from their energy, eagerness to do every
duty, and great physical strength, were peculiarly useful in this
work; as, indeed, they were in all work. They had been up practically
the entire preceding night, but they were too good men for me to spare
them, nor did they wish to be spared; and I kept them up all this
night too. Goodrich had also been on guard as officer of the day the
night we were at El Poso, so that it turned out that he spent nearly
four days and three nights with practically hardly any sleep at all.

Next morning, at daybreak, the firing began again. This day, the 3rd,
we suffered nothing, save having one man wounded by a sharp-shooter,
and, thanks to the approaches to the trenches, we were able to relieve
the guards without any difficulty. The Spanish sharp-shooters in the
trees and jungle nearby, however, annoyed us very much, and I made
preparations to fix them next day. With this end in view I chose out
some twenty first-class men, in many instances the same that I had
sent after the guerillas, and arranged that each should take his
canteen and a little food. They were to slip into the jungle between
us and the Spanish lines before dawn next morning, and there to spend
the day, getting as close to the Spanish lines as possible, moving
about with great stealth, and picking off any hostile sharp-shooter,
as well as any soldier who exposed himself in the trenches. I had
plenty of men who possessed a training in woodcraft that fitted them
for this work; and as soon as the rumor got abroad what I was
planning, volunteers thronged to me. Daniels and Love were two of the
men always to the front in any enterprise of this nature; so were
Wadsworth, the two Bulls, Fortescue, and Cowdin. But I could not beg