The Commissioners, Mr. Worcester and Mr. Moses, with their private secretaries and a doctor⁠—five in all⁠—came along about an hour behind their pack train. They straggled in one by one, very grumpy, and we decided right away that they had not been taught, as we had been, to make the best of everything and to cultivate sociability on the trail. They had had a much more difficult day’s riding than we because the trail up is much harder than the trail down, but we were pretty certain, on the whole, that we were much the better managed party.

With more Igorrote blankets we arranged another partition in the hut to make room for them, then we gave them a good hot dinner⁠—cooked in the tent which had been put up for kitchen purposes⁠—and immediately a social thaw set in. We got all the news from Manila that we were so anxious for, and all the latest gossip. The news was disquieting. A cablegram had come announcing that the Supreme Court had decided there should be no duties in Puerto Rico against United States imports, and instructing the Commission to suspend all legislation in the Philippine Islands until further notice. This might mean anything, but whatever else it meant it certainly meant renewed uncertainty and the possibility that no change in the government would be made until after Congress met.