A half mile farther up, the valley widened somewhat; and finding here some grass for her pony to forage on, she stopped for the night. The flimsy saddle was removed from her horse and converted into a crude pillow, in true cowboy style. Marie was uneasy. This was the first night in all her adventures that she had been absolutely alone, separated from both friends and foes, with no house to shelter her weary head, with the cloudless canopy of the silent heavens arched above her, the silvery moonbeams dancing in her face, and with no voice, save the echoes of her own, to answer back the whispers of night.
It is often only in such a silent nook as this, with no one present but God and self, that humanity asserts itself and the tenderest portions of the human soul become paramount and give rise to sacred thoughts. Even the savage cannot escape it, for he, too, feels his responsibility to something outside of self. No doubt the self-conscious criminal would be the most susceptible to it.
What a night for Marie! Solitude gave rise to fear; fear, to conscious criminality; a sense of wrong-doing, to grief. Would morning never come? Every time she fell into a doze her sleep was disturbed by dreams of the past. Recollections of her dying benefactor in the woods by the San Mateo river, of Gilmore’s comrades bleeding by his side, and of Lawton in the arms of his aide, filled her soul with remorse and suggested to her with an unspeakable vividness that in all probability she would pay the penalty on both sides of the grave. Awakening from one awful dream, she would, after listening to the stillness of the night for a time, lapse into another. Again she would suddenly awake and begin to fumble her rosary and repeat selections from a Catholic prayer book. Would she dare to turn back? Behind her was certain death; before her, the possibility of life. She resolved to go on.
The night whiled away. Her pony ate his fill and lay down to rest. Beaded dew drops collected themselves in close proximity upon the grasses and foliage about her feet. The cool mountain air from without and fear from within caused her to shiver a great deal. Day finally came; Marie rode on.
Following the Magat river she finally reached the city of Bayombong with a population of 20,000 people. Here she learned from the natives that Aguinaldo and a loyal remnant of his appointed congress had passed through the city ahead of her, en route northward.
At Bayombong she was advised to follow down the Magat river for twenty miles, then to bear to the northeast along the pathway made by Aguinaldo and his followers in their recent retreat. This she did, crossing another range of mountains near Fort Del Pilar, which had been erected by the Filipinos to circumvent as well as to prevent the progress of the Americans, should they attempt to follow them. On the farther side of this slope she came upon the headwaters of the Rio Grande de Cagayan river, which she followed on to the north for several weeks, enjoying the hospitality of the natives along the course, until at last she came upon the beautiful city of Ilagan at the confluence of the Cagayan and Pinacanalan rivers.
It was now late in April. Marie was tired and needed rest. At Ilagan she was cordially received by the curious natives who were eager to learn some news concerning the war which was being conducted several hundred miles further south. Marie grew cheerful. There were no Americans in the city, and nobody knew of any within the valley. She felt that at last she had successfully eluded her supposed pursuers and that she was safe. Ilagan is the capital of Isabella province. It has a population of approximately 60,000 people. Marie’s natural ability, information gathered in the school of experience, knowledge of the details of the war, and her willingness to talk (quite a number at Ilagan could speak Spanish) made of her a sort of responsive idol for the entire populace.