On Vic's Return He Was Much Alarmed, As He Said The Dog Belonged To The Negrito Chief, Who Was Very Fond Of It, And Would Be Very Angry With Me If He Knew.

So we hid the body in the middle of a clump of bamboo about a quarter of a mile away from the hut.

But the following day the sky was thick with a kind of turkey buzzard, which had evidently smelt the dog's corpse from some distance, and they were soon quarrelling over the remains. Vic worked himself up into a state of panic, saying that it would be discovered by the Negritos, but a few days later I sent him over to the Negrito chief's hut to get me some rice, and the chief mentioned that his chief wife had lost her dog, which she was very fond of, and that he thought that I must have killed it. Vic in reply said that that could never be, as in the country that I came from the people were so fond of dogs that they were very kind to them, and treated them like their own fathers. The chief then said that a pig must have killed it, and so the incident ended.

About this time Vic asked my permission to return to Florida Blanca for a few days, as he had heard that his wife had run away with another man, and he offered to send his brother to take his place. His brother could also speak English a little, and was assistant schoolmaster to the American. He proved, however, an arrant coward, and, like most Filipinos, lived in great fear of the Negritos. When out with me in the forest he would start, if he heard a twig snap or a bamboo creak, and look fearfully about him for a Negrito. He told me that the Negritos will kill and rob you if they think there is no chance of being found out, and he mentioned a case of an old Filipino being killed and robbed by these same Negritos a few months previously. I managed to string together the following absurd story from his broken English. He said that if you heard a twig break in the forest once or even twice you were safe enough, but if a twig snapped a third time, and you did not call out that you saw the Negrito, you would get an arrow into you. He said that once when he heard the stick "break three time" (to use his own words), he called out "Ah! I see you Negrite, and the Negrite he no shoot, but came out like amigo (friend)." His English was too limited for me to point out the many weak and absurd points of the story, as, for instance, why the Negrito should make the twigs break exactly three times, and why he should not shoot because he thinks he is seen. I only mention this anecdote to illustrate the credulity of the Filipinos.

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