igorous orders were issued to prevent such an
occurrence. Night after night the native warriors clustered about one
end of the bridge and uttered curses at the silent Nebraskan outpost.
Before the outbreak actually took place several times our sentries were
forced back by a howling mob of drunken Malays.

One native officer was particularly violent. Not a night passed but that
he gathered a crowd of inebriated Tagalans and tramped down to the
bridge for the purpose of scoffing and hurling vile epithets at the
taciturn American posted there. They were encouraged by the lenient and
apparently submissive attitude of the Americans whom they had begun to
look upon as arrant cowards, who could be wheedled and whipped about as
they chose.

On the night when the signal shot sang out in the darkness and the
battle came, the same haughty officer was coming down towards the
American line to repeat his abusive conduct, when the sharp voice of the
sentry rang out as a warning to halt. He persistently advanced and at
the same time launched some vehement Tagalan curses at the outpost. The
next instant he lay dead with a bullet through his heart; the report
startled the still night air and an insurrection was born.

All that night the thunders of the united American forces in action were
wafted to the Cuartel. The natives were so close that some of the
bullets pattered against the walls of the building and some even struck
the Hotel De Oriente, nearer town. When the commissary wagons probed
their way out to the belligerent front they were fired upon from the
houses lining the streets. Every nipa hut in which a private family
lived became an arsenal.

The trouble had been anticipated and every officer knew what portion he
was expected to defend. Ten minutes after the news arrived in the
Cuartel, the heavy guns of Utah rumbled over the streets to different
parts of the field.

Those under Major Grant rushed out into the night and were instantly
under a vigorous fire near the woods of Caloocan. Captain Wedgewood
disappeared in the blackness and took up the appointed position on the
Balic Balic road near Sampaloe cemetery. The guns under Lieutenant
Seaman dashed out of the barracks and a few moments later their deep
bass was added to the Satanic roar. On McLeod's hill surrounded by the
Nebraskans two guns under Lieutenant Webb menaced the plain below.

At Santa Mesa the fight began. Three minutes after the opening flash the
Nebraska