back toward the nearest
of the huts and opened fire at Terry with a rifle. The ladrones
scattered for cover and in a minute the woods rang with their
fusillade and with the deadly volleys sent in answer by the Macabebes.

It was a brief combat. Though outnumbered nearly two to one the
soldiers were disciplined and highly trained marksmen. In a moment six
of the bandits were on the ground, nine threw up their hands in
surrender and the balance fled through the woods. The Sergeant, who
had been slugging away with his rifle with a calculating attention to
the details of marksmanship belied by the fierce joy in his brilliant
black eyes, ceased firing at Terry's shouted command and detached
eight of his man, who caught up some frightened ponies and raced
through the woods to head off the fleeing brigands.

Sakay, using the fear-crazed girl as a shield from behind which to
shoot at Terry, found his aim thwarted by her struggles. Seeing Terry
advancing straight upon him and fearful of exposing himself to the
fire of the two black pistols, he dropped his rifle and holding the
girl directly in front of him, called out in English:

"I surrender! I surrender! I surrender, Lieutenant!"

His deep anxiety subsiding when he realized that he would suffer no
immediate harm, Sakay threw the girl from him with a brutal force that
sent her prostrate and was promptly rewarded by the husky Mercado, who
had been under American tutelage long enough to understand the virtue
and the technique of what is vulgarly known as "a good swift kick."

The Sergeant escorted Sakay into the group of prisoners rounded up by
the four soldiers and set them to digging a grave for the six, who,
with Malabanan, would "never appear before the court." In a few
minutes the pursuit party rode into the clearing herding all but three
of the criminals who had fled: those three were carried in and placed
alongside the grave.

Terry worked over Matak, who had been merely stunned. In a few minutes
the Moro recovered fully and went back to secure Terry's pony, which
he had abandoned near the ford.

While the Sergeant attended to the duties of identification and burial
of the dead Terry led the girl into one of the huts and quietly
comforted her. She told him of the ordeal of her forced journey
through the greater part of a day and a night, of the captors who
leered at her but remained aloof because of fear of Malabanan, of
being waked from sleep at Malabanan's arriv