Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1898-08-20
OUR BOYS IN PORTO RICO.

OUR BOYS IN PORTO RICO.
AxcI Erickson Tells of the Life Rock Isl
andcrs Are Leading.
Charles Huthmaker has received
the following interesting letter from
Private Axel Erickson, of Company A:
| Guanica. Porto Rico, july So
thought | would drop you few lines
to let YOU know that we are all wei,
and having good time. Our com
panV is on picket duty for Is hours
on top of high mountain. We We're
20 davs on the ocean. As soon rs we
landed in this country we took pos
session of the town. There were 800
Spaniards there and we had to shoot
for an hour to drive them out. None
of the Rock Island boys have been in
| the hospital as vet. We consider
ourselves especially fortunate, when
the fact that % out of one of the
Massachusetts companies were sick al
one time is taken into consideration
= Wee have constructed i COW little
fort for our squad here. Private
Charles Jensen aud | had an adven
ture the other night as we were tray
cling down the mountain side 10 fill
our canteens from stream. We
were suddenly confronted by three
natives, and not knowing whether
they were Spaniards or Portu Rcans,
we dropped on our knees and covered
them with our guns. On searching
them. all we found was 4 long, ugly
knife. We took this away from them
and marched them down to the place
where we were to get the water.
They wadcd into the spring up to
their knees and filled our canteens
with the precious fluid. We discov-
cred that they were Porto Ricans, and
were friendly to the Americans.
| We had quite an interesting time of
it last night shooting ut Spaniards,
who attempted to run the picket line.
Jensen was on guard. As soon as the
first shot was fired, the other boys of
our squad jumped out of bed and
stationed themselves behind the little
fort. The enemy was fired at several
times, but no one was hurt.
The mosquitoes have prevented the
members of our company from clos
Ing an eve for IS hours. The regu-
lars had a battle the other day.
Eighteen Spaniards were killed, but
the Americans escaped without any
loss. The boys raided the houses of
the enemy and took everything in
sight. | secured u few pictures (these
are enclosed). You will have To eN-
cuse me for writing on this kind of
paper. | got it out of one of the
| Spanish houses. 1t was taken from an
account book belonging to a rich resi-
dent, who ran out of town when he
saw the soldiers coming. We have
! all the fruit we can eat, bananas,
lemons. etc. being in abundance.
We have all kinds of sport riding
colts around the camp. i am booked
for scout duty this afternoon through
the mountains. Think of buving
COW for $l.25, The boys took up
collection. all nickles and pennies,
and it made a large pile, and looked
| like Il fortune in the eyes of one of
the natives, who accepted the offer,
and butchered and cleaned the COW
for us. | went out to the distillery
today for molasses- 1t is reported
that there is smallpox west of camp
in the vicinity of the distillery, and
we have been warned not to 90 out
there any more.
Allan Pratt, while bathing last
night. was bitten by jelly fish.
Some of the boys are learning the
Porto Rican language. Bud Elder has
it down fine already.
The boys are to employ the natives
to carry their blanket rolls on our
marching on Ponce.
The weather as a rale is fine. but at
present it is raining. a number of
the boys are out naked taking bath.
Will Campbell is in his tent drum
ming. One of the natives has guitar
and plays for us occasionally The
natives have all sworn allegiance to
the American flag and are organizing
in companies to help fight the Span
iards. They were at first made to
fight against our army, but when they
saw that the Spaniards were getting
the worst of it they came over to our
side. the dons taking to the woods.
AXEI. ERICKSON.
In letter to his paper, the Moline
Republican-Journal, Myron Jordan
says: Company a has one man
missing, namely Harry Coyne, who
stopped at "A small railway station
near Guavauillo to rest and failed To
come into camp Monday. Oscar
Dahlberg, of Company F. also stopped
there. as did few others. and they
are believed now TO be at Yauca.
One Minute Cough Cure surprises