Page:Under MacArthur in Luzon.djvu/290

260 "You cannot return it to this Inez Garabella at present, for all communications with the rebels have been broken off. If you wish, I will send it to General Otis for safe keeping." And this was, later on, done.

The next two weeks brought hard and continuous work to Ben and the others attached to General MacArthur's column. It was decided by all the military leaders not only to get General Aguinaldo and his followers on the run, but to keep them running until practically exhausted, and consequently our soldiers were more or less on the go all the time. Following the taking of Malabacat by MacArthur, came a movement by Lawton in the direction of the Agno River, his cavalry taking the towns of Bongabong and Aliaga on the way. Lawton now commanded many of the mountain passes, and when MacArthur's column entered the Filipino capital at Tarlac, only to find it abandoned, Lawton captured a large number of bolomen, who were carrying Aguinaldo's baggage over the mountains, and also made prisoners of the Filipino President's private secretary and several of the staff officers. But what had become of Aguinaldo himself nobody could, or would, tell.