562 FAMOUS LIVINa AMEEICANS created native police and a number of American soldiers reached him as he was preparing for bed. The trouble had occurred at San Luis, twenty miles away, and a lieutenant, three natives, and a woman with a baby at the breast had been killed. General Wood^s temperature was IDS'*. He went im- mediately to the telegraph station with his chief signal officer, Captain J. E. Brady, and sat there for three solid hours to hear evidence from the parties embroiled, giving orders with a decisiveness that betrayed no sign of his suffering. Next day, although still in the grip of fever, he made a special journey to San Luis to investigate further and to mete out punishment. As an illustration of his quickness in an emergency we are told this story. Great jealousy and bitterness prevailed be- tween the Cuban residents and the remaining Spaniards, and it was heightened by General Wood *8 retaining several Span- iards in office. The Plaza de Armas is surrounded by four principal buildings: the Palace, the Cathedral, San Carlos Club (the Cuban stronghold), and the Spanish Club. One af- ternoon General Wood was placidly writing letters in his office in the Palace when a wild-eyed sentry burst in upon him with the news that a mob of five hundred or more Cubans was attacking the Spanish Club with sticks and stones. The Gen- eral calmly picked up his customary weapon — a riding whip — and strode across the square, followed by the soldier. Plac- ing himself in the Spanish Club doorway he faced the raging mob and said to the sentry:
- Shoot the first man who sets foot upon this step.**
Within an hour the rioters had vanished. No matter how busy the General may have been he was al- ways ready to listen to complaints from native residents, chat with an officer or private over a proposed ball game to break the ennui of camp life, or discuss questions of city govern- ment with Santiago citizens, great or small. His office door was permitted to swing at the touch of all classes of people. A writer in McClure's Magazine about this time makes an estimate of what was accomplished in Santiago during just four months of the Leonard Wood re^me. The entire popu-
