could descry him from afar, chin in
the air, arms swinging, hiking along with five-foot strides. If he
could "doctor up" the natives he was satisfied. He knew them all by
name down to the smallest girl, and he applied his healing lotions
with the greatest sense of duty, much to the amusement of the regular
M.D. But Ichabod was qualified, for he had once confided to me that
at one time he had learned the names of all the bones in the left hand!

The colony showed signs of breaking up. The native scouts had gone,
leaving their weeping "_hindais_" on the shore. "Major O'Dowd,"
his wife, and Flora had also departed to a station _sin Americanos_
up in the interior. At this, the doctor, for the first time in his
life, broke into song, after the style and meter of immortal Omar:

"Hiram, indeed is gone; his little Rose
Vamosed to Lintogoup with all her clothes;
But still the Pearls are with us down the line,
And many a _hindai_ to the _tubig_ goes."

"Tubig," he said, "did not mean 'water.' It was more poetical,
expressing the idea of fountain, watering-place, or spa."

It was my last day at Aloran. In the morning I ascended a near
elevation, and looked down upon the sleepy valley spread below. There
was the river winding in and out; there was the convent, like
a doll-house in a field of green. Vivan had gone on with the
trunks and boxes packed upon a carabao. The ponies were waiting
in the compound. Valedictories were quickly said; but there was
little Peter with his silken cheeks, the brightest little fellow
I have ever known. It seemed a shame to leave him there in darkest
Mindanao. Turning the horses into the Aloran River at the ford we
struck the high road near the _barrio_ of Feliz. Galloping on, past
"Columbine" bridge, "Skeleton" bridge, "Johnson's Despair," and Fenis,
we arrived at Oroquieta in good time.

But what a change from the old place as we had known it! Hiram,
indeed was gone. The doctor had set out for pastures new. The "Arizona
Babe" and "Foxy Grandpa" had departed for fresh fields. Like one who,
falling asleep in a theater, awakes to find the curtain down and the
spectators gone, so I now looked about the vacant town. The actors
had departed, and "the play was played out."

Chapter XIII.

In Camp and Barracks with the Officers and Soldiers of the Philippines.

Bugle-calls, loud, strident bugle-calls, leaping in unison from the
brass throats of bugl