Page:On to Pekin.djvu/33

Rh the rapidity of a mill-race. It was fully sixty feet wide, and just deep enough in the middle to be dangerous.

As the bridge was gone, it was determined to look for a suitable fording-place, and Gilbert was placed in command of a detachment to ascend the river-bank for that purpose. The course of the soldiers, six in number, lay over a series of rough rocks, and then through a small jimgle opening upon an abandoned rice field.

"If the guerillas destroyed that bridge, we want to keep our eyes open," was Gilbert's comment to his men, as they scrambled over the rocks, in Indian file. "They don't travel far in the rain, and they may be close at hand."

"I dink I see me somepoddy chust ahead!" exclaimed Carl Stummer, in a low voice. He was in the lead of the privates, and carried his rifle, ready for use. "Look!" he cried suddenly.

Gilbert gazed in the direction, and made out several forms; but all disappeared before he could get a good view of them.

"Thim was th' Dagoes!" cried Dan Casey, using the common soldier's term for Filipinos. "I wisht I'd