Page:Under MacArthur in Luzon.djvu/77

Rh left, the party had to take a side road running toward Antipolo. The rain had now cleared away entirely, but the night was pitch dark. The heat was oppressive—of that peculiar quality which follows a heavy downfall of rain in the tropics.

"Sure an' this heat afther the rain makes wan feel loike he was comin' out av a Turkish bath," observed Dan Casey, as they trudged along. "I niver seen the loike av this counthry, wid its hotness an' its coldness, an' its rain, an' dryness aftherwards."

"Und its mud," put in Carl Stummer. "Ton't forgot dot peautiful mud, Tan. I neffer seen me so many kinds of mud in mine whole life pefore—plack mud, red mud, prown mud, yeller mud, und all der stickiest mud vot effer vos alretty!" And at this a laugh went up from the others, who all agreed with the speaker, for, as Ben has since expressed it, it was the "muddiest mud" any of them had ever experienced. The wagon trains never came through, and had to be sent back to Manila until the wet season was at an end. During that campaign one small but heavy field-piece sank so deep in the roadbed that it went out of sight and, so far as known, has never been recovered.

Nearly a mile of the distance to Antipolo was