Lopez, his heart beating and his bronze face set determinedly, watched the two topmasts of the gunboat as they traveled toward the bend in the river. The next second the “Mindinao’s” white bow came slowly, majestically from behind the land and turned gracefully up the river toward the cañon. At the foot of the trail khaki-clad figures suddenly appeared and mounted slowly up the narrow path. He could see the guides in front clearing and uncovering the treacherous man traps. His men had now seen the approaching deliverers and their black eyes snapped excitedly. Any one with half an eye would have known that something out of the ordinary was going forward. The eager brown soldiers of Rodriguez moved about restlessly, glancing excitedly down into the valley below them. Fortunately the leader and his followers were too absorbed in watching the suffering of poor Phil to take heed of the strange behavior of the deserters from Rodriguez. Lopez saw the little gunboat stop suddenly in the river and he observed plainly groups of men at the bow guns. Then came a flash of flame from her white hull and a reverberation which shook the mountain stronghold to its foundation. The tortured and half-dead Americans were forgotten; their captors had rushed away to see the meaning of this interruption. It was but the work of an instant for the watchful Lopez to sever with a few swift strokes of his bolo the cords that bound his white chief. O’Neil was likewise cut down, and the two nearly lifeless men were dragged to the safety of that part of the stronghold guarded by Lopez and his small band. Shell after shell came speeding up from the gunboat, and meanwhile the khaki-clad soldiers, unobserved, toiled onward up the slope. “To your posts,” Espinosa cried out in alarm. “Open fire with that gun.” The surprised and terrified leader raved like a madman, taking all to task for their stupidity. Phil had been released so promptly, while all was uproar and confusion, that as yet the insurgents had not realized that Lopez and his men were against them. Espinosa, in a fever of excitement, himself ran to the howitzer and with his own hands pointed and fired the first shot. But that was the last shot the gun would ever fire, for Lopez with a number of his men pushed quietly forward, cutting its binding ropes and shoved it over the edge of the cliff from which it crashed downward to the river below. Espinosa turned aghast and met the cold, defiant eye of Lopez. In them he read his doom. Lopez’s sharp bolo was already circling about his head. But the next second it had flashed harmlessly by and rattled on the rocky ground. Fearful of his life Espinosa had dodged the blow aimed at him and had taken flight, screaming as he ran for his men to open fire on the traitors. The shells of the gunboat seemed to fall in every part of the stronghold and the havoc of their explosions was terrible to witness; but the small band under Lopez remained unharmed.