The house no longer seemed deserted with this company, and as they had brought supplies for two months—which included bread!—we made an early attack upon these commissaries. Since the troops had left I had been existing on canned salmon and sardines. Now there were cheese, guava, artichokes, mushrooms, ham, bacon, blackberry-jam, and fruits. The captain, natural detective that he was, caught one of the muchachos stealing a bottle of cherries, which he had thrown out the window during the unpacking, with the purpose of securing it next day. On being accused, he made a vigorous protest of his innocence, but after a few minutes he returned triumphantly with the intelligence that he had “found” that which was lost.
A heavy rain and the tail-end of a monsoon kept my two guests prisoners for a week. The presidente of the town had issued a bandilla that all able-bodied men were wanted to enlist in the constabulary. Accordingly came awkward natives to the house, where the interpreter examined them; for all the Spanish that the genial captain knew—and he had lived already two years in the Philippines—was “bueno,” “malo,” “saca este,” and “sabe that?” The candidates were measured, and, if not found wanting, were turned over to the native tailor to be fitted with new uniforms. Some of the applicants confessed that they had once been Insurrectos; but so much the better,—they knew how to fight. They said that they were not afraid of Moros—though I think that they would rather have encountered tigers—and when finally dressed, a few days later, they appeared upon the streets self-conscious, objects of adoration in the eyes of all the local belles.
The time came when the mists dissolved upon the mountains, and the little clouds scudded along overhead as though to get in from the rain. The sun had struggled out for a few minutes, and the wind abated. But the sea had not forgotten recent injuries, and all night we could hear the booming of the surf. The launch, drowned in a nebula of spray, dashed by, and sought an anchorage in safer waters. So it was decided that we go to Cagayan in a big banca. But it was a most unwieldly craft to launch. We got the arms and ammunition safe aboard, and then, assisted by the sturdy corporals and miscellaneous natives, we pushed out. A rushing comber swept the boat and nearly swamped it. But we bore up till about a hundred yards from shore, when a gigantic breaker bearing down upon the banca—which had been deflected so as to present a broadside—filled her completely, and she went down in the swirling spume. Up to our necks in surf, we labored for an hour, together with the population of the fishing village, finally to save the wretched boat and most of the constabulary ordnance.
But, alas for the lieutenant! He had lost one of his riding-leggings, and for half a day he paced the shore in search of it. He offered rewards to any native who should rescue it. Lacking a saving sense of humor, he bemoaned his fate, and when he did give up the search, he discontinued it reluctantly. And two years afterwards, when I next met him, he inquired if I had seen his legging washed up on the beach. “Some native must be sporting around in it,” he said. “It set me back five dollars, Mex.”
It was a sleepy day at Cagayan. The tropical river flowed in silence through the jungle like a serpent. In Capitan A-Bey’s house opposite, a señorita droned the Stepanie Gavotte on the piano. Capitan A-Bey’s pigs rooted industriously in the compound. The teacher who had hiked in from El Salvador, unconscious that his canvas leggings were transposed, was engaged in a deep game of solitaire.
Upon the settee in the new constabulary residence, his long legs doubled up ridiculously, still in khaki breeches and blue flannel army shirt, lay “Skim,” with a week’s growth of beard upon his face, sleeping after a night-ride over country roads. After an hour or two of rest he would again be in the saddle for two days.
Late in the afternoon we started on constabulary ponies for Balingasag—a ride of thirty miles through quagmires, over swollen streams and mountain trails. Our ponies were the unaccepted present from a quack who thus had tried to buy his way out of the calaboose, where he was “doing time” for trying to pass himself off as a prophet.
The first few miles of the journey led through the cloistered archways of bamboo. We crossed the Kauffman River, swimming the horses down stream. Then the muddy roads began. The constant rains had long ago reduced them to a state of paste, and although some attempt had been made to stiffen them with a filling of dried cocoanut-husks, the sucking sound made by the ponies’ hoofs was but a prelude to our final floundering in the mud. There was a narrow ridge on one side near a thorny hedge, and, balancing ourselves on this, we made slow progress, meanwhile tearing our clothes to shreds. Skim had considerable difficulty with his long legs, for he could have touched the ground on either side, but he could use them to advantage, when it came to wading through the slosh ourselves, and dragging the tired ponies after us. At night we “came to anchor” in a village, where we purchased a canned dinner in a Spanish store. The natives gathered around us as we sat, all splashed with mud, on wicker chairs in front of the provincial almacen. Skim talked with the Spaniard, alternating every word with “estie,” while the Don kept swallowing his eyes and gesturing appropriately. Skim was convinced that his Castilian was fine art.
We slept in a deserted schoolhouse, lizards and mosquitoes being our bed-fellows. Skim, the rough cowboy that he was, pillowed his head upon the horse’s flank, and kept his boots on. At the break of day, restless as ever, he was off again. Crossing the Jimenez River in a native ferry while the horses swam, we passed through tiny villages that had not seen a white man for a year. Our journey now lay through the woods, and Skim, dismounting, stalked along the narrow trail as though he had been shod in seven-league boots. I heard a pistol shot ring out, and, coming up, found Skim in mortal combat with an ape. Then one more plunge into a river, and another stream spanned by a bamboo pole, which we negotiated like funambulists, dragging the steeds below us by their halters,—then Balingasag.