We left Loo at six o’clock in the morning and after eight straight hours of the hardest work we had yet been called upon to do, we arrived at Cabayan. According to my own diary: “I was completely tired. The greater part of the way we rode through beautiful pine forests, but up and down hills as steep as the side of a house; across rivers, and up a waterfall.” This sounds like pretty heavy going, but my account of it written at the time was, I am sure, only slightly exaggerated. I remember distinctly that from Loo to Baguio, five full days, we walked a great part of the way; and not only did we walk, but we rendered necessary assistance to our horses which, giving out one by one, had to be dragged up the steep grades and “eased” down the opposite sides in a way that would have been highly ludicrous had we been engaged in anything but a very serious business. Only the steady old mules plodded along “without a word,” and found their own way in safety around the dangerous turns.
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