“We are well out of it,” was Ben’s comment, as they watched the cloud until it was out of sight. “That played sad havoc here. I wonder what it will do in the mountains?”
No one could answer that question, and no one tried. Ben would have been very much surprised had anybody told him that the same tornado which had visited him was also to visit his brother Larry. But so it proved, as we shall speedily see.
CHAPTER XXIV
THE FLIGHT FOR LIBERTY
“Well, this is getting too monotonous for anything.”
It was Larry who spoke, and he sat on the stump of a tree at the mouth of a wide cave, gazing disconsolately at a fire which several insurgents were trying to build.
The place was on the top of a high hill, backed up by still higher mountains. On every hand were sharp rocks and trees, with a tangle of thorns. Small wonder, then, that Aguinaldo and his cohorts considered these fastnesses inaccessible for American troops. No regular body could have gotten to such a place, and to forward supplies hither was totally out of the question.
The rebels numbered fifteen, all mountaineers and strong. At General Luna’s request they had brought ten prisoners to the spot, and the other prisoners were to come up some time later. Why the Filipinos thus divided the men they had taken is not definitely 228 known, yet divided they were, until some escaped and others died or were given up.