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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Terry, by Charles Goff Thomson
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Terry
+       A Tale of the Hill People
+
+Author: Charles Goff Thomson
+
+Release Date: February 11, 2007 [EBook #20563]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TERRY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Marilynda Fraser-Cunliffe, Richard J. Shiffer
+and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+http://www.pgdp.net (This file was made using scans of
+public domain works from the University of Michigan Digital
+Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+[Transcriber's Note: Every effort has been made to replicate this text as
+faithfully as possible, including obsolete and variant spellings and other
+inconsistencies. Text that has been changed to correct an obvious error by
+the publisher is noted at the end of this ebook.]
+
+
+  TERRY
+
+  A TALE OF THE HILL PEOPLE
+
+  BY
+  CHARLES GOFF THOMSON
+
+
+  Late Lieut.-Colonel, U. S. Army.
+  Formerly Assistant Director of Prisons
+  for Philippine Government
+
+
+
+  New York
+
+  THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
+
+  1921
+
+  _All rights reserved_
+
+
+  COPYRIGHT, 1921,
+  BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
+
+  Set up and electrotyped. Published April, 1921
+
+
+
+
+  DEDICATED TO
+
+  MR. E. J. B.
+
+  WHO HAS GIVEN OF HIS
+  COUNSEL, SPIRIT AND SUBSTANCE
+  TO NEEDY YOUNG MEN
+
+
+
+
+AUTHOR'S NOTE
+
+
+The poem "Casey" used in Chapter IX was written by the late Arthur W.
+Ferguson, formerly Executive Secretary for the Philippine Government.
+It has been edited and amplified but is substantially as written by
+him. A man of unusual facility, Mr. Ferguson composed the verses under
+circumstances somewhat similar to those set down herein, and with like
+spontaneity.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+  CHAPTER                                                 PAGE
+
+      I THE FOX                                              1
+     II TERRY DECIDES                                       18
+    III MINDANAO                                            33
+     IV THE FANATIC                                         52
+      V NEW FRIENDS, AND AN ENEMY                           66
+     VI THE LAND OF HEMP                                    80
+    VII THE PYTHON                                          98
+   VIII THE STRICKEN VILLAGE                               111
+     IX MALABANAN STRIKES                                  126
+      X MALABANAN                                          141
+     XI INTO THE FORBIDDEN HILLS                           157
+    XII THE MAJOR FOLLOWS                                  175
+   XIII THE HILL PEOPLE                                    198
+    XIV AHMA                                               211
+     XV THE SIGN                                           220
+    XVI CIVILIZATION DAWNS IN THE HILLS                    239
+   XVII "SUS-MARIE-HOSEP!"                                 250
+  XVIII THE FOX SKIN                                       262
+
+
+
+
+TERRY
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+THE FOX
+
+
+The frosty silence of the snow-mantled hills was rent by the vicious
+crack of a high-powered, small-calibered rifle. The hunter sprang from
+the thicket in which he had lain concealed and crossed the gully to a
+knoll where a black furry bundle had dropped to the snow after one
+convulsive leap.
+
+Exultant, Terry bent down to examine the silky black coat.
+
+"Right through the ear. Well, Mister Fox, you're mine--though you did
+lead me a merry chase for twelve days! You laughed at me till the snow
+came--knew I wouldn't bring you out of your hole with formalin, that
+it was a square game we played. But to-day everything broke against
+you, boy,--sun and wind and snow. And perhaps hunger."
+
+The twinge of pain that stabs every true sportsman as he realizes that
+he has extinguished a spark of life shadowed Terry's thin, sensitive
+face. It was a face of singular appeal, dominated by a queer twist of
+upper lip that stamped his mouth with a permanent wistfulness. Even in
+the bracing cold of the winter morning his skin was white, but the
+clear pallor was belied by the swift energy with which he moved and
+the eager sparkle of his dark gray eyes. He picked up the fluffy
+bundle and stroked the sleek fur.
+
+"Hard luck, old boy! But now you'll never be hungry again, or cold.
+And I haven't hunted you all this time just for the sake of the
+sport." His face lighted. "You're going to be a proud little fox. If
+foxes have souls--and I don't see why we should deny you what we lay
+selfish claims to for ourselves--yours will rejoice in the purpose of
+your end. Every night and every morning you--"
+
+He broke off as the distant pealing of church bells came to his ears,
+carried faintly but clearly by the light wind that whispered over the
+snowy stretches of rolling meadowlands. For a long time Terry stood
+facing toward the invisible village, his face moody and inscrutable.
+As the sound of the bells died away he shook off the spell with
+conscious, humorous effort and picking up his rifle and the fox he
+went into the thicket to secure and adjust his snowshoes.
+
+Ignoring paths and sleighroads he made his way toward the town. The
+crisp pine-laden air charged his muscles with exuberant excess of the
+fine energy of youth and he made his way swiftly across the sparkling
+snow that blanketed the gentle landscape, through the thickets of
+evergreens and across the tiny, ice-edged creeks that flowed in swift
+escape from winter's frozen grip.
+
+Keen-eyed, he stopped a moment in study of a group of pheasants that
+huddled in a clump of underbrush. They played possum till he passed
+on. A rabbit, reared up in nervous-nosed inquiry, watched him
+furtively as he approached the rock behind which it had vainly sought
+concealment. Terry laughed at its ridiculous plight.
+
+"You'd better improve your strategy, you young scamp, or you'll wind
+up in the pot of some one who hunts rabbits!"
+
+He watched its jumpy flight into a distant copse of young pines, then
+went on swiftly. In an hour he paused at the top of a last steep
+grade. Lake Champlain stretched her flat-frozen bosom to the north and
+south of him. The more level timbered areas of the opposite shore were
+broken here and there by clearings in which white farm houses and red
+barns nestled like doll houses.
+
+At the foot of the slope directly beneath him a village lay primly
+along the lake shore. It was a square-built town, its limits almost
+rectangular, its breadth and width checkered into exact squares by
+wide, straight streets. It was an old town: a score of its flat-roofed
+structures had been built while the Mohawks still guarded the Western
+Gate of the Long House, and many of the great, old-fashioned homes had
+stood when Ethan Allen strutted through its streets.
+
+It was not a snug little town, there was no air of hospitality to
+encourage strangers to tarry within its gates, but seemed to promise
+"value received" for any who came, paid their way and attended
+strictly to their own affairs.
+
+Thus Terry saw the town in which he had been born and had spent all
+of his twenty-six years except the four at Princeton. He tarried, his
+eyes fixed upon the cemetery which limited the eastern edge of the
+town, to which his father and mother had been carried when he was a
+boy of eleven.
+
+He faced about in lingering appreciation of the blue-vaulted expanse,
+then descended toward the village. Whipping off his snowshoes at the
+border of the village he entered the main street, which ran straight
+through town to the lake front. No one was in sight on the broad
+thoroughfare and he found a measure of relief in its emptiness, for
+though he did not adhere to the rigid New England doctrine that
+governed his neighbors, he found no pleasure in wanton violation of
+their stiff code. Realizing that with snowshoes, gun and fox he jarred
+heavily upon the atmosphere of the quiet Sunday morning, he hurried
+down the street.
+
+He encountered no one, but as he passed by the ice-incrusted watering
+trough at the central square and approached the block made up by
+Crampville's three churches, the big doors of his own church were
+flung open and the congregation emerged. As the decorous crowd filed
+out Terry hesitated a moment, then kept on his way.
+
+The progress of the lone figure along the opposite side of the street
+was the topic of conversation at nearly every dinner table in
+Crampville that Sunday. It became a sort of small-town epic, so that
+they still tell how stern the elders looked, and how white Terry's
+face against the background of black fur which he had thrown across
+his shoulder in order to free his right hand that he might gravely
+raise his crimson hunting cap in respectful salutation of families he
+had known from childhood. And they still tell, too, how Deane Hunter,
+flushed with mortification at her father's frigid refusal to recognize
+Terry's greeting, checked the nudges and whisperings by calling out a
+cheerful "Good Morning, Dick." Her courageous voice still rang in his
+ears as he entered the iron-fenced yard that surrounded the home of
+his fathers.
