That night Marie had a good rest. The next morning, fired with ambition and discontent, she lit her accustomed cigarette and started for Manila. Instead of going overland, she went in a row boat via the Pasig river which drains the lake into Manila bay and which flows through the city of Manila situated at its mouth.

While stealthily prowling around through Manila during the next few days, Marie accidentally discovered that plans were being carried out by the Americans to relieve the remnant of the old Spanish garrison of fifty men stationed at the little town of Baler, near the eastern coast of Luzon. This garrison was of course surrendered to the American forces with the remainder of the Spanish army on August 13, 1898, but as all lines of communication with them had been destroyed by the Filipinos they had never been officially notified of the capitulation. Scouting parties brought in the information that they were being besieged by a horde of blood-thirsty Filipinos which outnumbered them ten to one, and that it was only a question of time before all would be exterminated.

Accordingly, Admiral Dewey and General Otis decided that something must be done at once to relieve them. A rescuing party was formed and placed aboard the “Yorktown,” which carried them around the southern point of Luzon and then northward to the mouth of the Baler river.

Marie, nerved by the thought of a new exploit, forgot her oath not to take up arms against the Americans again during the insurrection, and hastily departed overland for Baler to notify the besieging Filipinos of what was to take place, and to help them as best she could to resist the advance of the rescuing party.

Although Baler is situated on the Baler river, near the eastern coast of Luzon, and Manila is on the west side of the island Baler is, nevertheless, almost directly north of Manila. This is caused by the deep indention of Manila bay, on the extreme eastern side of which Manila is situated, and by the abrupt inclination to the westward of the eastern coast line of Luzon directly above a point straight east of Manila.

In starting on her journey Marie left Manila by a little Filipino foot-path which enters the city in the northeastern part near the San Sebastian church. She followed it to Block-house No. 4, which is situated about three miles north and a trifle east of Manila. At that point she took a road which veered off perceptibly to the east for a short distance and which was made by the Americans’ commissary train on the morning that the advance was begun toward Malolos, March 25, preceding.

She had gone but a quarter of a mile when her attention was attracted to a board used as the head-stone for a grave only a few feet distant from her pathway. She walked over to in and found these words inscribed thereon:

It was now April 2nd, and Marie had ahead of her about ninety miles overland to be made on foot or else on horse-back; and it was necessary for her to hurry along, as the rescuing party was scheduled to reach the mouth of Baler river April 10th, or 12th.

Her course led past the little shack on the bank of the San Mateo river, where she had robbed the elderly couple who had been so kind to her and near where she later had shot the old man when he was pursuing her to regain possession of his stolen property.

She found it deserted; but in a little bamboo corral nearby she found three Chinese ponies. Evidently they had made their escape from the scene of battle and had drifted into this yard for refuge. There was a small stack of rice straw just outside the corral. From this Marie soon made a stoutly-twisted rope which she hastily arranged in the form of a bridle. Placing it over the head of the largest pony she mounted him and rode off.

She got ten miles beyond this last stopping place before sunset. That night she stopped at a small inland village. As she lay down to sleep on the bamboo floor in the hut of a Tagalo family whose acquaintance she had readily formed, recollections of the place which she had passed during the afternoon where she had previously robbed the old couple immediately after she was released upon oath by the Americans, suggested to her the thought that she was violating her oath; that she was now out in a country where she might be betrayed at any moment by her own people, or else be captured by a squad of American infantry or cavalry; therefore, she decided that on the following day she would destroy her identity.

Upon retiring the previous night Marie coiled up for a pillow her head of long black hair. “I hate to give it up,” thought she, “but what will the Americans do to me if they capture me another time? Oh! well, after the war is over it will soon grow out again.”

The next morning, after a scanty breakfast of bananas and rice, and a pineapple which Marie salted heavily before she ate it, she went to a native barber and had her long hair cut close to the scalp, except for a little tuft on top which she had him brush up for a pompadour.

Before cutting off her hair the barber tied a piece of hemp very tightly around it, just back of her neck. After he had detached it, he held it in front of Marie and asked her what she wished done with it. She took it in her own hands.

The barber kept on trimming her shortened hair. Marie stopped talking and seemed to be in deep meditation.

Presently the barber said. “That’s all.”

Marie arose from the rough mahogany slab on which she had been sitting, handed him a puesta (twenty cents, Mexican), looked out of the window and said, “I’ll tell you what I’ll do: I’ll trade you my hair for that quilas (two-wheeled cart) standing there.”

“All right”; said the barber, “My pony is dead, and the war has so devasted the country, and money has become so scarce, that I can’t afford to buy another one.”

“The harness hanging on it goes with the cart,” said Marie.

“Oh no!” exclaimed the barber, “my wife borrowed that, and I must return it.”

“It doesn’t make any difference to whom it belongs,” said Marie, emphatically, “you traded me the cart, and everything that was in it goes with the trade. How do you suppose I could hitch my pony into the cart without a harness?”

Just then she pulled a bolo out from under her apron. The barber said no more.

Marie hitched her pony into the cart and started on toward Baler.

That day she followed a good road leading toward the mountains near the eastern coast of Luzon. By night her pony had made twenty miles.

She had already reached the foot-hills. It was impossible for her to make head-way any longer with the cart. She would soon be across the mountains and be in the region to be approached by the American relief party. What was to be done?

A happy thought came to Marie. She clasped her hands and muttered to herself, “I’ll trade the cart for a suit of men’s clothes and trade the harness for a sombrero,” (bamboo hat.)

Since the middle of the afternoon she had been driving parallel to a stream that wound its way, nearby, from the mountains across the plains to the sea. Villages along the banks were numerous. At night fall she was still in Tagalo territory. It was her own tribe. She soon found a place to stay over night. Her pony was turned loose in a vacant yard, with an old bamboo fence around it, and given some young rice.

That evening while smoking cigarettes, and while inflaming the minds of the villagers with startling stories about the atrocities, of the American soldiers, Marie finally succeeded in making the trade which she had planned during the afternoon.

Next morning, April 5, she rode on. Before her lay sixty miles of unknown territory to be covered during the next four days, if she were to reach Baler in time to warn the besieging Filipinos of the contemplated attack by the Americans.

A half mile out from the village, Marie came to an abrupt turn in the road. Near by was a dense cluster of banana trees. She dismounted, and while her pony was nibbling young rice she went into the thicket and changed her attire. Then she tied a good-sized stone up in her old clothes and threw them into the river. As she stood on the bank watching them sink, she saw her shadow in the water. How changed she looked! The sombrero was such a relief in keeping the hot sun off her head.

“Now, I’ll not be recognized,” thought she. “How nice it is to be dressed like a man. From now on I mean to play a man’s part and be a full-fledged soldier.”