When I recovered myself in that four feet of mud and water and poked my head up over the bank the fence had been demolished. Beyond it countless rifles spat tongues of fire toward me. But not a living soul was near. The night had swallowed up every last one of our men. Fright had not come yet. I was bewildered. I still had my rifle and began to use it. After a few discharges there came a violent wrench and the barrel parted company with the rest of the weapon. It had been shot to pieces in my hands. I threw the stock away and got out my revolver—a Colt .44 single-action, of the frontier model. Boom! There was a roar like a field-gun’s and a flash that lit up the night all round me. The wet weapon was outdoing itself in pyrotechnics, and I was unnecessarily attracting attention to myself. So, half swimming, half wading, I moved down the ditch in the direction of the high hill which, looming vaguely, seemed half familiar to me. I was lost, you understand. I had come at night into unknown terrain. I welcomed that hill, which seemed to give me back my bearings. I reached the base of it, got out of my ditch and began to climb, with some caution, luckily for me. For just as I stole over the crest a roar and a flash obliterated the night. Two enemy field-pieces had been discharged together, almost into my face. Deeming it more than likely that the flash had shown the gunners one startled Teutonic face, I rolled down that hill and was once more in my ditch. But panic had full possession of me. I climbed out on the far side and ran among the scattered trees there until I realized that no racer can hope to outrun a bullet. Then I stopped. Phut! Phut! Bullets were hissing into the soft irrigated ground all round me, for by accident I had gotten into a very dangerous zone of dropping cross-fire, while overhead shrapnel was searching out blindly for our horses. By good luck I knew the trumpet calls. Whenever the signal to fire sounded I took what cover I could, going on again in what I decided was the direction of the Rio Conchas as soon as the bugles called “cease firing.” After a while I found a small gray horse standing dejectedly by a tree. I mounted him and eventually got among the willows on the river bank. There the horse collapsed under me without a warning quiver or groan, and when I had wriggled myself loose and groped him over I discovered the poor brute must have been shot as full of holes as a flute before I ever found him. But I had small sympathy to spend on fallen horses just then. Cleaning my gory hands as best I could on breeches and tunic, I stumbled on through the bushes. After a long time I came, by accident, to the place where the brigade had dismounted to go into action. The mounts were mostly gone, but a few still stood there, with perhaps a score of men and one officer, Lieut. Col. Patricio, who was vastly surprised at my sudden appearance from the direction of the front.