Serg. Tiffany and his men had carried these guns from Siboney to the firing-line upon their backs. How they got the four boxes of ammunition through they themselves could hardly tell. The firing was too heavy to mount the tripods in the trenches during the daytime, so placing the guns was deferred until night. For some reason it was not practicable to place the tripods on the night of the 2d, and they were finally placed on the night of the 3d; Serg. Tiffany, with two of his men, aiding in digging the emplacements.
While digging, suddenly a burst of firing broke out, and it was believed by many that a serious night attack had been made. During the firing, Capt. Ayers, of the 10th Cavalry, and Col. Roosevelt again displayed those characteristics of fearless bravery which so endeared these two gallant officers to their men. Some of the troops in the trenches had begun to fire wildly. In fact, all the firing was done wild; there was no sense in any of it; there was no occasion for it. Intent listening to the enemy’s fire made it absolutely certain that their firing never approached nearer our lines. There may have been some small body seeking to explore the road, but there was no indication of any attack in force. At any rate, Roosevelt and Ayers determined to stop the firing of our line, and suddenly, above the din of battle, these two officers could be heard, tramping up and down the trench in front of their men, haranguing, commanding, ridiculing their men for shooting in the dark. Ayers told his men that they were no better than the Cubans, upon which the burly black troopers burst into a loud guffaw, and then stopped firing altogether. Roosevelt told his men that he was ashamed of them. He was ashamed to see them firing valuable ammunition into the darkness of the night, aiming at nothing; that he thought cowboys were men who shot only when they could see the “whites of the other fellow’s eyes.” They also stopped firing. The enemy’s bullets continued to whiz by for a few minutes, and they too ceased firing, and everybody began to laugh at everybody else. Tiffany had joined the two officers in their walk up and down, exposing himself with the utmost coolness. He and his men now succeeded in placing his guns in the trench, and, from that time until the end of the fight, they could hardly be induced to leave them long enough to eat; they didn’t leave them to sleep—they slept in the trench by the guns.