Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1901-11-19

| \ volIey was fired into them at close
range and then the brown devils set
upon them with their bolos TO hack
out what life CHANGED to remain.
Upon an examination signs of life
were found in two of the men and
DIR. Gilhooly, a non-com' who was
serving with the scouts, set to work
and revived them. Imagine my sur
prise when, after some of the blood
and dirt had been wiped from their
faces, 1 discovered that they were
Peterson and Norval. We placed
them under care of a guard and went
on n fruitless chase after the band
of Filipinos we had seen.
"a few days later Peterson and
Norval were placed in n hospital.
There. after some months, they were
entirely healed, although the former
has n leg that is well nigh useless
and the latter an arm palsied from
the former cutting of the main ten
dons. Both were afterward averse
to talking about their terrible eX-
perience while in captivity, but the
story of their capture and confine-
ment L finally learned.
when they went back for chickens
on that fateful 18th of November
they had no more than gotten well
out of hearing before they were sur
rounded by bolomen who had been
DIGGING our trail. When they at
tempted to make a run for it Norvars
horse baked and they had to fight.
The natives evidently desired to take
them alive and they finally did so
after both had been rendered un-
conscious from desperate wounds. At
the first blow. Peterson had been cut
across the forehead till his scalp
dropped down over his eyes and Nor
val had two fingers of his right hand
split back almost TO the wrist where
he had grabbed the blades of the
bolos when they were thrust at him.
The two were taken away, being
forced to walk at first and afterward
allowed TO ride their own horses.
When they reached Mount Ararat, at
their own request, their captors sew
ed up their wounds with bamboo, and
| they gradually recovered. Five other
prisoners were placed with them
and the party was moved about from
time to time to keep away from the
white men scouting about the coun-
try. The natives fully intended to
shoot the prisoners some time and
the latter expected nothing better.
They came to make it a practice
every morning to ask Gen. Aquino If
he intended TO shoot them that day,
and they have every reason to believe
that their seeming Indifference alone
kept him from odrering II done. The
prisoners had as much to eat as their
captors did, but they were subjected
to various forms of torture just to
find out how much they could bear
without showing resentment.
THE wounds of Peterson and Nor
val were only fairly healed when our
scouting party surprised their cap
tors. While hasty preparations were
being made to execute the prisoners
these two agreed to throw them
selves when the signal was given to
fire upon them and to this is due the
fact that both were not killed as the
others were. Peterson was shot in
the thigh and Norval in the shoulder
and in the efforts to dispatch them
with bolos the natives inflicted dozens
OF Dau HeSn cuts upon lhChh- "hCh
their wounds had healed both were
retained in the service for some time
as witnesses to furnish evidence upon
which to hang Gen. Aquino if he
should be captured. That willy Fill
pino finally did fall into the hands
of the Americans, but was never
tried and was confined in the prison
in Manila when L was last there.
Peterson and Norval were at length
discharged, and the former after
ward engaged in some sort of mer-
camille pursuit in Manila. His fea-
lures however, bore an unearthly
expression caused by the scars and
the atrophy of facial muscles from
which the tendons were cut, and the
terrible ordeal has left an imprint
upon him which will mark him diff
ferent from other men to the day of
his death"