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 _señorita_ 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 near a thorny hedge, and, balancing ourselves on this, we made slow progress, meanwhile tearing our clothes to shreds. Skim had considerable difficulty with his long legs, for he could have touched the ground on either side, but he could use them to advantage, when it came to wading through the slosh ourselves, and dragging the tired ponies after us. At night we "came to anchor" in a village, where we purchased a canned dinner in a Spanish store. The natives gathered around us as we sat, all splashed with mud, on wicker chairs in front of the provincial _almacen_. Skim talked with the Spaniard, alternating every word with "_estie_," while the Don kept swallowing his eyes and gesturing appropriately. Skim was convinced that his Castilian was fine art.