+
+Inside the great, high-ceilinged house Terry stood a while in somber
+reflection, then shrugged his trim shoulders and passed through the
+shadowy rooms out into the barn. In five minutes he had cleaned and
+oiled his rifle, but an hour passed while he carefully removed the
+pelt and tacked it taut upon a stretching board.
+
+He was in the library, reading, when his sister and brother-in-law
+came downstairs in response to the dinner bell. Susan and her husband,
+Ellis Crofts, had lived in the old mansion since their marriage two
+years previously, rather against Ellis' desires. He had wished to set
+up an establishment of his own, but had yielded to Susan's pleadings
+and Terry's sincere letter from college asking him not to be
+instrumental in closing up a house that had been lived in continuously
+by the Terrys of four generations.
+
+They had been among the last to emerge from church, but had come out
+in time to see Terry as he opened the gate, and had heard enough of
+the murmured comment to understand its significance. It had been
+difficult for them to control their emotions as they kept slow step
+with the throng down the broad sidewalk. Susan, mortified but loyal to
+the core, had set her face in defiant smile lest she burst into tears:
+Ellis, devoted to Terry but tickled by the situation, had smothered
+his snickers in protracted fits of coughing.
+
+Terry threw aside a handbook on the curing of pelts and rose at their
+entrance, smiling:
+
+"Well, do you good folks think you are safe in sitting at the same
+table with an unrepentant sinner?"
+
+Susan had been crying. "Oh, Dick! Why did you do it? How do you do
+such things?"
+
+He waved his hand in humorous deprecation. "Easy. It's the simplest
+thing I do. It isn't difficult if you have a knack for it."
+
+"But, Dick, it's no joke. I saw the three elders of our
+church--Ballard, Remington and Van Slyke--talking about it, and they
+were very bitter. And you know they can expel any church member."
+
+Terry made no answer save to put his arm around each and lead them
+into the dining room. But Susan was not content.
+
+"Dick, I wish you would explain it to Ballard or Van Slyke. They are
+influential men and both are very religious."
+
+Ellis took a hand: "Their religion is all right, so far as it
+goes--but they mix it up with their dyspepsia too much to suit me!"
+
+As his wife turned rebuking eyes upon him he pursued doggedly: "Not
+that their dyspepsia and religion are always mixed; they have their
+dyspepsia seven days in the week!"
+
+She joined in their laughter over Ellis' exaggerated defense, then
+turned again to her brother.
+
+"What are you going to do with that nasty thing you shot, Dick?"
+
+"Nasty?" broke in Ellis in quick alarm. "You didn't shoot a skunk, did
+you?"
+
+She ignored her husband and persisted: "Tell me why you shot that fox,
+Dick. You have been out hunting nearly every day for two weeks and
+have shot nothing else, so I know you have a reason."
+
+"I'm not going to help eat it!" Ellis broke in. "I've heard they are
+stringy--and a bit smelly."
+
+"Ellis, will you stop being ridiculous? Dick, why have you hunted that
+fox so long?"
+
+Ellis had seen that Terry was not to be pumped, that this was another
+of his queer quests. He tried again to shunt Susan away.
+
+"Maybe it was a personal matter between him and the fox, Sue."
+
+She turned on him a look she endeavored to make disdainful, but only
+succeeded in raising another laugh from both. But she was not to be
+deterred. Her eyes lit with sudden inspiration.
+
+"I'll bet--I'll bet anything--" she began.
+
+"Susan Terry Crofts! Even Dick would not bet on Sunday!"
+
+"I will bet anything," she insisted, "that it is something for
+Deane--for Christmas!"
+
+In the slight flush that rose in her brother's face Susan learned
+that she had hit the mark. But she was instantly sorry that she had
+pressed the issue, as she had learned long before to respect what was
+to her his queer reticence.
+
+Ellis hurried into the breach: "Wonder what Bruce will give Deane this
+Christmas? He is about due to present her with something really worth
+while--like a patent mop!"
+
+Even Terry laughed. The struggle for Deane's favor between Bruce
+Ballard and Terry had been in progress nearly ten years and had become
+one of the town's institutions. The first formal offerings tendered by
+the two boys on the occasion of her graduation from high school
+typified the contrasting characters of the rivals: Terry, idealistic,
+impressionable, reserved, had sent her a beautiful copy of the "Love
+Letters of a Musician," while Bruce, sincere, obvious and practical,
+had given her a hat-pin.
+
+On her succeeding birthday Terry, after a six-hour climb, had won for
+her a box of trailing arbutus from Mount Defiance's cool top; Bruce
+had sent her candy. From his medical college at Baltimore Bruce had
+sent, as succeeding Christmas gifts, an ivory toilet set, a thermos
+bottle, a reading lamp and a chafing dish.
+
+Terry's offerings on those occasions had been a Japanese kimono
+embroidered with her favorite flower--a wondrous thing secured by
+correspondence with the American consul at Kobe: a pair of Siamese
+kittens which he named Cat-Nip and Cat-Nap: a sandal-wood fan out of
+India; and a little, triple-chinned, ebony god of Mirth, its impish
+eyes rolled back in merriment, mouth wrinkled with utter joy of the
+world.
+
+The rivalry had divided the town into two camps. The pro-Bruce
+faction, composed largely of men folk, claimed for their protégé a
+splendid common sense in selection of his gifts: but the women and
+girls, who made up the other group, envied Deane not only the gifts
+Terry gave her, but also--and more so--the rarefied romantic spirit of
+the youth who conceived and offered them.
+
+Deane realized that both Bruce and Terry stayed on in the dull old
+town principally to be near her. This was true of Bruce particularly,
+as he was a young surgeon of such promise that he had twice been
+invited into junior association with Albany's greatest specialist. She
+had strongly urged him to embrace the increased opportunity for
+service and profit which the city afforded.
+
+But Terry was only six months out of college, a six months spent in
+futile effort to adjust himself to the theme of the village, to find
+appropriate outlet for that urgent desire to be of use in the world
+which dominated his character. As the Terrys were of those families
+termed "comfortable" in Crampville, he felt no need of devoting
+himself to adding to an already ample estate. At his sister's request,
+he had undertaken to manage a shoe store that represented one of their
+holdings but at the end of a couple of months had given it up--also in
+accord with her wishes. Higgins, their old clerk, had come to her with
+tearful warnings that Terry's unwillingness to refuse credit to any
+one who came in with a tale of hard-luck was ruining the business:
+and Terry had lost the custom of several good families by declining to
+humor their crotchety unreasonableness.
+
+But Higgins did not know how they came to lose the trade of the Hunter
+family. At the end of a trying day of insistent demand for smaller
+shoes than feminine feet could accommodate, of viewing bunions and
+flat arches and wry-jointed toes, he had written Deane:
+
+     DEANE DEAR:--
+
+     I used to think that the true glory of Trilby rested in the
+     wondrous mesmeric voice--but after a month in the shoe
+     business I know better. Between perfect vocal cords and
+     perfect feet, give me the feet.
+
+     The word "shoe" used to bring to my mind thoughts of
+     calfskin, kid, patent leather. But no more! Now I think
+     of--well, many things.
+
+     I am glad that your family is not among those who favor this
+     establishment with its patronage. I am very happy in this,
+     as it is good to think that your dear shoes are but a part
+     of you, are incidental to your being, and not a consequence
+     of drear barter and "fitting."
+
+     I will not be over to-night. But I will be thinking of you.
+
+                                                  DICK.
+
+A bit puzzled, she had shown the note to her father. Irate, he had
+issued a mandate that produced the effect Terry had asked. Mr. Hunter
+was acutely sensitive about twin corns which had been a part of his
+toes so long that he honestly thought them congenital.
+
+After quitting the store Terry had turned his attention to their farm
+properties but, as a careful investigation covering three months had
+demonstrated them to be in capable hands, he had returned them to the
+full management of the old tenants at the end of the harvest. He had
+then studied the possibilities of enlarging their only other business,
+a small pulp plant, but after satisfying himself that the meager water
+power was being fully utilized and that the location of the mill at
+Crampville precluded competition with those more favorably located
+that were operated with steam power, he had abandoned the project. For
+a month he had been seeking outlet for his restless energy.
