The fires burned, the gruel steamed and boiled--bucket after bucket went out--until those eight hundred men had each a cup of gruel and knew that he could have another and as many as he wanted. The day waned, the darkness came, and still the men were unsheltered, uncovered, naked, and wet--scarcely a groan, no word of complaint--no man said he was not well treated. The operating-tables were full of the wounded. Man after man was taken off, brought on his litter and laid beside other men, and something given him to keep the little life in his body that seemed fast oozing out. All night it went on. It grew cold--for naked men bitter cold--before morning. We had no blankets, nothing to cover them, only the strips of cotton cloth. Early in the morning ambulances started, and such of the wounded as could be loaded in were taken to be carried back over that rough, pitiless road, down to Siboney, to the hospitals there--that we had done the best we could toward fitting up--where our hundred cots, hundred and fifty blankets had gone, cups, spoons, and delicacies, that would help to strengthen these poor, fainting men, if they could get there, and where also the Sisters would care for them. They brought man after man, stretcher after stretcher, to the waiting ambulances, and they took out seventeen who had died in the night, unattended, save by the nurse. More supplies arrived, and this time came large tarpaulins, more utensils, more food, and more things to make it a little comfortable. We removed our first kitchens across the road, up alongside the headquarter tent of Major Wood, in charge of the camp. Words can not do justice to his kind-hearted generosity. He strove in every way to do all that could be done, and the night before had given us a small tent in which we had huddled from the pouring rain, for a couple of hours, in the middle of the night, the water rushing through like a rivulet. The tarpaulins were put over supplies, a new fireplace made near us--magnificent in its dimensions--shelter given for boxes and barrels that by this time had accumulated about us, and there was even something that looked like a table, on which Mrs. Gardner prepared her delicacies. Early in the day there came to our improvised headquarters an officer in khaki uniform showing hard service, and a bandanna handkerchief hanging from his hat, to protect the back of his head and neck from the fierce rays of the sun. It was Colonel Roosevelt, and we were very glad to meet the gallant leader of the "Rough Riders." After a few moments conversation he said: "I have some sick men with the regiment who refuse to leave it. They need such delicacies as you have here, which I am ready to pay for out of my own pocket. Can I buy them from the Red Cross?" "Not for a million dollars," Dr. Gardner replied. "But my men need these things," he said, his tone and face expressing anxiety. "I think a great deal of my men. I am proud of them."