The following year I carried out my promise, taking with me Colonel Villamor, who had rendered very valuable and satisfactory assistance on my previous trip. I also had three white companions, Dr. Paul C. Freer, superintendent of government laboratories, Major Samuel Crawford and Lieutenant L. D. Atkins. These officers commanded a detachment of twenty-five Ilocano constabulary soldiers which I reluctantly took along, warned by my experience of the previous year and convinced by the arguments of my Ilocano carriers, who declined to accompany me unless I took an armed escort. Prior to my departure from Manila I had received an urgent telegram from the governor of North Ilocos informing me that one Abaya, a wild Tingian from Apayao, had been sentenced to a term of imprisonment in Bilibid, the insular penitentiary, and urging me to arrange if possible to have him detained at Laoag until my arrival there, which I did. On reaching Laoag, I was amazed to find a large delegation of fully armed Apayao men waiting for me at the river bank. They followed me to the house where my quarters were to be, and sat down on the stairway, with the obvious intention of seeing that I did not leave without their knowledge. On asking the meaning of this occurrence, I was told that they were friends of Abaya and wished to talk with me. When given an opportunity to do so, they told me a singular tale, which admirably illustrates the relations prevailing in that region between the wild men and their Filipino neighbours. Abaya was one of a few men in Apayao who dared to descend to the lowlands. He came down occasionally, bringing tobacco and wax to barter for cloth, steel, salt and other necessaries not obtainable in Apayao. Being unable to speak Ilocano well, he obtained a Filipino agent known as his "commissioner," who transacted his business for him, withholding for himself a liberal percentage of the proceeds. On the occasion of his last visit to the lowlands, the "commissioner" had told Abaya that he had a Negrito slave who was planning to escape, and had directed him to take his head-axe and kill the Negrito, promising him half of a large pig in payment for this service. Abaya, nothing loth, hastened to execute the order, hunting up the Negrito and aiming a terrific blow at him. Fortunately the Negrito saw it coming and jumped so that he received it on his shoulder instead of his neck. It inflicted a horrible wound, but he nevertheless ran away so fast that Abaya was unable to catch him and finish the job. He returned and regretfully reported his lack of success to his "commissioner." To his amazement he was arrested, taken to Laoag and held for trial. Both he and his friends were convinced that the reason for this was his failure to kill the Negrito, and the friends assured me in the most positive terms that Abaya had done his very best and that it was through no fault of his that the Negrito had escaped! They demanded his immediate release.