648
THE GREEN BAG
you ascend gradually for some twenty miles or more, from the low country toward the mountains. Then comes about twenty-five miles of mountain trail, such as would de light the heart of any true member of the Alpine Club, or the Ararat Society, except that there dwell among the fast nesses through which this trail winds a lot of savages — "half devil and half child"— who till the soil as well as hunt game, and who entertain a belief that if at the season when a certain red flower blooms they go abroad in the land and cut off the heads of wayfarers and stick them about over their fields at the end of long poles, the crops sown in such fields will prosper beyond com pare. If you get safely through this twentyfive miles and don't get drowned in the river just beyond, your troubles are over, and during the rest of the journey you feel as complacent as Sergeant Mulvaney did after the taking of Lung-tung-pen. As the time approaches to adjourn the October term of the Court of First In stance of Isabela Province in order that said court might open its first regular semi annual session in the adjoining province of Nueva Viscaya in the month of November, the presiding judge of the court, and the stenographer, began to gather information and compare notes, with a view of getting ready for the next change of venue. The 1 6th United States Infantry was garrisoning that part of my district which lay in the Cagayan Valley, and Captain Chrisman of that regiment, commanding the United States forces at Ilagan, at whose house I stopped during the term of court held in Isabela Province, advised me not to under take the trip to Bayombong without a strong escort. This he offered to furnish, and did furnish. The escort consisted of some six oreight soldiers of the 1 6th Infantry, mounted, and armed with carbines and revolvers, and some American packers, to look after the pack mules. The packers had revolvers. This made about ten beside Brower and myself, who also had revolvers — twelve
armed Americans, all told. In addition to the foregoing, a constabulary officer turned up at the last moment, bound from Ilagan for Bayombong also. He was to carry over a lot of money, and supplies, and was taking along a guard of native constabulary just about equal, in numbers, to our own party. So that we were, altogether, near twenty-five. This made us practically safe in the day time against the head-hunters, because they had no firearms, and we could avoid camping in their country over night by crossing it in one day — rising early, travelling briskly, and not stopping for a midday meal. To appreciate the apparently insoluble difficulty which confronted us at the very threshold of the Ilagan houses from which we emerged in the wet grey dawn of the morning after our last night there, you should know, roughly, how the land lay. Imagine a capital Y inverted thus, x> north lying in the direction of the top of this page. The two arms of the inverted letter repre sent two rivers, one coming from the south east, the other from the southwest. Where the two arms meet to form the main stem of the letter, is where the two rivers meet to form the main stem of the Rio Grande de Cagayan, which flows* due north to the sea. At the junction of the two rivers lies the town of Ilagan. Our destination, Bayombong, being southwest of the starting point, we had an uphill journey, i.e. up the slant of the water shed which meant (that far up the river — in the rainy season) that we must travel all the way by land. To go south west we must get out of town by crossing the left or west fork. The point of land on which the town lay was nothing less than a bluff, and a high one at that — possibly forty feet above the ordinary low water. On this particular morning the river was risen about half way to the top of the bluff. But before we start upon our journey, the mise-en-scbne would be incomplete without mention of the tpyewriting machine. Prior to our departure from Manila, I had sue
