Page:Under MacArthur in Luzon.djvu/24

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UNDER MacARTHUR IN LUZON

Francisco. At San Francisco Larry had shipped as a foremast hand, first for Honolulu and then for Hong Kong, and on this latter voyage he had been wrecked with his intimate Yankee friend, Luke Striker, only to be picked up later by the Asiatic Squadron under Commodore (later Admiral) Dewey, just as the latter was sailing for the Philippines to engage the Spanish fleet under Admiral Montojo. How the greatest naval battle of modern times was successfully fought by Uncle Sam's jackies, and what part Larry and his friend Luke played in the drama, will be found set down in all its glorious details in "Under Dewey at Manila." After this battle Larry returned home, thinking the war in Philippine waters at an end, but when fresh troubles came in the shape of the Filipino rebellion he hastened to rejoin his ship the Olympia, and, later on, left that vessel to join the volunteer army, along with Luke Striker. But both had been wounded, and they were among those taken to the hospital at Manila.

Walter Russell was not naturally a sailor like Larry, but in Boston he had fallen in with a naval veteran of the Civil War, and this old gunner had so fired the youth's patriotic ambition that Walter