CHAPTER XIX
THE MEETING AT THE MOUNTAIN PASS
"Walter, we don't seem to be getting anywhere in particular very fast. Here we have been travelling about a week, over hills and streams, dodging the natives, and scurrying around for something to eat, and to what purpose? My feet are so sore I can hardly walk on them, and my legs ain't no better. I'm afraid we undertook a big job when we started to hoof it to Manila."
It was Si who spoke, as he dropped under a palm tree overlooking a wide stretch of marshland, with here and there an abandoned paddy field. It was midday, hot and muggy, and both youths were utterly exhausted by a walk of several miles in mud up to their ankles. The day previous it had rained for ten hours out of twelve, and they had slept that night in clothes which were saturated, so it is not to be wondered at that they were in ill humor.
"Better give yourself up to the Filipinos and have done with it," returned Walter, somewhat bitterly. "I don't believe you'd care very much if they knocked you in the head, as they do an ox in the slaughterhouse."
"I wouldn't care jest now—but I would if they gave me time to think it over," came from the Yankee lad, with a touch of his former humor, brought on by the peculiar way in which his chum looked at him. "No, I ain't so disheartened as all that. But it's tough, ain't it, the luck we're having?" And he drew a mountainous sigh as he inspected one of his shoes, which had burst open at the side.
"That shoe won't last very long, Si—and neither will mine. Did you ever go barefooted?"
"Yes, when I was a little chap. But I wouldn't want to go without shoes over these rocks and stubble. Got any of that rice cake left?"
The cake to which he referred was some found in a deserted nipa hut they had passed the evening before. The hut had yielded them not only some rice cakes, but also some ripe cocoanuts and a good sharp knife. The knife was now practically their only weapon, for the pistol had been discharged in a hunt after game to eat, and there were no cartridges with which to reload it.
"I suppose a fellow in a story-book would enjoy this journey wonderfully well," went on Walter, sarcastically. "If he was in a half-dime novel, he would find a gun with ammunition whenever he wanted it, and a matchbox with matches, and furnish himself with all he wanted to eat and to drink, and run across a deserted house with dry clothing and a lot of good things—"
"And then fall in with the savages and have 'em make him their king and show him a mine full o' gold an' diamonds," concluded Si, with a short laugh. "I read one of them yarns once. It was called 'Lalapo Joe, the Boy King o' the South Sea Islanders.' I jest got to where the boy king had found the diamonds and gold and sighted a friendly sail to take him home when my dad came out in the woodshed where I was reading, tore up the novel, and give me the most all-fired wollopin' you ever heard on, and then made me saw wood fer two hours afterward. By ginger, but thet was a dose, Walter, you jest believe me! But I reckon it did me some good, for I never took no stock in them novels afterwards."
Walter burst into a roar; he could not help it, Si's confession was such a comical one. "I guess we've all been through the mill," he said, when he could speak. "I remember I was once reading a detective story when my mother caught me at it. That was about a year before she died. She didn't get angry, but she sat down quietly and made me go over the whole story with her, and then she pointed out all the absurd things, and showed me how no man could possibly do what that detective had been doing,—according to the book,—and she made me so ashamed and disgusted that I threw the story into the fire, and I haven't read a detective story since."
"I would like to see one of your modern detectives set down here," went on the Yankee lad. "I reckon he'd have his hands jest as full as anybody." And the young sailor chewed away at the rice cake in deep meditation. Walter also began to eat, and for some time little was said.
They had reached the Cagayan River, to find that the rain had caused a wide overflow of the banks. Here and there a village was found with its house posts deep in the water. They continued to keep at a distance, longing deeply for some friendly face that never showed itself.
But a change was at hand. On the day following the conversation recorded above, they came to the small mountain range which runs east and west, dividing the northern portion of Luzon from the southern. Here they travelled through a pass where there was a well-defined trail running to a mountain torrent which empties itself into Lingayen Gulf, a deep indentation on the western shore of the island. Rounding a wall of rocks, Walter saw a sight which nearly caused his heart to stop beating.
