s to care for the women? The very servants in each household, it was
known, were in most cases regularly enrolled in the Insurgent army. The
crowded districts in the city, the nipa huts surrounding the wealthy homes
in the suburbs swarmed with Filipino soldiery in the garb of peace. Arms
and ammunition, both, were stored in the great stone churches. Knives,
bolos and pistols were hidden in every house. Through the clergy, in some
instances, and foreign residents in others, the statement was set afloat
that every American officer's residence was mapped and marked, that the
Tagals were told off by name--so many for each house in proportion to the
number of American inmates--and day after day, awaiting the signal for
their bloody work, these native devotees greeted with servile bows and
studied the habits of the officers they were designated to fall upon in
their sleep and slay without mercy. Even women and children were not to be
spared; and many a woman, hearing this grewsome story, trembled in her
terror. For a time, in dread of this new peril, Nita Frost almost forgot
the other; but not so Margaret. She scoffed and scouted the rumor of
Filipino outbreak. She laughed at Frost, who all too evidently believed in
it, and was in hourly trepidation. He begged that the guard at his
quarters might be doubled, and was totally unnerved when told it might
even have to be reduced. Not so Mrs. Frank. She made friends with the
stalwart sergeant commanding; always had hot coffee and sandwiches ready
for the midnight relief; made it a point to learn the name of each
successive noncommissioned officer in charge, and had a winsome smile and
word for the sentries as she passed. It wasn't Filipino aggression that
she feared. The men wondered why she should so urgently bid them see that
no strangers--Americans--were allowed within the massive gates. There were
tramps, even in Manila, she said. When the sisters drove, their natty
little Filipino team flashed through the lanes and streets at top speed,
the springy Victoria bounding at their heels to the imminent peril of the
cockaded hats of the dusky coach and footman, if not even to the seats of
those trim, white-coated, big-buttoned, top-booted, impassive little
Spanish-bred servitors. The carriage stopped only at certain designated
points, and only then when a group of officers stood ready to greet them.
Not once had they been menaced by any one nor approached by any man even
faintly resemb