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 _senorita_ 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