The Law of the Bolo

by Stanley Portal Hyatt

A wheezy little steamer took Captain Hayle and his men across the bay. At first, the skipper suggested that he should land the party at Igut; but, greatly to his disgust, Hayle declined. There was another tiny harbour practically at the foot of the mountains, and there was no sense in tramping ten miles or so through the jungle when you could go much more comfortably by water. It was nothing to Basil if the mestizo skipper happened to be in a hurry to get back in time for a big cock-fight. So, in the end, they disembarked at the village of Katubig, which consisted of a score of nipa-shacks along the edge of the beach, the sort of place which could be burned with the greatest ease any night, if you were not on good terms with the ladrones—or, more important still, not under the protection of Felizardo—facts which struck Captain Hayle at once, and made him very careful and a little anxious.

Felizardo had received ample warning of the coming of the Constabulary; in fact, ten of the deserters from Hayle’s old company had arrived, with their carbines, and begged to be admitted to the band; but, though the chief had retained the weapons, which would be useful, he had declined the services of the men, arguing that if they had been unfaithful to the Americanos, they would possibly be unfaithful to him.

He was perfectly able to hold his own in the mountains, of that he had no doubt; but still Hayle’s expedition worried him, because it showed that the Americanos did not mean to continue the sensible Spanish policy of leaving him alone. For years past he had given up active ladronism, having no further need to practise anything of the kind, and he was both annoyed and astonished that the new authorities in Manila should think of interfering with him. It never occurred to him that, in addition to having incurred the enmity of the Manila mestizos, he was also an anachronism—that he represented a condition of affairs which Mr Commissioner Furber and his colleagues could not allow to continue, that his personal independence was contrary to all the accepted theories of law and order, as well as to the Declaration of Independence, because, as the Commissioners had heard on the very best authority, he was a tyrant and an Enemy of the People.

If Felizardo had understood these things, he might have acted differently, and have made his peace with Manila. True, he was growing old, and a little weary, and old men are less ready for strife than are the younger ones; but, at the same time, they are less ready to change their points of view, and the one fixed idea in Felizardo’s mind was that the mountains belonged to him. Still, he did not want to bring on a crisis; and so he sent word to his outposts on the lower slopes, to the villages in the valley, and to the head-hunters on the northern side, that the Americanos were to be turned back with as little bloodshed as possible—which was fortunate for Captain Basil Hayle and his men.

The Constabulary remained one night at Katubig, the Teniente of which proved to be a most courteous old native, very full of information concerning Felizardo and his evil ways; in fact, so anxious was he to see the band broken up, that he even offered to let his own servant guide Hayle and his men to the brigands’ camp, which, he said, was some twenty miles away, towards the end of the range. For a moment, Basil hesitated. It seemed a little too easy. Then he recollected that his only alternative was to blunder forward without a guide of any sort, and so he accepted the offer.

Twenty miles may not seem a great distance in a civilised country, where there are roads, or, at least, paths; but twenty miles along the lower slopes of Felizardo’s mountains, forcing one’s way through the dense jungle, with the necessity of being prepared for attack at any moment, is a very different matter. It took two days to do the journey, and when the column arrived, weary and hungry, at the spur of the big volcano, just beyond which Felizardo’s camp was supposed to be, and camped down for the night, Basil discovered that the guide had slipped away into the bush.

The situation was not a pleasant one. The whole way they had seen no trace either of ladrones or of tao. There was no chance of getting another guide, no chance of obtaining information; whilst for lack of cargadores, or carriers, they had only been able to take five days’ food supply with them. In the circumstances, most men would have made their way straight back to Katubig, and then have started afresh; but the idea was utterly repugnant to Captain Hayle. He felt that, so far, he had shown himself a helpless amateur, and that to return meekly would be to make a public confession of failure. He spent half the night sitting beside the fire, smoking, and trying to think out a plan. He realised now the extreme difficulty of his task, the absurdity of it even—they had set a white man who had not the slightest idea of the geography of the range to track down a native outlaw who had spent thirty-five years there, and knew every inch of the ground.

Nine Constabulary officers out of ten would have reported the job to be hopeless. Basil Hayle happened to be the tenth man, and, before he lay down to sleep, he had decided to do the thing scientifically—to explore the range from end to end, even if he took months over doing it, and then to ask for an adequate force with which to round up the outlaws. It was the only way.

In accordance with this plan, he did the one thing which neither Felizardo, nor any one else, would have expected him to do—at the first streak of dawn he started to climb straight up the mountain-side, beyond the jungle, beyond the scrub which succeeded the jungle, on to the rocky ground itself, and there he had his first fight.

Afterwards, Felizardo hanged two of the survivors for not keeping a proper lookout; but, though that prevented similar mishaps for the future, it did not alter the essential fact that the outlaws were badly beaten. They had a camp—it was one of their largest outpost stations—on a great ledge of rock, from which, on a clear day, you could see Manila itself. Two large caves furnished the main shelter, but in addition to these there were half a dozen little huts, amongst which the men were sitting, smoking and playing cards, when Basil Hayle and his men suddenly appeared. For once, the rifle had its chance against the bolo, or rather the bolo had no chance at all. Moreover, the Constabulary were superior numerically. The first volley really settled the question; and when a dozen bolomen did rally and attempt a rush, half-heartedly, knowing that the bolo should be used in the jungle or in the darkness, they were beaten back easily.