+
+Deane, anxiously watching his endeavor to fit himself into one of
+Crampville's narrow grooves and vaguely understanding his unvoiced
+craving for wider horizons, dreaded the break she knew would take him
+away. Susan, studying him with the uneasy solicitude of an older
+sister, saw in Deane an anchor which would hold him to the town. Ellis
+had been less concerned, as he had recognized that Terry's intolerance
+of the village was but the outcropping of a sane young spirit that
+gauged the peaks and sought real service. He had been trying lately to
+prepare his wife for Terry's departure to other fields, as he thought
+it inevitable. It was a word to this effect that had precipitated the
+tears with which she had greeted her brother before dinner.
+
+Ellis plagued Susan throughout the leisurely meal, Terry adding an
+occasional word whenever the flow of affectionate badgering lagged.
+Fanny, who had served them since they were children, bustled in and
+out, redfaced, wholesome, fruitlessly trying to press upon Terry an
+excess of the over-ample dinner. It was a sort of unwritten law in
+Crampville that the Sunday dinner should be sufficiently heavy to
+drive the menfolk to a long digestive nap.
+
+Ellis lingered at the table after Terry had excused himself and gone
+out into the barn again. Susan helped Fanny clear the old mahogany
+table, then sank into a chair beside her abstracted husband.
+
+"Sue," he said finally, "Dick hasn't said anything lately about
+accepting that position in the Philippines, has he?"
+
+A worried look crept into her smooth face: "No. I supposed he had
+decided against it."
+
+He patted her hand consolingly: "Don't be too confident about his
+staying home, Sue. He wants to see things--do things! There isn't much
+in this town to hold one of his nature."
+
+"There's--Deane," she said, hopefully.
+
+"Sue, don't be so sure of that, either. You know that you and I hold
+different theories about that. Don't bank too heavily on yours." He
+drummed the polished table a moment before continuing: "He received
+another telegram from Washington yesterday--I thought he might have
+mentioned it to you."
+
+"No," she quavered.
+
+"Nor to me. Guess he doesn't want to worry you."
+
+She was close to tears again: "I wish he had never met that young
+Bronner in college--he gave Dick all these crazy ideas about going to
+those horrid islands where his brother is!"
+
+"Well, Sue, he made me feel the same way--and I'm a fat married man! I
+enjoyed his stories of his brother's experiences with the wild people
+over there. It must be an interesting life."
+
+"You don't talk like that to Dick, do you?" she implored.
+
+"Of course not. But I think you've been too sure that he would stay on
+here indefinitely--I think it will take very little to tip the scales
+the other way."
+
+He yawned prodigiously, rousing Susan to an ire that stemmed the flow
+of tears which had threatened to overflow her blue eyes. Then, content
+with his tactics, he went upstairs for his traditional nap.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Later, Terry came into the big living room and stood in front of the
+fireplace a long time, his lean face grave and thoughtful. Decision
+made, he wrote a note of sincere apology to Doctor Mather, his pastor.
+He also wrote Deane that he would not be over in the evening but would
+see her during the week, and made the delivery of the notes an excuse
+to get the faithful Fanny out into the crisp December afternoon.
+
+The light in the Terry library burned long after Crampville's other
+lights had winked out. He had been picked up by Stevenson and carried
+by that pathetic master into the far places of the earth.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The next morning he was in the barn, his gay mood revealed by the
+running talk addressed to the pelt on which he worked.
+
+"Well, old boy, only four days to get you into shape for your
+dedication, but the book says it can be done. So you might as well
+soften up now--"he vigorously rubbed the dried bare side with some
+oily preparation--"as later."
+
+"What a destiny, old chap! Surely no other fox ever born to lady-fox
+can be as happy as you're going to be!" He rubbed industriously.
+"You're not for me, you know. No, sir! I wouldn't bring you out of the
+hills into this burg--where they kill ambition by preaching content
+with your lot, where the hoarders of pennies are venerated and the
+pluggers canonized--I wouldn't bring you here just for me. For I'm not
+worthy of you. No, sir-ree! Don't you know I'm no good--didn't you see
+that yesterday? Why, Old Samuel Terwilliger said I'm an atheist
+because I quoted Ingersoll's graveside oration--said no Christian
+would repeat anything that man ever said, even if his watch is a
+bargain at a dollar!... Samuel likes bargains."
+
+Working rapidly, with no lost motions, he rambled on, congratulatory,
+reproachful, whimsical. Having carried the curing to a point where a
+twenty-four-hour time process was the next essential factor, he
+carefully pegged the skin to the barn door.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+That evening Susan came running home excitedly, having learned that
+one of the elders had asked that a meeting be called to consider
+Dick's case, and that the young pastor had very promptly and very
+emphatically vetoed the proceeding. It seemed that Bruce had heard of
+the move and persuaded his father not to support it, after a stormy
+scene in which he had threatened to resign his own membership if they
+moved against Terry.
+
+Ellis looked long at Terry: "Nothing small about Bruce, Dick. Some
+fellows, under the circumstances--all the circumstances--might have
+let you have it to the hilt."
+
+Terry smiled gravely. "Good old Bruce," he said.
+
+He left the room, slowly, and sat alone in the library. It had struck
+deep, that even one God-fearing but not God-loving old man should
+think him unfit to sit in the church in which his father and mother
+had been married, from which they had been carried side by side for
+their long rest. It was midnight when he went up the broad staircase
+to his room.
+
+The following afternoon he dropped in to see Father Jennings, the
+gentle little priest who had been beloved by two generations of all
+denominations--and those of none. Terry loved the old study, which in
+forty years had taken on something of the priest's character. It was a
+comfortable room; cheerful in its wide windows, warm with a bright
+hearthfire, and well worn with long years of service.
+
+Terry had found friendship and counsel here since his boyhood, had
+been one of the procession that passed through the door in search of
+wisdom and cheer. All the gossip of the town came to the priest: he
+knew of Terry's hunting trip and of the climax which had scandalized
+the sterner factions of the community. He was of those who knew Terry
+best, and entertained no misgivings about the state of his immortal
+soul.
+
+They talked fitfully, as intimate friends do. The old man knew that it
+was worry over the town's harsh reaction to the Sunday fox hunt that
+had brought Terry to him. He broached the subject.
+
+"Dick, I have wanted to see you since Sunday morning. I had a question
+to ask you nobody else could answer."
+
+As Terry turned to him with somber mien he concluded, his eyes
+twinkling: "I wanted to know if it was the best fox ever!"
+
+And that was all, though Terry stayed to sup with him. Till nine
+o'clock they sat before the fire, the priest in a worn rocker drawn up
+close to the hearth: the single log burning glorified his fine old
+face as he placidly rocked and pondered.
+
+He had spent the morning among his foreign parishioners, who lived in
+the squalid section of the town, across the river. A frugal,
+law-abiding lot, they furnished the brawn needed in the three pulp
+factories and lived a life apart from the balance of the towns-people,
+bitterly but voicelessly resenting the villagers' careless ostracism
+of all who came under the easy classification of the term "wop." There
+existed a tacit agreement among property owners that no house north of
+the river should be sold or leased to a foreigner, and that no garlic
+might taint the atmosphere their children breathed in school, they had
+erected a small schoolhouse upon the southside. So, sequestered six
+days in the week in a settlement that was entirely foreign,
+communicating their thoughts in the tongues of the Mediterranean and
+the Balkans, the southsiders mingled with Americans only during the
+brief hours of Sunday worship.
+
+In his morning visit Father Jennings had again met with several
+evidences of Terry's curious influence over the foreigners. Terry
+understood them instinctively, grasped their viewpoints and ideals,
+and was the only layman on the northside in whom they confided, called
+in to settle knotty problems and to partake of the hospitality they
+lavished upon appropriate occasions of weddings, christenings and the
+neverending procession of days of patron saints. Subtle, romantic,
+circumscribed by alien environment, they recognized in him a kindred
+spirit and opened their hearts wide to him. Terry, his ardent young
+pastor--Dr. Mather--and Father Jennings were the only northsiders whom
+they called friends. None of the three had been named on the town's
+"Committee on Americanization." ...
+
+The priest roused from his revery and for a long time contemplated the
+quiet, thoughtful lad who sat beside him. Gradually a deep concern
+spread across his comfortably aged features, a presentiment of
+impending loss shadowed his pleasant eyes. He reached out to lay his
+hand on Terry's forearm.
