Page:Under MacArthur in Luzon.djvu/306



early months of the new year passed slowly for both Ben and Larry. The young captain's command was kept in the vicinity of Tarlac, and he had but little to do excepting occasionally to aid in making the outlying rebels keep their distance.

The campaign around the Laguna de Bay was now again at its height, but it was not very much different from those which had gone before. Town after town were captured by the Americans, only to be, later on, abandoned for the want of sufficient soldiers with which to garrison them. In the meantime the civil commissioners got to work in and around Manila, and did what they could toward instructing the friendly Filipinos as to what was expected of them under American rule. This was up-hill work, for our institutions are vastly different from those of Spain, under which