They were exhausted with the strain of excitement and their tremendous exertions under the pitiless tropical sun.

Strong men who had fought with tireless energy all at once found themselves trembling with weakness, and the entire command welcomed the order to make camp on the grassy banks of a clear stream shaded by great trees.
In their baptism of fire eight of the Riders had been killed outright, thirty-four more were seriously wounded, and fully half of the remainder could show the scars of grazing bullets or tiny clean-cut holes through their clothing, telling of escapes from death by the fraction of an inch.

Ridge Norris, for instance, found a livid welt across his chest, looking as though traced by a live coal, and marking the course of a bullet that, with a hair's deflection, would have ended his life, while Rollo Van Kyp's hat seemed to have been an especial target for Spanish rifles.
After regaining their breath, and receiving assurance that the enemy had retreated beyond their present reach, these two, in company with many others, went back over the battle-field to look up the wounded, and bring forward the packs flung aside at the beginning of the fight.
At sunset that evening the Riders buried their dead, in a long single grave lined with palm-leaves, on a breezy hill-side overlooking the scene of their victory.

The laying to rest of these comrades, who only a few hours before, had been so full of life with all its hopes and ambitions, was the most impressive ceremony in which any of the survivors had ever engaged.

It strengthened their loyalty and devotion to each other and to their cause as nothing else could have done, and as the entire command gathered close about the open grave to sing "Nearer my God to Thee," many a voice was choked with feelings too solemn for expression, and many a sun-tanned cheek was wet with tears.
The camp of the Rough Riders was very quiet that night, and the events of the day just closed were discussed in low tones, as though in fear of awakening the sleepers on the near-by hill-side.
After the fight of Las Guasimas, its heroes rested and waited for six days, while the remainder of the army effected its landing and made its slow way to the position they had won over the narrow trails they had cleared.