The party could not retrace their steps over the mountains, owing to the weakened condition of the prisoners and the lack of food. Their only chance for self-preservation and a possible return to civilization lay in carrying out Gilmore’s designs to build bamboo rafts and float down the river to the sea. This was done. In going over rapids and water-falls, many rafts were destroyed and new ones had to be built.
Two of the boys got the measles. The raft on which one of them, Private Day, was being transported, got smashed on the rocks and he was thrown into the water. He took cold and died the next day. His comrades took his body with them and did not bury it until they finally reached the little town of Ambulug, at the mouth of the stream they had been following, on the northern coast of Luzon. There, amid a simple but impressive ceremony, it was buried in the church-yard of the cathedral to await the resurrection morn.
At Ambulug the Americans secured ox-carts drawn by caribous and drove along the beach to the city of Aparri, at the mouth of the Cagayan river. Here they were met by a detachment of American Marines who took them aboard a war-ship, lying out to sea, which carried them around the northwest promontory of Luzon to the city of Vigan on the western coast, at which place they had been imprisoned for so long.
Here they met General Young who shook hands with each of them; congratulated the rescued and complimented the rescuers.
Floating Down the Rapids.
(Courtesy of McClure’s Magazine.)