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Rh went. Sorrel was at his heels, and the others fired, each "red-hot" as they afterward expressed it.

The insurgents saw them coming and fired several shots, but nobody was struck, and in a trice the house was surrounded. Then Major Morris came bounding through a window, and it was Ben who cut his bonds with a pocket-knife.

"I saw it all," exclaimed the major. "Go for them, men, every one of the rascals deserves death!" And stooping over the dead rebel, he took from his bosom a bolo and joined in the attack. "They are a pack of cowards—a mere set of camp followers."

The major was right; the rebels in the house were no regularly organized body, and at the first sign of real peril they fled by the back way, over a ditch and straight for the nearest jungle. But our friends were determined that they should not escape thus easily, and pursued them for nearly half a mile, killing one more and wounding three others. Long afterward they learned that those who had thus forfeited their lives were bandits from the mountains back of San Isidro. They had joined the forces under General Aguinaldo, merely for the booty to be picked up in the towns through which the rebel army passed.