+
+"Dick," he said, "there is plenty for you to do right here in
+Crampville--what is this I hear about your going to the Philippines?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+TERRY DECIDES
+
+
+Christmas Eve, the large snowflakes drifted slowly down out of a
+windless sky. The dusk was cheerful with the sound of sleigh bells
+that announced the arrival or departure of last-hour shoppers.
+
+Terry, at his desk in the great living room, surveyed the finished
+trophy happily. It was an unusually black and lustrous pelt. He buried
+his face in the silky mat a moment, then drew out paper and pen, and
+wrote:
+
+     DEANE-DEAR:--
+
+     Some three years ago a mother fox suffered that this one
+     might be born: denied herself food that he might satisfy his
+     urgent little appetite as he grew bigger and stronger. When
+     he was big enough he left her and forgot her--she may have
+     suffered then, too.
+
+     He lived as foxes do. Things died that he might eat;
+     rabbits, pheasants, chickens, field-mice. He stalked all
+     things less strong and clever than himself. A cruel cycle,
+     but it is the law of the wild, something that you and I
+     cannot alter.
+
+     He enjoyed the summers best, with their longer days, fuller
+     larders, sweet wood odors, long naps in the cool shadows of
+     the thicket. But winter came, with its hardships and its
+     cold, a cold that little foxes feel the same as you and I.
+     But it was this cold that stimulated and silkened his fur,
+     made it this wondrous, prized thing.
+
+     Then I came, and he ceased to be what he was--a hunter of
+     smaller, weaker things--and became what you see here: a
+     finer thing--a token. Your kind heart need find no cruelty
+     in a merciful shot that spelled no pain and that by stopping
+     him assured that gentler, weaker things will live on and on.
+
+     _And he_ will be glad, too, as not _only_ is he forever
+     freed from cold and hunger and stark fear, but his is to be
+     a tender office.
+
+     Will you lay it at your bedside, that each night it may
+     cushion your last step at slumbertime, and each morning
+     soften the first contact between the vistas of dreamland and
+     the less yielding surfaces of life to which we wake.
+
+     So even the things of the wild are made to serve. To
+     serve--is that not the law of man?
+
+     My part in it? But little: none other than I will have
+     touched it till it reaches your dear hands. I shaped it,
+     wrought to preserve its beauties that it might give you
+     pleasure.
+
+     To give pleasure--is that not the law of love?
+
+     A very, very Merry Christmas!
+
+                                                  DICK.
+
+He sent his gift, at about nine o'clock. In gay mood, he wandered
+about the great house: entered the kitchen where Fanny was singeing
+the Christmas turkey: returned to the living room to throw a fresh log
+in the wide fireplace. His mood was too expansive for indoors. He
+donned short coat and thick cap, but as he passed out of the gate a
+scared little lad, a foreigner, rushed up breathlessly and begged him
+to come--trouble was brewing on the southside.
+
+His questions elicited meager information. Excited, the lad relapsed
+so often into his native tongue that Terry could make nothing of his
+tale.
+
+Hand in hand they hurried through the village, crossed the dark bridge
+and approached a ramshackle house from which a babble of voices rose
+in strident argument. The excited chorus abated at Terry's sharp knock
+and the door was thrown open to disclose the belligerent figure of
+Tony Ricorro, the leader of the Italian colony. Recognizing the
+reefered figure that smiled up at him through the falling flakes,
+Tony's dark scowl faded as he reached out his powerful hands and with
+a joyous shout fairly lifted Terry into the house.
+
+Terry laughed as the gaudily dressed occupants of the room crowded
+around him, and greeted most of the score of swarthy men and women by
+name. Tony masterfully stripped him of his overcoat and cap and placed
+them in the kitchen from which emanated odors of strange things
+cooking. The room was stifling with heat and with smells--beer,
+garlic, tobacco, perfumes, kerosene.
+
+Tony charged in from the kitchen with a bottle of beer but Terry shook
+his head. Tony was hospitably insistent, "What! No beer?"
+
+"No thanks, Tony."
+
+"What's matt'? Bad stomach?"
+
+"Yes," smiled Terry, "call it that."
+
+He plunged into the business in hand. "Tony, what's the trouble here
+to-night?"
+
+Tony's first word of explanation was instantly submerged beneath a
+chorus of voices; the excited crowd surged around Terry, as voluble of
+gesture as of tongue. Pandemonium descended.
+
+Terry finally silenced the din by standing on his chair and
+pantomiming his desire to be heard. "Now, listen to me," he began,
+after quiet was restored, "I'm going to ask you all to keep silent,
+and to promise me that no one will speak except those I call by name."
+They all promised--each one not once but in a series of lengthy
+assurances which he had to raise his hand to cut short.
+
+"Now, Tony, you first. What's the matter?"
+
+Tony's face registered his utter disgust. "What'sa matt'? What'sa
+matt'? Evra teeng 'sa matt'! Tommor' we christen our bab' and evra'
+bod' want a name heem!" He glared at the restless circle which ringed
+them.
+
+The odd wistful twist at the corner of Terry's mouth disappeared for a
+moment in his slow smile; this was so like these people, who bore big
+troubles stoically and reacted powerfully to inconsequentials.
+
+He called on several others. All were relatives of Tony or of his
+wife; sisters, brothers, several "in-laws," Tony's father, two uncles.
+Each had his or her name for the child, and sound reasons for the
+choice.
+
+"Tony, where is Felice?" he asked, noting that Tony's wife was not in
+the crowded dining room.
+
+Tony took him into a dimly lighted room, where his wife lay in bed;
+the guiltless cause of all this dissension, obviously inured to
+clamor, was asleep in her arm. She smiled up at Terry as he sat down
+on the edge of the bed and took her hand.
+
+Tony stood looking down at Felice and their first-born, his heart in
+his eyes.
+
+"Tony, what does Felice wish to name your son?" Terry asked suddenly.
+
+Receiving no answer, he looked up at Tony and read in the agonized
+contrition of Tony's dark face that she had not yet been consulted.
+Tears glistened in the forgiving eyes Felice turned on Tony, and as he
+flung himself down at the side of the bed and buried his face in her
+pillow, Terry tiptoed out of the room and softly closed the door.
+
+In a few minutes Tony flung the door open and strode into the room,
+unashamed of the tears that shone on his rough cheeks.
+
+"You all a go to hell-a with your a-names! Felice, she name-a our boy
+and to-morrow we go Padre Jenneeng. She a name heem"--he paused with
+true Latin sense of the value of suspense--"She a name heem--Reechar'
+Terree--Ricorro!"
+
+A moment of hesitation, of assimilation, and then a hubbub of
+delighted acceptance and acclaim. Terry stayed but a few minutes,
+realizing that much as they liked him, there would be more spontaneity
+at the fiesta if there were none but their own people at the table.
+
+He went in and thanked Felice gravely for the honor she had conferred
+upon him, wished for them all a merry Christmas, and passed out amid a
+medley of thanks and benedictions.
+
+The snowfall had ceased. He crossed to the North Side and hastened up
+Main Street, and though it lacked but an hour of midnight, he found
+Judd's jewelry store still open. He went in and found young Judd about
+to close up.
+
+Judd, hollow eyed with the fatigue of the long day, studied his old
+friend's beaming face: "Hello, Sir Galahad!" he said.
+
+Terry eyed him scornfully: "Hello, Rut!" He drew himself up proudly.
+"Behold in me a new dignity--I am now a god-father!"
+
+Having in mind the parents' love for the elaborate, he gayly selected
+an ornate silver cup for the infant.
+
+"I'll engrave it for you after the holidays," Judd offered.
+
+"Good old boy, Judd! The initials will be R--T--R."
+
+He buttoned his coat and went to the door: Judd was musing over the
+monogram: "Richard--Terry--what's the 'R' stand for, Dick?"
+
+Terry grinned as he called back through the open door.
+
+"Why,--Romance, of course!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He tramped far out the north road through the new fallen snow, his
+whole being glowing. The stars sparkled through the clear cold air in
+myriad chorus of the message of hope that one in the East had heralded
+to a sadder world on another Christmas eve. The snow-flung star beams
+illuminated the peaceful countryside: there was no moon, no light
+save the great glow of the heavens, no shadows under gaunt oaks or
+huddled evergreens.