"Look, Si! White people!" he gasped. "Americans at last! Thank God!"
"Americans, sure enough!" burst from the Yankee lad. "We're lucky, after all, ain't we?"
"So we are. I see two men. How many do you see?"
"Three—no, four. They are coming this way."
"There are some natives with them," went on Walter, his face taking a drop. "Natives with rifles! And the Americans are not armed! What can that mean?"
"By ginger, Walter, it means that those American soldiers are prisoners!"
"Oh, Si, impossible!"
"No, 'tain't! See, the men are tied together in pairs. They are prisoners, as true as you're born. Here's a how d'ye do!"
Si was right; the Americans approaching were truly prisoners of the Filipinos. They were in rags, mostly barefooted, and their faces were pinched and full of misery. Each had his hands bound with strong cords and each was tied to another.
The prisoners were in charge of a party of twenty Filipinos—ten Tagals and ten Igorrotes, all well armed, the latter carrying bolos as well as guns. All were moving slowly, for two of the prisoners could not progress without limping painfully.
"Hurry, you pigs!" a Tagal would shout frequently, in his native tongue. "Hurry, or we'll shoot you down where you stand," and then for a moment the train would increase its speed. But the half-starved prisoners could not keep it up and soon relapsed into as slow a step as before. Then would follow blows and curses, in a manner that made the blood of both "Walter and Si run cold.
"This is awful!" whispered Walter, as he drew out of sight behind the rocks. "What shall we do?"
"I'd like to knock over some of those heathens!" burst out the Yankee lad. "If only we had our muskets!"
"We are only two to twenty, Si; we could do little against such a crowd."
"We might do a whole lot if we kept out of sight and popped them off one at a time."
"Well, we haven't anything but the knife and the empty pistol, and to risk a hand-to-hand struggle would be foolhardy. We had better keep out of sight."
"And leave those poor chaps to their fate?"
"No. Let us follow the crowd. Perhaps we'll be able to do something for them in the dark, if we are not caught ourselves."
The Filipinos with their prisoners were now turning to the right, toward another mountain pass from that which the young sailors had been traversing. The two youths waited until they were almost out of sight, then followed stealthily by moving from tree to tree and bush to bush. They were tremendously interested and wondered who the prisoners could be.
"They look to me like sailors," observed Walter. "But their clothing is in such tatters it's all guesswork."
As they followed the others, the boys kept a constant lookout behind, that they might not be surprised from that direction. In this fashion fully a mile was covered, when the Filipinos called a halt near a spring and went into temporary camp for the night.
"They are tying their prisoners to the trees," announced Si.
"Then they mean to stay awhile—probably over night," returned Walter. "I wonder if we could crawl in under cover of darkness and cut some of them loose?"
"I'm for tryin' it with you," was the quick reply. "Perhaps we can steal some of the guns, too."
Impatiently the two young sailors waited until the darkness was well advanced. The Filipinos had lighted a camp-fire and were around this, eating, drinking, and smoking. Only a small portion of the food was given to the prisoners, who were insulted and kicked whenever an opportunity offered.
At last the camp grew quiet, as one after another of the Filipinos fell asleep. Some of the prisoners were also slumbering, having slipped down in the bonds which held them.
"Now is our chance," whispered Si. "Are you ready, Walter?"
"I am ready, but I wish I had a knife. I can't do much with my fingers, in this darkness."
"Well, do what you can. Do you see that fellow over yonder, by the sharp rock?"
"Yes."
"He's fast asleep, and his gun is at his feet. I think you can get that firearm if you are slick about it."
"I'll try it," answered Walter. "What will you do?"
"Cut the ropes of those two men at the nearest tree first, and then try to get a gun for myself. We have the best of them in one way, for they are not dreaming of an attack in this forsaken place."
Their brief plan completed, they separated, and Walter began to crawl toward the sharp rock, doing it slowly and without the least noise. His heart beat rapidly, for he well knew the danger he was running. Should the Filipino rouse up and see him, the fellow would shoot the young sailor on the spot.