And Schrofft answered just as trustingly, "On the eighteenth."
Dimly he felt the thrill of the contrast, saw primeval Nature and the lean, sardonic American face each other, and felt no doubt of the outcome. Many times, as the slow days passed, he looked away to the black mantle of forest which clothed all the land to the south, close-fitting and unbroken up to the rough crest of Mount Bagalayag itself. "He'll do it," he repeated continually.
And Mr. Richard Roe did do it. On the evening of the seventeenth, a shrill clamor of women's voices ran through the town, and their owners gathered on the river bank to meet an unwieldy raft that was warping in on the brown and sluggish current. The huge sullen logs seemed bound to sink, in spite of the bulk of chambered bamboo which buoyed them, but standing springily erect on their backs, Mr. Richard Roe dominated the raft as he did all things else. When it grounded, he swung himself to the shoulders of two of his men and was borne triumphantly ashore.
"By Jove, Schrofft," was his greeting, "glad to see you looking that way." He flipped a hand behind him, and added casually, "There are your trees," and that was all of the little epic of the forest which Schrofft ever heard from his lips, except for fragments which he tossed out to laugh at. But from the tales which the restored husbands and fathers of Bagalayag chattered to their families, he gathered a picture of heart-breaking toil and endurance, and cheerful, laughing resourcefulness which filled him with a yearning admiration for its central figure.
That night, had Mr. Richard Roe so chosen, he might have become hereditary lord of Bagalayag in Mindoro, and laughed at the law, the Constitution and the flag, schoolhouses, benevolent assimilation, and human progress. Like a travel-worn, unshaven monarch, he sat in Schrofft's long cane chair, puffing contentedly at Schrofft's cherished china pipe, while the unfaithful servant Juan knelt at his feet and revived the tarnished glories of the shining boots, and his primitive worshippers poured in a stream of tribute, herbs of the field and fruits, fish and flesh and fowl, indigestible sweets and death-dealing drinks of home manufacture. On all alike he smiled kindly yet wearily, with the affable condescension of one who by divine right might be severe, yet chooses to be kind. But once his smile broadened into feeling.
"You won't find Lame Duck and Gouty Hen bringing me any thanks for stringing 'em that way," he remarked to Schrofft, who sat in the background, as proud as the mother of one chicken.
"Lame Duck and Gouty Hen?" Schrofft echoed, puzzled.
"My untamed Chinks," the Duke of 1083rd Street explained. "That was a stroke of genius, taking them. They did the work, while the Filipinos did the kicking. We sawed the trees down, you know—may not be the way to do it, but we did it—and we three took turns—"
"Lame Duck and Gouty Hen!" Schrofft spluttered with delight. "Himmel! Such names!" Then he became serious. "How can I pay you! When you come I say to you, 'I would gif a hundert dollars for a man,' and you are a man, the finest I efer—"
"That's all right," said Mr. Richard Roe benevolently. "It was good sport. I wouldn't work that hard for money."