+
+He was in harmony with the night. He followed the sleigh-rutted
+highway for several miles, then swung back to town along a
+woodcutter's trail that edged the lakeshore, winding through the new
+growths of pine and balsam whose night-black branches were outlined by
+the white fall.
+
+He loved the open: there was no loneliness here.... Magic-wrought,
+Deane's phantom figure kept apace, matched step with step along the
+shore trail through the hushed woods, across the white sheen of open
+spaces. Ever, when summoned thus, she came to share the hours and the
+places that he loved best.
+
+Love surged hot through his veins: love of friends, of living, of
+youth, love of a woman ... probably his gift lay at her bedside now,
+as she slept....
+
+Unconsciously he slowed his pace and lifted his fine, pale face
+upward: his low, clear baritone flooded the broken woods, carried far
+out across the silent frozen lake, unechoed; it was vibrant with the
+very spirit of yuletide--love of man and woman.
+
+    Love, to share again those winged scented days,
+    Those starry skies:
+    To see once more your joyous face,
+    Your tender eyes:
+    Just to know that years so fair might come again,
+    Awhile:
+    Oh! To thrill again to your dear voice--
+    Your smile!
+
+It was long past midnight when he reached town, his mood chilling
+indefinably at sight of its dark houses.
+
+"You're a queer old town," he muttered. "You go to bed on this night
+of nights--yes, and you batten your windows tight against this
+glorious air--and all of the other glorious things."
+
+Passing the suspicious village constable, he penetrated even his
+callous heart with the most gladsome Christmas greeting he had heard
+in many a year.
+
+Home, he stirred the dying logs into flame and sank into a deep
+cushioned chair drawn up before the glowing embers. The long day had
+taken no toll of his lithe frame: sleepless, he sat long in pleasant
+retrospection of the day, which had brought him opportunities to
+contribute to the sum of peace on earth and to give pleasure to those
+whom he loved.
+
+His gift to Deane had approached even his exacting criterion of what
+was fit for her. He envied the skin its rapturous reception, the
+sparkle of bright eyes its beauty would invoke. It was characteristic
+that his vision did not carry him to the daily contact of pink toes he
+had assigned as its function. And it was characteristic of him, too,
+that he did not think of the gifts which had come for him.
+
+He would see the elders, he mused, and apologize for what must have
+seemed to them a deliberate flaunting of their standards ... he had
+been a little careless, lately ... he would remedy that ... it was a
+good town--his failure to settle down had been a fault ... he would
+find something to do, worth doing--and do it.... Deane's friendship
+might ripen into something mellower, and then....
+
+He reached into an inner pocket and withdrew a telegram, bending
+nearer the fireplace to read it.
+
+                                                  Washington, D. C.
+
+     Richard Terry, Crampville, Vermont.
+
+     Wire will you accept commission second lieutenant Philippine
+     Constabulary period immediate decision essential period if
+     you accept wire date you will be able to sail from San
+     Francisco
+
+                                             Wilson Insular Bureau
+
+The glow from the fire which ruddied his face revealed the struggle of
+the minute before decision came. With an expression curiously mingled
+of renunciation and relief he tossed the paper among the glowing
+embers. He rose as the sheet took fire and in the brief flash of light
+which marked the consumption of the telegram he saw a familiar-looking
+package on the library table in the shadow cast by his big chair. He
+carried it to the now fainter glow of the hearth and saw that it was
+addressed to him in Deane's trim hand. He opened it eagerly, to see
+what form her remembrance had taken.
+
+It was the fox-skin, returned. Vague, trouble-eyed, he read the
+inclosed note.
+
+     DEAR DICK:--
+
+     I am sending you back your present. Father insists, because
+     you secured it on Sunday.
+
+     It hurts me, Dick, dreadfully, but you know how he feels
+     about such things.
+
+     It is the loveliest present I ever received--and it makes me
+     want to cry, sometimes, when I think of your doing such
+     things for me and thinking about me as you do. I _AM_
+     crying, now, Dick.
+
+     Though I can not have it, your present will always be
+     mine--I can never forget that you were good enough to wish
+     me to have it.
+
+     And will you accept my very best wishes that your Christmas
+     may be a very merry one.
+
+                                                  DEANE.
+
+He sank back into the chair again, sickened.... "That your Christmas
+may be a very merry one."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Susan, first down in the morning, raised the curtains to the brilliant
+Christmas morning, and turned to find him sitting in the chilled room
+before the dead fire. Shocked by the haggard face, she hurried to him.
+
+"Dick, are you sick?" As she sank by the side of his chair her hand
+brushed against the rich fur which lay across his knees, and she
+understood. She placed a pitying arm about his shoulders.
+
+"I feared it, Dick--I feared it! You know how he is--her father. I'll
+never speak to him again as long as--" She burst into tears.
+
+Gently he withdrew her arm and took her hand in his.
+
+"It's all right, Sue, it's--all--right."
+
+Through her tears she read the pain that lurked in his eyes, the agony
+that betrayed the patient smile. She sobbed convulsively, heartsick in
+her helplessness to ease this young brother to whom she had been half
+mother.
+
+"That's what you always say--about everything: 'it will be all
+right.' When you were a boy it was always the same--'it's all right.'"
+
+He comforted her with quiet words till the storm abated. Then, "I'm
+going to miss you, Sue-sister," he said.
+
+She stood up, comprehension dawning in her wide eyes.
+
+"You're going away!"
+
+He nodded gravely.
+
+Slowly, fearfully, she asked, "When?"
+
+"To-night."
+
+"Way off to--those--Philippines?"
+
+He nodded, then unable to bear longer the hurt in her tremulous face,
+he sought refuge in the ridiculous; he struck an attitude.
+
+"I'm going in quest of adventure--riches--romance! I'm going to sail
+the Spanish Main--seek golden doubloons--maids in distress--the
+Fountain of Youth! I'm going to cross strange waters--travel
+untraveled forest ... see unseen peoples ... know unknown hills...."
+
+An odd light flickered in his eyes, as if he half believed what he
+spoke. Fanny appeared at the kitchen door and with her cheery call of
+"Merry Christmas," the light faded from his face as he turned in quick
+response.
+
+He turned to his sister in mock reproof: "Shure and it's ye that has
+not yet wished me aven a dacent top o' the marnin', let alone the
+gratin's of the sason! Shame on ye--ye heartless, thoughtless,
+loveless--"
+
+He broke off, laughing at her bewilderment: she never could keep apace
+with his quick moods. Noting a tear still glistening he took her
+cheeks between his hands and kissed the wet eyes, then asked her to
+get word to Deane that he would be over some time during the evening.
+
+Surprised and pleased that he should ask her to participate in his
+affair with Deane, she hurried to the desk set in a deep bay window.
+
+Ellis, sleepy-eyed, came down with his hearty greetings of the day,
+and was surprised to find Sue bent earnestly over her writing.
+
+"Say," he said, "can't you wait till after breakfast to thank
+everybody for their presents? What's the rush? Say, Dick, did you hear
+yet what Bruce gave to the lady of his heart? No? Well, he out-Bruced
+Bruce this time! He gave her a patented, electric foot-warmer!"
+
+Terry smiled his appreciation of Ellis' chuckling loyalty and escaped
+upstairs to his room. Ellis wandered aimlessly over to the Christmas
+table and noted the number of unopened packages marked with Terry's
+name, then called up from the foot of the stairs:
+
+"Come right down here, you ungrateful Non-christian, and see what
+Santa Claus brought you! You got more than any of us and--"
+
+He desisted as he suddenly became aware of his wife's frantic signals,
+and reading the grievous trouble in her twitching face, he went to
+her.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Susan, entering Terry's room at dusk, found him standing at the window
+staring out into the evening, watching the shadows paint out one by
+one the landmarks he had known from boyhood. Two large leather bags,
+packed but still open, stood at the side of the bed. The two frames
+which had held the pictures of his father and mother lay upon the
+table, empty, beside letters addressed to Father Jennings, Doctor
+Mather, and Tony Ricorro.
