the broiling sun. We had had to ford some pretty muddy streams, and all of us were water and mud up to our knees. But everybody was as enthusiastic to fight as ever."
At sunrise the battle opened at El Caney, and the Rough Riders could hear the booming of cannon. At once all was activity, and the men prepared to move ahead at a moment's notice.
Acting Colonel Roosevelt was with Colonel Wood at the time, and both were listening to the roar of the artillery.
"I wish we could move—" began Colonel Wood, when, of a sudden, both he and Theodore Roosevelt heard a strange humming sound in the air. Then came the explosion of a shrapnel shell over their heads, and both leaped to their feet.
"This is getting warm!" cried Theodore Roosevelt, and ran toward his horse, when boom! came another explosion, and one of the bullets fell upon his wrist, making, as he himself says, "a bump about as big as a hickory nut." This same shell, he adds, wounded four of the men under him and two or three regulars, one of whom lost his
