This time the crowd of prisoners was greatly increased. At San Isidro there were added 600 Spaniards; a small tribe of mountain Negritos whom Aguinaldo had originally sent to fight the Americans, but who, being armed only with spears and bolos, soon got tired of seeing their number decrease so rapidly before American riflemen, and refused to fight, and who were later imprisoned and terribly misused by Aguinaldo's selected guards; and eighteen Americans in addition to Gilmore's party (total twenty-six Americans), who had been captured in as many different ways around Manila by the crafty, cunning Filipinos. Among them was Frank Stone, of the U. S. Signal Corps, captured by some "amigos" (friendly natives) on the railroad track near Manila, while out strolling one Sunday afternoon; Private Curran, of the 16th U.S. Infantry who was grabbed within fifty feet of his own outpost, gagged and dragged into captivity; also a civilian who had gone to the Philippines to sell liquor. This fellow was captured by the Filipinos in the outskirts of Manila while he was searching for a small boatload of stolen beer. He was the life of the expedition. He took his captivity as a joke, told stories to keep the prisoners good natured, and painted on ever boulder that he passed the seemingly sacrilegious words, "Drink Blank's beer on the road to H----." It was, however, this harmless practice that later on enabled the American relief party to follow the prisoners' trail. After reaching the western shore of Luzon, the party was marched northward along the beach, another 100 miles, to the city of Vigan. Here they were imprisoned for three months longer. The sudden presence of an American war-ship in the harbor, off Vigan, caused the natives to abandon that city and start inland with their prisoners for some mountain fastness. The Americans were separated from the rest of the prisoners whom they never saw again. High up in the mountains of northern Luzon, two of the American boys were taken sick with fever and fell down, exhausted. The Filipino lieutenant who had charge of the prisoners, ordered them to go on; they could not. He threatened to shoot them. Gilmore interceded for them without avail. The Americans refused to leave their Anglo-Saxon comrades and prepared to fight. At this moment the Filipino officer himself was suddenly taken ill, and by the time he was able to advance, the sick Americans were able to go along. A few days later they struggled over the crest of the divide and came upon the headwaters of a beautiful mountain torrent dancing down the rocky ledges in its onward course to the sea. At a widened place in the canon, the Filipinos withdrew from the Americans, and with guns in hand took their positions on the rocks round-about and above them.