+
+He did not hear her but continued at the window, his relaxed shoulders
+giving an unwonted aspect of frailty to his body. She tiptoed out of
+the room, crept back again to look through brimming eyes at the lonely
+figure silhouetted against the darkening window, then stumbled into
+her own room and closed the door.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Terry returned to Deane in the sitting room after bidding her father
+and mother a courteously friendly farewell. Mr. Hunter, vaguely
+disturbed, had followed his wife upstairs reluctantly; he was not
+quite confident that his decision regarding the fox skin had been
+justified, and would have been glad had Terry given him opportunity to
+discuss it. In a moment his voice sounded down to them as he defended
+himself against his irate spouse.
+
+"I don't care what you say, Marthy, he's got to settle down and--"
+
+Then their door closed.
+
+For a long time Deane and Terry stood voiceless, each leaden with a
+dull misery. The shock of his announcement had paled her and she
+stared hopelessly at him out of wide blue eyes, her full red lips
+aquiver at the hurt she read in the gray eyes and the queer wistful
+mouth.
+
+She broke the pulsing silence: "I never understand you, Dick,--quite.
+Is it because of the fox skin?"
+
+He shook his head uncertainly, barely conscious of her words in a last
+rapt gaze at her, vaguely aware that this was the picture of her that
+he would carry in his mind through the years to come. Rounded, long of
+lines, apart from him she looked as tall as he, though there was a two
+inch discrepancy; the wide eyes and generous, curved mouth indicated
+her infinite capacity for affection. The shadow of a dimple flickered
+high on her left cheek: the quickened beat of heart pulsed in the
+white column of her throat.
+
+"Is it because you hate the town, Dick?" she asked tremulously.
+
+Again he shook his head slowly: "No, Deane, it is not that. The town
+is all right--it is not that."
+
+He paused, brooding, then went on: "Last night I did not
+sleep--much--thinking about it. It's all my fault.... I do not fit. So
+I am going away, going to try to find my own place, somehow."
+
+Tortured by his patient smile, she followed him out into the dim hall,
+half blinded by her burning tears. She sobbed unrestrainedly as he
+slipped into his overcoat.
+
+He came to her, his hand outstretched, his voice husky.
+
+"Good-by, Deane-girl," he said.
+
+Taking his hand she stepped close to him, misty-eyed, atremble.
+
+"Good-by, Di--Oh, Dick! Don't go! Don't go way over to those awful
+Islands!"
+
+He steadied her with an arm about the shaking shoulders. She leaned
+full against him and in the soft contact his pulses leaped. He fought
+to resist the temptation to take advantage of her mood, knew that for
+the moment she was his if he but pressed his claim.
+
+Suddenly she looked up at him, glorious in her grief and surrender.
+
+"Shall I--do you want me to--to--wait?"
+
+For a few moments it seemed that he had not heard the low voice.
+
+Then: "Don't wait, Deane-girl,--don't wait."
+
+Then the arm was gone from about her shoulder.
+
+"But I will, Dick, I will!" she sobbed, but as the words fell from her
+lips she heard the door close and felt the gust of cold air that
+chilled the hall.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+She was still awake when the midnight accommodation whistled its
+impending arrival from the north. She listened, tense, as the train
+came to a stop in the town. A brief halt, then it sounded its
+underway, the pistons accelerated their chugging beat and it passed
+out of Crampville into the south.
+
+She stood, still-breathed, dry-eyed, till the last grinding rumble
+died out of the frosty night, then as a full realization of her loss
+came home, she dropped to the side of the bed and buried her face in
+the coverlid.
+
+The floor where she knelt seemed cold and hard.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+MINDANAO
+
+
+The old _Francesca_, directed by a nervous and none too competent
+Tagalog captain, maneuvered in the six-mile tidal current which swept
+west through the Straits making Zamboanga a nightmare to all the
+native skippers who called at that port. Crab-like, she crawled
+obliquely to within a few hundred feet of the low-lying town, then the
+screw churned up a furious wake as the anxious Tagalog on the bridge
+swung her back into the Straits to circle in a new attempt. Carried by
+the tidal rush the old tub circled in a great ellipse.
+
+Alone at the rail on the dingy promenade Terry stood enjoying his
+first glimpse of Mindanao. Seven months in Luzon had brought him
+countless tales of this uncertain southland--tales of pirates, of
+insolent, murderous datos defiant behind their cotta fortresses, of
+kris and barong wielded by fanatic Moros gone amok; of pearls as large
+as robins' eggs, of nuggets tossed as playthings by naked children of
+the forests, of mysterious tribes who inhabited the fastnesses of
+inaccessible hills.
+
+He wore the service uniform of the Constabulary, the field uniform of
+khaki blouse and breeches, tan shoes and leggings, and stiff-brimmed
+cavalry Stetson. The smart uniform set his erect figure off trimly
+and added to the impression of alertness conveyed by his steady gray
+eyes.
+
+In the two wide swings back into midstream that ensued before the
+steamer approached near enough land to get ropes to the little brown
+stevedores who waited on the dock, Terry had ample opportunity for
+study of the tropic panorama. The sea was dotted with Moro vintas,
+swiftest of all Malayan sailing craft; tide and wind borne, some
+scurried at tremendous pace toward the fishing grounds of the Sulu
+Sea, others tacked painfully into the Celebes. A Government launch,
+its starred and striped flag brilliant against the green sea in the
+morning light, left its jetty and headed south toward the dim
+coastline of Basilan. A score of gulls, that had followed the ship
+down from Sorsogon, fattening on the waste thrown overboard after each
+meal, circled around the ship aimlessly, uttering unpleasant cries.
+The young sun mounted swiftly in a cloudless sky, hot on the trail of
+the cool morning breezes, white in its threat of blistering punishment
+of all who dared its shafts.
+
+The hawser snubbed, the drum of the rusty winch rattled and banged on
+worn bearings to a tune of escaping steam, laboriously warping the
+smelly hull alongside the dock. Terry watched the sturdy little Moros
+spring into agile life as the vessel slowly neared the pier, then he
+turned to look over the town which was built flush with the edge of
+the narrow beach, extending each way from the shore end of the pier.
+The galvanized-iron roofs of the taller buildings--church, convent,
+club, a few more pretentious dwellings,--were visible above the low
+foliage and between the tall acacias and firetrees which jagged the
+skyline. A heavily laden breeze identified unmistakably several long
+buildings as copra warehouses.
+
+It seemed a busy town, as towns near the equator go. In the street
+into which the pier opened a thin stream of pedestrians passed by in
+brief review before the watcher: Moros, a few Filipinos, a Chino
+staggering under a heavy balanced pinga, two white-clad Americans,
+while several rickshaws, Moro drawn, jogged by with patrons concealed
+under raised tops. Then a big foreign touring car turned the corner
+and drew up in front of the government building to deposit a middle
+aged American, immaculate in fresh pongee.
+
+Terry, observing him idly from where he stood at the rail, saw a
+larger, uniformed American swing the corner with vigorous stride and
+after saluting the older man accompany him respectfully to the
+entrance to the big building, where they stood a moment in
+conversation. Terry's interest quickened as he recognized the big
+American as a member of his own service; he watched him approach the
+ship through the crowd of half-nude sweating Moros who now swarmed the
+dock.
+
+Terry, hastening down the ship's ladder, met the tall officer as he
+reached the end of the pier.
+
+He was a loosely knit, raw-boned man of about thirty-five, of serious
+but pleasant mien. As he stepped to meet Terry, Terry saw that he wore
+the leaves of a Major.
+
+"Lieutenant Terry?" he asked, responding with friendly informality to
+Terry's stiff salute.
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"I'm Bronner. Mighty glad to know you. We've been looking for you ever
+since receiving a copy of the Headquarters Bulletin ordering you down
+here. Have a good trip?"
+
+"Well, Major, the _Francesca_ is no Empress liner but we got along all
+right. I am very glad to know you, Major. Your brother and I were
+roommates at college--he used to tell me of your experiences with the
+head hunters--"
+
+"Huh!" the Major interrupted. "Guess he stretched things some. Fine
+boy. Wants to come over when he graduates this June, but his mother
+says one son over here is enough. And she's right."
+
+Terry liked the big irregular features. In the steady eyes he saw
+something that forced instant credence to the stories told of the
+Major's resourceful bravery under difficult situations, a bravery
+which had made the name of Bronner famous in a service made up of
+intrepid men.
