Volunteer nurses were immediately in demand as, in many ways, our forces were unprepared to meet the enemy; there are no soldiers in the world as brave ... as fine ... as capable ... as are our own United States Volunteers ... both men and women, and, so, Ruth Wakefield and Estrella, anxious to put into practice what they had learned to do, donned the clean white uniforms they had become accustomed to in the training they had taken in Havana for this very purpose, and, very soon, to the eye of a novice, there were two more trained nurses ministering to the many wants of the boys who lay there on those narrow cots, weak and suffering but triumphant in spite of their pain, for the cause of right had won in the first real conflict upon Cuban soil between the Spaniards and the Americans assisted by Cuban insurgents, who, mainly, acted as spies and scouts, a work to which they were adapted by nature and long practice in a country infested by those whose only object in ruling it had been to gain what they could, in resources and amusement, from the natives, with no thought either for their comfort or advancement along the lines of civilized living. Among the Cuban scouts who had been wounded on that first day of actual combat was one who happened to fall under the care of Estrella for he had been carried in right after her entry into the work of the hospital; this man had been slightly wounded as he was about to give valuable information to one of our own officers, and, perhaps for that reason and because he had shown himself to be particularly useful, he had received even more than the usual attention on the battle-field, for his wound had been dressed more carefully than is customary when first aid is given in the midst of the fray, so that the attending surgeon had declared his condition such that all he needed was tender care, which was why his case had been assigned to a volunteer nurse. Estrella gravely assumed the duty allotted to her, with some misgivings as to her own ability, it is true, but with a strong resolve to do the best she could; as she bent over her patient, she noticed, first, his almost deathly pallor, then a jagged scar that stretched across his cheek and had been lately healed ... the edges of it were yet red and angry looking; the girl bent over him pityingly, and, then, she started back for she had recognized, even in the dim light that pervaded the temporary hospital, the features of Manuello; remembering what she had seen in the ruined hut, she shrank from contact with her old admirer, but, with that memory came the knowledge that he had been wounded while in the performance of a service of benefit to her beloved country, and she did not falter in carrying out the instructions of the surgeon in charge with regard to her patient, thinking that, perhaps, before he had recognized her, she might be transferred to some other part of the hospital.