The Woman with a Stone Heart / A Romance of the Philippine War

by O. W. Coursey

She remained at Ilagan until the middle of June, when it began to be rumored that the Americans were preparing to invade the Cagayan valley, not only soldiers from the south but with the “mosquito fleet” coming up the river from its mouth at the extreme northern end of the island of Luzon. Nobody in the city seemed to know just where Aguinaldo had gone. Part of his advance guard had arrived in the city some three months before, but he had not come, and his soldiers had soon departed for the southeast, following the valley of the Pinacanalan river.

Tired of her surroundings and impatient to join Aguinaldo, Marie departed by the same route that his soldiers had taken. From an old native living all alone in a bamboo shack on the bank of the Rio Masagan river, which empties into the Pinacanalan about eighteen miles southeast of Ilagan, she learned that Aguinaldo and his troops had started up the valley of the Masagan. This stream rises high up near the summit of the Sierra Madre mountains which parallel the eastern coast of northern Luzon for nearly five hundred miles, and are inland from the coast from ten to thirty miles.

Marie had with her three trusted natives from Ilagan. She did not want to spend another night alone in the mountains. After proceeding up the Masagan for thirty-five miles to a place where its valley narrows itself to a gorge, its bed was so strewn with huge boulders that it became impossible to travel any longer on horseback; therefore, one of the natives was sent back with the horses, and Marie and the two others continued the ascent on foot, taking with them such equipment and provisions as they could conveniently carry.

After many hardships they succeeded in crossing the range in safety and soon found themselves descending the other side. A Filipino scouting party was met at the evening of the first day’s tramp down the Pacific slope. They were well supplied with food—thing Marie and her companions greatly needed. From them it was learned that Aguinaldo and his body guard and quite a complement of Filipino soldiers were secreted at the little town of Palanan on a small stream by the same name, about ten miles back from the coast and lying directly east of them on the journey which they were pursuing. This party escorted them to Filipino headquarters, which they reached July 10, 1900.

Marie was cordially welcomed by Aguinaldo, who restored her to a position on his staff and secured from her the identical information which he desired relative to the movement of the American troops, and the very information, strange to say, which led to his own discovery and capture by General Funston of the American forces in March of the following year.

Aguinaldo learned from Marie that from the Filipinos’ standpoint, the war around Manila had been a dismal failure. He decided, therefore, to send one of his trusted generals south by practically the same route over which Marie had come, with information to the Filipino troops east and south of Manila to move all their available forces north with the quickest possible despatch and to place them under his immediate command so that he might not only render himself immune from capture, but take the initiative and oppose the American campaign in the valley of the Cagayan river.

In December, 1900, about three months before his capture by General Funston, Aguinaldo, having learned that the Americans were making their way in great numbers into the valley of the Cagayan, asked Marie to take up duty as a spy again; to recross the Sierra Madre mountains; visit the American lines; ascertain their number of soldiers on duty in the valley on the opposite side of the mountains and then to bring this information to him, so that when reinforcements should arrive he would know better how to undertake the campaign.

To this, Marie willingly assented, but she insisted that she could not make the trip alone over the rugged Sierra Madre mountains; that she had nearly famished crossing them the first time. Aguinaldo therefor fitted out a little expedition consisting of eight Filipinos, in addition to Marie, and a pack-train of fourteen ponies to accompany her over the divide. Nine of the animals were for riding purposes; the other five were to pack the supplies,—three of them for the outward trip, two for the incoming. In addition to the rice which they took along, they were instructed to forage as much as possible.

On December 9, the party started out on their perilous undertaking. A point far up on the mountain slope, near a refreshing mineral spring, having been reached on December 17, the party halted and established a sub-base for their return trip. It was evident to them that they had struck the wrong trail and were going to be compelled to send Marie back through a different gorge from the one by which she and her associates had come over a few months before.