think without any necessity. So far we had not seen, heard or
felt a single fly or mosquito, and were to see none until we struck
civilization once more in the Cagayan Valley.

CHAPTER XII

Day opens badly.--Ifugao houses.--The people, assemble.--Dancing.
--Speeches.--White paper streamers.--Head hunter dance.--Canao.

Needless to say we were up betimes the next morning, May 2d,
for the clans were to gather, and the day would hardly be long
enough for all it was to hold. The day began ominously. As Kiangan
is a sort of headquarters, it has a guard-house for the service of
short imprisonments, a post-and-rail affair made of bamboo under the
_cuartel_. For while our administration is kindly, these mountaineers
from the first have had to learn, if not to feel as yet, that they
must be punished if guilty of infringing such laws and discipline as
have so far been found applicable. Accordingly, our guard-house held
two men, sentenced for twenty days, for having threatened the life of
one of their head men. Short as was the sentence, these two men had
nevertheless dug a passage in the earthen floor of their quarters,
and had just the night before opened the outer end of it, but not
enough to admit the passage of a human body. A private of Constabulary,
passing by this morning, stooped to examine this hole new to him, when
one of the prisoners threw a spear at him, made of a stalk of _runo_
[25] the head being a small strip of iron which he had kept concealed
in his gee-string. So true was his aim that, although he had to throw
his improvised spear between the rails, he nevertheless struck the
private in the neck, cutting his jugular vein, so that in five minutes
he was dead. The pen was now entered for the purpose of shackling the
criminal, when he announced that he would kill any white man that laid
hands on him. Upon Lieutenant Meimban of the Constabulary advancing,
both of the prisoners rushed him. In the mellay that followed the
murderer was shot and killed and his companion badly beaten up; Strong
later had to put seventeen stitches in one scalp wound alone. Although
the _rancheria_ from which the murdered private came was two hours
off, so that it usually took four hours to send a message and get
an answer, yet an hour and a half after the man died a runner came
in to ask for his body so it could be suitably buried. Altogether,
this double killing damped our spirits considerably; for one thing,
there was