Daily inter mountain. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1881-1901, 1900-09-28
Copyrighted, 1900; Daily Story Fub. Co..
BY CAPT. II. l. WELLS, u. S. v. U

DlOS! noe.
Sergeant Briggs prlcked up his ears
as he heard a woman's voice utter these
words of protest and alarm. Something
wrong. That was enough for the
sergeant. He was but % years of age,
and had not. yet outgrown his youthful
impulse to act first and think about 1T
afterwards. So he rushed around the
regardless of the fact that the
streets of Manila were none too safe for
a one American at that time of the
night, and playing knight Grant among
the bolo men was not coductiVe to long
evity. He had gone bu few yards dow
the new street when he came upon a
group of three persons. W of them
were drunken American soldiers and the
third was "a Filipino woman, who was
struggling to relase herself from their
clutches and calling upon the Virgin and
such other of the saint as she cOuld re-
member in her alarm, co come to her as
sistance. Without waiting to ask ques-
lions or even to lose the momentum of
his rush, the sergeant struck two blows
and laid valiant wearers of Uncle Sans
kahki in the gutter, seized the Still pro-
testing woman by the arm, and had her
before she realized h had happened
before SherealiZed what had happened,
or he had taken a look to see wha sort
of femintty he had rescued from assault.
Then they faced each other. His first
glance showed him hat he had not made
so bad a job of it after all, if good looks
III " W. tii1S IA a. VI "
his salvage, while her timorous look
convinced her that she had not simply
been plucked from the clutch of two
villains to fall the prey of a single one
of superior prowess Briggs, made a low
bow and in the best Spanish he could
command, which was not academical.
expressed the hope that she had not
been injured, n in the sweetest of low
voices she assured him of her perfect
Wilderness and her thousand hanks
tn fO1invyn1 IN hic ran1orlyS hv nSkinpr
where she lived, and expressing an in
tention of seeing her safely home, which,
after a little objection, she permitted. 1t
proved that the house she lived in was a
block further along the same street, but
while traversing wen that small dis
lance they had time to become so we'll
satisfied with each other as to desire a
further acquaintance. Cupid is capable
of some pretty rapid work when he sets
his mind upon it. The outcome of it was
that at the little portal that opens in
the big wooden door, securely barred on
the inside. she turned and asked sweet
ly:
"Quere entrar, sinor?"
Now Briggs had not expected this in
vitation. He had rapidly run over in
his mind some form of Spanish sentence
by which he might ask for the privilege
of calling upon her. a severe task upon
his linguistic accomplishments, when
this sudden opening OF the way came,
and all he could do was to bow and say:
Isl, Sinorita, ST." and crowd through the
narrow portal. which, like everything
else in the Philippines, was built for
Filipinos and not for full grown Ameri-
ans
The sergeant's undoing was rapid. He
had been cut off from the society of
women for six months, and here he was
suddenly thrown intO friendly relations
with one of the prettiest Mestizo girls
he had seen since he arrived in Manila,
n that meant a good deal, with all re-
spect for the beauty of the girls he had
left behind, in what he had Learned to
call Gods country since his exile in
the army. Felicia was of the Spanish
Mestizo type. Fully half the blood in
her veins was that of the ancients Cloths
of Spain, and it toned down the color
of her Malay blood, frightened her ga
zelle eyes, Strengthened her nose, kept
her teeth from the destructive use of the
betel nut, and made her in re-
spects an improvement upon either of
the types that united in her construc-
ton. In short, Felicia was a beauty, and
in addition to that had a low voice of
unusual sweetness and a charmingly
timid ~frankness that APPEALED to his
strength and generosity. He had not
enjoyed more a an hour of her So
ciety, before he was away by
the warning call of tattoo on the bugles,
but in that hour he not only learned to
use considerable Spanish he had never
had use for before, but he conceived ar
admiration for his fair teacher that in
sured his accepting her pressing invita-
ton to come and learn still more. AS for
Felicia, she was conquered completely
by the "Grande Americana soldao.' He
a captured with a rush, much as the
salmon takes the hook, and she had no
Idea of attempting to escape. 1t was
her duty as the sister of an inSurrectG
officer to hate the Americanos, and she
did hate the drunken ones, but they were
SO large and so strong and so self reliant
and so good natured and SO courageous,
that her woman's heart could not find q
place for absolute hate where there was
necessarily so much for admiration, and
as for this one who taken possession =
her so like the conquering lover of old,
Bhe passed from the stage of admiration
10 absolute worship at a rate unprece-
dented in the TagalOg race, who do all
of their today's work tomorrow unless
they IAN put it off till the next day.
From that time on every spare hour
the sergeant had from duty was spent
in the house on VillalQbOs street, where
her brother being in the Filipino tren-
ches outside h city, waiting for a
chance to put a Mauser bullet into the
sergeant or any of his comrades. At first
Briggs was not aware that the BLACK
woman was Felic!a's mother. supposine
her to be a servant, such as are thick
as feas in the houses of the wealthy
Filipinos, but one day Felicia referred
to her as mi Madre." n then he
knew; but by tina time the color OF
her mother a ceased to count. She
might have been as variegated as a cir
Gus poster without affecting him in the
least. He had eyes n thoughts fol
Felicia only. Her brother heard of what
was going on, and sent her word of his
disapproval of her having anything
whatever to do with the "Malo Ameri-
cano," but 1t had no effect whatever
Finally he sent threats of death to the
invader unless she SEN him away, and
on his note were the three letters of the
Katinunan warning. X. X. K" This
gave her great uneasiness. for she
knew that the secret slash of the bolt
from out the darkness had often fol.
lowed that warning. and she feared thai
her S~ariento would be waylaid an6
killed. She told him OF her fears, and
he laughed at them. He said he would
he pleased to meet a dozen Of the Kati'
punans in a friendly discussion. and