The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1900-04-08

pines and how the American boys are far
ing over there is from letters, not writ
ten for publication. The following let
unteer, Mr.. Daniel G. Fowle, Jr., son Of
the late Governor Fowle, who is in the
United States service. to three friends
in Johnston county. R. Myatt, W. Tomlin-
son and l.. Barbour, 1t was not written
for publication, but will prove very in
teresting:
In the Field near Mariquidii, p l., Jan.
%, 1900.
My Dear Boys: I'll write this letter to
all three of you since / won't have time
to write to each che individually.
l received your letter only few min
utes ago and will have to hurry. my an
swer so as to send it by the courier who
brought the mail out to us. | certainly
did appreciate your writing to ME, for
have thought of you often and longed to
he with you great many times.
know you have been enjoying the hunt
ing and regret very much not being able
TO try the birds and squirrels myself,
but / an now in a country where we can
get much larger game ] have succeed
ed in killing my share of game though
at first ! thought we would not have q
chance to fight much. Two Filipinos have
been called to account by my old rifle.
Neither of them was killed outright, but
one died the day after he was shot, and
the other is still in Santa Mesatkospetak
with a hole in his breast. Although /
\, - No., hiatt La
i have been sufficiently amused once or
twice. In fact my company has lost more
men than any other company | know of
with very few exceptions. We have
been doing the scouting which. of course.
is very much more dangerous than actual
fighting, for we were liable to be sur
Drised at any moment. For instance
came very near having my light knock
ed out in the mountains near Mantalbon
about two weeks ago. l was sent out
with eight men to investigate a fire we
saw the night before Our company was
encamped at the foot of the mountains
so, of course, we had to scout every day
to see if any insurrectos were about
Well we got along all right until we had
gotten about three miles from camp
when all Of sudden we heard the zip
a
report of a rifle.
We could not locate them at first, but
they appeared to be directly in front OF
us. so the only thing to do was to throw
out a skirmish line and advance. Well
we did this and pretty soon a bullet
passed directly over my head and struck
the barrel of Condrons rife. This prov
ed that they were all around us and we
-.
rear too Now ] tell you it was rather
tcklish, for there we were only nine in
all completely surrounded with fully fifty
of the black devils popping at us every
time we showed our heads. If it had
been clear ground none of us would have
ever lived to tell it, but the chaparal or
bushes were very thick where we were,
SO it was very difficult for them to see
MS, and equally hard for us to locate them
We were in valley about two hundred
and fifty yards wide with a high noun
tain on every side of us except in the
front and rear. and the rear was full Of
them as we could tell by the direction
OF some of the bullets
Each one of us went to work and dug a
hole with our bayonets which afforded
us protection. They in the mean while
effect for they are very poor shots and
generally fire high. We had been at 1t
for about an hour and half now and the
excitement had about worn off and we be-
gan to realize that we were in pretty
tight place, so we began to look about
lis TO see how we could get out. We had
fired very few times fer we could not
see them and we realized that our am
HOY
stopped firing and at first l thought aid
was coming from camp, so we decided to
fire volley to let them know where We
were. We fired at a clump of bushes about
a hundred yards On our right and you
ought to have seen them scatter There
must have been fully a dozen OF them in
there and our bullets must have come
pretty close to some of them. Everything
was quiet then fer about an hour and we
realized that if we wanted to get out we
had to cut our way out ourselves, for a
mountain was directly between us and
camp and it was hardly possible that our
shots had been heard. About this time
] happened to see one of them crawling
towards us with his rife in his hand He
was sneakng w exactly as you would
sneak up on a hawk, and ] could not
decided that it was not the proper time
to admire his act but to try to prevent
him from succeeding in reaching good
position for had he ever gotten 10
a good place he would have picked us Off
one by one for we could not have located
him as they use smokeless powder. Well
] saw that my sight was all right ana
pulled back my bolt to be sure that
a. ,I%0r In mir
ute l had good aim at him and SO
pulled the trigger and had the pleasure
of seeing him fall face downward He
fell so naturally that at first | thought
had missed him but then on a second look
/ saw that he was shot directly above
the hip. Then Condrcn saw and he
downed him. Carter also brought one to
the earth. Pierson got one not minute
after and then Condron killed the officer
who was in charge of them. This quiet
ed them for while and we saw that they
had enough Of it for the present. but of
course had to keep on the watch all OF
the time. 1t was now nearly three o'cloci.
and none of us had had any water since
early in the morning. Condron said he
was going to have some in spite of those
white iyered zoo ZOOS" I tried to per-
suade him TO remain where he was but he
4 tcA 1n r.N.f