They could not advance, and dared not retreat, having been caught in a sunken place in the road, with a barbed-wire fence on one side and a precipitous hill on the other.

They held their ground, but could do no more.

The Spanish poured volley after volley into their ranks.

At the moment when it looked as if the whole regiment would be swept down by the steel-jacketed bullets from the Mausers, four troops of the 10th U.S.Cavalry (colored) came up on "double time." Little thought the Spaniards that these "smoked yankees" were so formidable.

Perhaps they thought to stop those black boys by their relentless fire, but those boys knew no stop.