He answered nothing, but ran on. Suddenly and terribly the monstrous crash and scream of shrapnel burst from the turmoil ahead. The enemy’s artillery! Mechanically I listened for our guns. Except for an occasional boom they were silent. Our home-made shells were failing again. Two more shrapnel shells. Out of the dust-cloud men came running back—singly, in pairs, in groups, a stampeding mob. They fell over us, around us—drowned us in a human flood, shouting "To the alamos! To the trains! The Federation is coming!" We struggled up among them and ran, too, straight up the railroad track.... Behind us roared the shells searching in the dust, and the tearing musketry. And then we noticed that all the wide roadway ahead was filled with galloping horsemen, yelling shrill Indian cries and waving their rifles—the main column! We stood to one side as they whirled past, about five hundred of them—watched them stoop in their saddles and begin to shoot. The drumming of their horses’ hoofs was like thunder.
"Better not go in there! It’s too hot!" cried one of the infantry with a grin.
"Well, I’ll bet I’m hotter," answered a horseman, and we all laughed. We walked tranquilly back along the railroad track, while the firing behind wound up to a continuous roar. A group of peons—_pacificos_—in tall sombreros, blankets and white cotton blouses, stood along here with folded arms, looking down the track toward town.
"Look out there, friends," joshed a soldier. "Don’t stand there. You’ll get hit."
The peons looked at each other and grinned feebly. "But, señor," said one, "this is where we always stand when there is a battle."
A little farther along I came upon an officer—a German—wandering along, leading his horse by the bridle. "I cannot ride him any more," he said to me earnestly. "He is quite too tired. I am afraid he will die if he does not sleep." The horse, a big chestnut stallion, stumbled and swayed as he walked. Enormous tears trickled from his half-shut eyes and rolled down his nose....
I was dead tired, reeling from lack of sleep and food and the terrible heat of the sun. About half a mile out I looked back and saw the enemy’s shrapnel poking into the line of trees more frequently than ever. They seemed to have thoroughly got the range. And just then I saw the gray line of guns, limbered to their mules, begin to crawl out from the trees toward the rear at four or five different points. Our artillery had been shelled out of their positions.... I threw myself down to rest in the shade of a big mesquite bush.