+
+"Welcome to Moroland," the Major continued. "I hope you like it down
+here--I think you will. If I didn't I wouldn't have requested your
+transfer. You are assigned to the most interesting of the Moro
+provinces,--Davao. You go there to command a Macabebe company. Your
+baggage still aboard?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Forget the 'sir'! Leave your stuff on board--the _Francesca_ sails at
+daylight to-morrow, and you go on to Davao with her. Had breakfast? I
+thought not. Pack a bag with what you will need for a day ashore--put
+on a white uniform for to-night. My orderly will take you to my
+quarters where you can get a shower and some breakfast. Join me at the
+Service Club for lunch."
+
+Throughout the abrupt discourse Terry had endured the frank appraisal
+of the shrewd black eyes. He experienced a pleasant reaction when the
+Major again extended his broad hand.
+
+"Lieutenant, I said a minute ago that I was glad to know you. Let me
+repeat it--I mean it. Adios, till lunch time."
+
+He pushed his way good-naturedly through the throng of Moros who were
+handling the bales and boxes unloaded from the roach-ridden hull and
+walked off the pier, disappearing into the government building. Terry
+boarded the vessel, warmed by the friendliness of his new chief, and
+by the time the orderly arrived had thrown a few things into his bag
+and was ready to go ashore.
+
+He followed the soldier down the main street, a dusty thoroughfare
+lined with the usual assortment of structures which adorn Philippine
+provincial towns: adobe, tile-roofed business houses honeycombed with
+little box-like shops in which the Chinese merchants displayed their
+wares: square wooden houses set high on stone understructures: scores
+of bamboo shacks stilted on crooked timbers, unkempt, wry, powdered
+with the dust risen since the last rains.
+
+Though it was not yet nine o'clock, they sought the shaded side of the
+street with the habit which becomes instinctive near the equator, and
+welcomed the coolness of Bronner's low house.
+
+The cook and the houseboy looked after him with the unobtrusive
+perfection of service found only in the East. A good breakfast cheered
+a stomach outraged by the greasy mess perpetrated upon native boats in
+the name of Spanish cookery, and a cool shower bath eliminated the
+stench of stale copra which had clung to his nostrils if not to his
+clothing. An hour before noon he left the house and strolled about the
+scorching town, regardless of where he went so long as he found shaded
+walks on which to tread.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Most Philippine towns are coast towns, and most coast towns are flat
+and uninteresting unless you are interested in their peoples--and you
+are not interested in them unless they are of a different tribe than
+you have known previously.
+
+Take a couple of dusty--or muddy--streets, unroll them along some
+freshwater stream just above a line of palmed beach: place an immense,
+deserted-looking softstone church in an unkept square flanked with a
+few straggled acacias and a big convent in which a native priest lives
+in weary and squalid detachment from a world he knows nothing about:
+line the two streets with an assortment of rusty bamboo and
+mixed-material houses which impress one as never having been built but
+as always having stood there: sprinkle a few naked, pot-bellied, brown
+children staring at each other in pathetic, Malay ignorance of the
+manner and spirit of play: set a few brown manikins in the open
+windows--women who let life fly by in dull wonder of what it is all
+about: add a few carabaos lying in neck-deep content in mudwallows,
+and a score of emaciated curs which snarl at each other in habitual,
+gnawing hunger and which greet their masters with terrified whines:
+spread over it all a pall of still moist heat and a sky arched by a
+molten sun. Contrive all this, then imbue every object--human and
+creature, animate and inanimate,--with an air of hopelessness, of the
+futility of effort, and you will have a typical Malay town as the
+Americans found them.
+
+But not so where the American has set his impious foot--impious of the
+dogma that you can not change the East, nor hurry it. He enjoyed the
+finesse of the phrase, quoted it, then jumped in to hustle the East.
+The old timers,--Spaniards and Britishers for the greater
+part--shrugged at each other over their heavy tiffins and nine o'clock
+dinners; these crazy Americans would soon learn! But the crazy,
+enthusiastic Americans, engineers, health officers, executives, school
+teachers, Constabulary, labored on in the glory of service: eradicated
+cholera, built roads and bridges, brought six hundred thousand
+children into school that two score tribes might find a common tongue,
+fought the devastating cattle plagues, wiped out brigandage and
+piracy, brought order and first semblance of prosperity to eight
+millions of people.
+
+Young men did it all. The old-timers suddenly found that they were
+living in new times, in clean, healthful towns: found that business
+was increasing by leaps and bounds as the natives fell in behind the
+young Americans with a quicker stride than Orientals had ever known.
+And they are the reasons--those few thousands of smooth-faced
+Americans who laughingly threw themselves at the wall of immemorial
+sloth and apathy--why Kipling's phrase is seldom quoted east of India,
+and now not often there. And they are the reasons, those carefully
+chosen, confident young men of whom too many are buried over there,
+that we have so much of which to be proud in what has been done in our
+name for a backward, unfortunate people.
+
+But we, you and I, do not know very much about it all: it is so far
+away and we are so busy with our affairs, our politics, our--
+
+... You know ... we are just too busy to bother about those Tagalogs
+and headhunters who live over there where Dewey licked Cervera, and
+Aguinaldo was king of the Igorotes or something, and Pershing rose
+from a captain to a general: why, I heard one of those Filipinos make
+a speech about independence and he was so smart and bright--he had
+been sent to our congress or something and was handsome and polished
+and....
+
+Yes, he doubtless was. That is why he was sent: but he bore about the
+same mental relation to the race he is supposed to represent as a
+Supreme Court Justice bears to a Georgia cracker!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Terry had thoroughly assimilated the atmosphere of the Luzon provinces
+in his seven months in the Islands, so he found a real pleasure in
+studying a Moro town which had been under the energizing influence of
+the Army for nearly two decades. He wandered slowly through the native
+quarter, cutting down clean cross streets lined with neat nipa huts
+inclosed behind latticed bamboo fences, enjoying the novelty of a
+community different from any he had known. Every detail of the well
+kept streets testified to the strictness of the standards set by the
+white men who governed the town. The few Moros whom he encountered on
+the noon-deserted streets passed him silently and with averted eyes,
+wary, secretive, entirely alien. One looked him square in the eye,
+leaving him uncomfortable with the antipathy unveiled, the cold,
+everlasting contempt of the Mohammedan for the unbeliever whom he does
+not know.
+
+He walked with lids half-closed against the white glare and the heat
+waves which danced above the tortured roads and roofs: by the hour set
+for his luncheon engagement he had covered the town thoroughly,
+including the beautiful post which had been turned over to Scouts when
+the Army at last finished its tedious Moro project.
+
+He found the Major waiting him at the Club, a large, single-story
+building set in a grove of tall palms at the edge of the beach and
+cooled by the breezes from the Straits. He followed him out on the
+wide veranda built over the water's edge, passing through a friendly,
+incurious group of young Americans who sat at little round tables in
+groups of three and four. Major Bronner responded to a dozen greetings
+as they crossed to a table set for two at the edge of the veranda. In
+a moment the deft tableboy had their service under way.
+
+"Well," began the Major, "you will have a busy time of it during the
+rest of your stay--I wish it were to be longer. This afternoon I want
+you to come to the office with me--there are lots of things to talk
+over about your work down there. The Governor will see you about five
+o'clock. How do you like Zamboanga?"
+
+"It's clean, and interesting, Major."
+
+"'Clean and interesting!' That is a boost! Though we can't take much
+credit for the 'interesting'--the Moros furnish that!"
+
+The white-smocked servants moved noiselessly about the cool veranda,
+serving the score of Americans with that perfect impersonal care found
+nowhere except among Oriental servitors: the subdued clatter of silver
+against dish and the tinkle of iced drinks was often drowned in
+outbursts of merriment from one or other of the little tables. Most of
+the Americans were mere youths, though two were evidently in their
+forties. Bronner noted Terry's study of a group of three who sat
+nearby, heavily tanned men evidently not quite at home in the club.
+
+"Davao planters," he explained. "Hemp planters: you will know them.
+Three good men: they're going down on your boat."
+
+Lunch finished, coffee and cigars furnished excuse for the white-clad
+crowd to linger on the darkened porch: scraps of shop talk reached
+Terry's ears, a jargon of strangely twisted English and Spanish words.
