"There's no way to send her back to her friends, and we can't leave her here," said Bansemer.
"But, gee whiz, we can't take her on a hike like this," protested the sergeant. "She'll be in the way, and she'll give out, and all that. Besides, what would we do with a woman around all the time?"
"I fancy she can hike all right," said Graydon. "Major March wouldn't expect us to leave her behind. That would be heartless."
By the time the party and guides was ready to start on its forced march, the opinion, unanimously expressed was that Teresa Velasquez should go forward also, come what might. She had pleaded so hard and so effectually that the men were fairly swept off their feet in a storm of sympathy.
"If she gives out we'll carry her," roared a deeply impressed young man with long red whiskers.
"And when we get up to the command we'll make them derned correspondents take turn about walkin', so she can ride a pony all the time. They've got no business ridin', anyhow."
And so with rosy confidence in the fitness of things and a just belief in the charity of Major March, the detachment marched out into the hills, the ward of the company trudging bravely beside the tall and envied Mr. Bansemer--who, by the way, aside from being politely attentive, did not exhibit any undue signs of exaltation.
The presence of a woman--and a very pretty one at that, with a sadness in her eyes that was appealing--served only to send his thoughts bounding back to the girl he had left behind. He grew more and more morose and silent as the day wore on; at times the tired, lonely girl at his side lagged and cast wondering, piteous glances at him. Her woman's intuition told her that this man did not belong where he was; it told her also that he had a secret and that one of her sex was deeply involved.
The events of the next two weeks are of small consequence in this narrative, which deals not so much with the history and mystery of the campaign in the fall of '99 as with the welfare and emotions of a single soldier at the front. Aguinaldo and Pilar had become refugees by this time, hunted and hounded from place to place with relentless fervour. Pilar was somewhere in the hills with his men, the pride of the insurgent forces; Aguinaldo's remnant had scurried off in another direction, and General Tono was on the coast with what was left of the scattered force.
The net about Gregorio del Pilar was being drawn in and tightened. The closing week in November saw him driven to the last extremity. The tragedy of Tilad Pass was near at hand.