The Captain tried all devices, forced marches, and feints on
other pueblos, but to no purpose. He always arrived to find his quarry
gone, but breakfast waiting for him (the American) at the _convento_,
or priest's house. The table was laid for just the right number of
persons, and the priest was always affable and amused. The Captain
grew desperate. He gave out false marching orders, and tried all the
tricks he knew of. Finally, he let it be known that he intended to
march on Salas's pueblo the next morning, and he did so, and actually
arrived unexpectedly, or at least so nearly so that breakfast was
not ready. The Filipinos had assumed that his announcement cloaked
some other invention, and had expected him to branch off at the
eleventh hour.
The Captain searched the town from garret to cellar, but no Quentin
Salas. He unearthed, however, the usual score of paupers and
invalids. One of these was a man humped up with rheumatism, as only
a Filipino decrepit can be. The Americans finally departed, leaving
this ruin staring after them from the window of a nipa shack. Months
afterward, when peace had been declared, the officer heard his name
called in the government building at Iloilo, and saw a keen-eyed
Filipino holding out his hand. The Filipino introduced himself as
Quentin Salas, and owned that he possessed a slight advantage in
having viewed the officer _in propria persona_, while he, Salas, was
in disguise.
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