"Man overboard!" Tony's voice lifted in a shout that brought the crew running.
For a few moments there was confusion as the officers and crew tried to find out what had happened, and then the searchlight on the bridge was manned and its white beam cut the water.
There was no swimmer. But off toward Bataan Peninsula the light reflected from the patched sail of a banca, an outrigger canoe, sailing toward shore with a bone in its teeth.
A few moments later the three Spindrifters stood in the captain's office, staring at a Filipino bolo, a long, slightly curving machete with a square tip. Tony hefted it and shuddered. "If you hadn't yelled—well, this thing landed right where my head had been a second before."
"If I hadn't said anything," Rick replied, "it wouldn't have been anywhere near your neck. I put the finger on you by calling your name."
Scotty snapped his fingers. "Of course! The guy must have been hiding, until he heard us call. Then, when you answered, he knew you were the one he was after, and he went for you."
Tony stared, incredulous. "But why? I can't imagine why a mountain Igorot would board the ship for the express purpose of killing me!"
It was Rick's turn to stare. "How did you know he was an Igorot?"
"Either an Igorot or an Ifugao," Tony replied. "I caught a glimpse of his head structure as he jumped onto the rail. Besides, the haircut is distinctive. It looks as though a bowl had been put on the head and all hair removed that it didn't cover."
Rick knew that an Igorot was a primitive native of the Philippine Mountain Province. All of them had received a series of lectures on Philippine ethnology from Tony before leaving home. The Igorots bore roughly the same relationship to the regular Filipino as American Indians do to the white American. Ifugao natives were much like the Igorots, but with a slightly more advanced culture. They, too, lived in Mountain Province, the objective of the Spindrift expedition.