ioned.

On May 14th the "Cavadonga" was sent out on a reconnoitering expedition
up the river. On the way up Sexmoan and Apilit were passed, and it was
observed that all the natives fled from the river as soon as the gunboat
approached. The country is heavily timbered on both sides of the river,
and there was no evidence of a hostile attitude on the part of the
natives until the boat swung round the curve leading to San Luiz. Almost
through the entire distance the shores were lined with Filipino
intrenchments, but it was discovered that these were unoccupied.
Lieutenant Webb was out on the bow capstan, entirely unsheltered by the
meagre 3-16-inch armor with which the craft was encased. Just as a curve
was rounded in front of San Luiz a long line of straw hats and the bores
of fifty rifles were seen facing the boat from the port side, no more
than fifty yards away. Lieutenant Webb was scanning the opposite shore
with his glasses, when the lookout discovered the enemy on the port
side. Sergeant Ford Fisher called out a sudden warning to the Lieutenant
and reached out towards him. Just then the volley came. Fisher reeled
backward with a bullet piercing his brain. Instantly the bow one-pounder
and the Gatling gun on the port side tore the Filipino intrenchments.
Bullets pelted fast against the slight armor of the cruiser. Fred
Mitchell, one of the men at the Gatling gun, was wounded in the hand.
The "Cavadonga" turned round almost where it stood and slowly moved
back, and during a wonderful skirmish in which the native and American
frequently fired in each other's faces at a range of twenty yards, raked
the Filipino works with the fast-firing machine guns. The fighting only
lasted thirty minutes.

When it was over Ford Fisher, who was still breathing, was placed on
board the "Oceania," which had remained about two hundred yards in the
rear during the fighting, and almost at the moment he was laid on the
craft he expired. The "Oceania" sped quickly down the river with the
dead body of the Sergeant, but frequently the "Cavadonga" stopped to
suppress the desultory fire from the natives who had fled during the
early part of the action. It was learned afterwards from the "padre" at
San Luiz that fifty insurgents had been killed during the engagement,
and when the Utah men arrived there a few days later a long line of new
graves in the walled cemetery told a tragic story of the ending of the
fight.

On the evening of this day t