+Bridges, appropriations, rinderpest, lack of labor, artesian wells,
+cholera--such was their table talk, as such was their life.
+
+The breeze freshened, gently stirring the potted plants which flanked
+each row of tables; the hot stillness of the noon gave way to the
+sibilant murmur of the cocoanut palms whose bases were lapped by the
+quickening ripples. The breaking of the withering calm was the signal
+for departure to office and field. The veranda cleared rapidly.
+Bronner, watching the three planters, interrupted their departure.
+
+"Lindsey--just a minute."
+
+He took Terry to their table and introduced him.
+
+"Lieutenant Terry, gentlemen: Mr. Lindsey, Mr. Cochran, Mr. Casey.
+Lieutenant Terry goes to Davao to-morrow as Senior Inspector. You will
+be able to help him, till he learns his way down there--and later he
+may be able to help you."
+
+Terry shook hands with the three in turn. All were out-doors men,
+bronzed, diffident with the social shyness of men who live their lives
+alone or among none but alien people. Lindsey and Cochran were
+square-set, serious young men: Casey, older, but of eager,
+enthusiastic mien.
+
+The Major discussed them as he and Terry left the club.
+
+"They're three of the best planters in the Gulf. You'll have no
+trouble with them. But you may with some others, those who have a
+fancied grievance against the government just now. I had better start
+at the beginning.
+
+"You know the best hemp in the world grows down there--soil, climate,
+rainfall all combine wonderfully to make it the one ideal spot for
+hemp production. In another twenty years it will probably rate as the
+richest single agricultural area on the globe--that's why those little
+fellows over there"--he indicated a pair of Japanese passing on the
+opposite side of the street--"are piling into Davao so fast these
+days.
+
+"The world needs hemp--and areas where it can be cultivated are rare.
+Three years ago a little stampede occurred into Davao; the pioneers
+are a mixed lot--about sixty Americans, a few Britishers, a scattering
+of Moros and Filipinos and nearly two hundred Japs. The Japs are
+quiet--you will seldom see them: they stay on their places and 'saw
+wood'; they're backed by some syndicate--probably their government.
+But the others are lone handers, working on their own 'shoe-strings'
+or financed by the contributions of optimistic shareholders in Manila.
+
+"They are good men, these planters. You will like them. They went into
+the fastnesses of Mindanao, braved the wild tribes, cleared their
+land, planted hemp, working largely with their own hands--and in a
+climate where they say the white man shall labor only with his head.
+You will hear all about their troubles and difficulties--you won't
+hear much else down there but hemp--hemp and wild tribes! Hemp and
+wildmen--that's Davao!
+
+"About their grievance. They cleared and planted rapidly and have
+raised fabulous crops, but when it came time to strip the hemp for
+market they found that the wildmen upon whom they had banked as
+potential labor would not work. A few came and stayed, but most of
+them quit after earning a few pesos. So the hemp rotted in the field.
+Desperate, facing ruin, some of the planters went after labor too
+strongly, frightened and browbeat the Bogobos into working. The scheme
+worked, so a condition approximating peonage was developed upon
+several of the plantations.
+
+"We ordered it stopped. Those planters are very sore, looking for
+trouble. That's the story--and the condition you must face, and
+overcome. You've got to hold down that class of planter, but at the
+same time encourage the Bogobos to work for them. It means prosperity
+for the planters, and money and comfort for the Bogobos--and it will
+keep them out of the hills: we want the Bogobos near the coast, under
+civilizing influences. They are newly won to us and apt to fade away
+into the foothills on the least provocation."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Crossing the acacia-shaded lawns of the beautiful plaza he stopped in
+front of the artistic concrete bandstand, jerking a big thumb at the
+dedication inscribed upon the ivy-covered façade.
+
+"Pershing Plaza," he read aloud. "He was the last military Governor,
+you remember. I knew him: a good man. No genius--just a good man, hard
+worker: has two traits that will carry him a long way if he gets the
+chance--common sense and industry. Wants to know everything about
+everything, and never quits working. Surrounds himself with workers:
+gives his men their jobs and doesn't bother them while they do
+them--just wants results.
+
+"'Make good or make way!' Some slogan! Pershing, Wood, Scott,
+Carpenter,--America has sent some of her best into Mindanao. I'm glad
+to be here--aren't you?"
+
+At the sudden question Terry turned to him.
+
+"Yes," he said. "I hope to be--useful."
+
+They had reached the entrance to the government building: the Major
+paused at the foot of the mahogany staircase to conclude earnestly:
+"It is fashionable just now in Manila to decry this effort to
+institute civil government among the Moros--but I know you are not of
+the type to be influenced. Governor Mason is making good: you will
+see that after you have been here a month. He is a wonder,
+Terry,--probably the only man who could handle this situation with a
+few Constabulary. Study, patience, and square-dealing, backed by
+occasional use of troops, prepared the Moros for this experiment, and
+Governor Mason is carrying it forward almost alone--opposing the
+backward tendencies of Sululand with little else save personality,
+inspiration and a wonderful knowledge of Malay character.
+
+"You're going to like it down here," he wound up suddenly, confused by
+his own unaccustomed oratory.
+
+Mounting the polished stairway, they passed down the tall concrete
+corridors and into the Major's office. He drew up a chair for Terry
+and seated himself behind a desk whose orderly array of accessories
+bespoke his methodical bachelor habits. The walls were covered with
+large-scale maps of Moroland showing location of various tribes,
+scattered settlements and district boundaries, with great blank areas
+eloquent of the unknown character of unexplored fastnesses. The
+crosses which indicated the distribution of Constabulary forces
+controlled from his office dotted every sizable island: pins bearing
+the names of government agents showed into what remote regions our
+trail-breakers had penetrated. One purple-flagged pin showed a
+veterinarian warring against a cattle plague in Jolo: a blue flag
+thrust into one of the blank spaces of Mindanao indicated the
+whereabouts of a fearless ethnologist from the Field Museum: a red
+sticker bore the name of an engineer who had been out of touch for six
+weeks, running the line of a new trail across the great bulk of
+Mindanao. The map was symbolic of the Constabulary, whose duty it is
+to know all, to protect all.
+
+Leaving Terry to his study of the maps the Major spent an unapologetic
+fifteen minutes clearing the mass of papers that had accumulated
+during the lunch hour, then turned to him. For an hour he outlined the
+salient problems which would confront the young officer in his new
+assignment. He was all business, curt, concise, definite. He touched
+upon the ordinary service activities of drill, patrol, secret service,
+supply and report, then took up those phases which required delicate
+and original handling.
+
+"Now, Lieutenant, we did not pull you down here to handle an ordinary
+job--you know it means something these days to get a Mindanao
+assignment."
+
+Terry did know it. Only men who had demonstrated unusual ability in
+their line had been sent to Moroland under Governor Mason. As the
+months went by the northern provinces were being stripped of their
+crack men for assignment to the southern experiment, so that detail
+there had become a mark of distinction. He had been as surprised as
+pleased at his summons from Sorsogon, a poor, colorless province
+where he had spent seven months in uneventful, and as he thought,
+inconspicuous service.
+
+The Major detected something of what was passing in his mind: "You
+were selected because of your understanding of native character, your
+sympathy with them: that, and your faculty for learning dialects. By
+the way, what is your method of studying these languages--your record
+of three dialects in half a year is remarkable."
+
+"There was little else to do--and I like to study them."
+
+The Major noted the slight flush of embarrassment. He reached into a
+drawer and pulled out a card, scanning it carefully before continuing:
+
+"Your qualification card indicates that you are an unusual pistol
+shot: it reads 'Pistol rating--two-handed expert, extraordinary in
+accuracy and rapidity.'"
+
+Disregarding Terry's increased embarrassment he pushed the question:
+"How did you acquire such skill?"
+
+"Well, as I had to carry a sidearm, I thought to make it useful--it is
+not much of an ornament. After I became really interested it cost me
+about fifty dollars a month for ammunition."
+
+"Well, things happen down here! Some day you may be glad you spent the
+money--your skill may come in handy!"
+
+"On--men?" It was the one aspect of the service from which Terry
+shrank.
+
+"Well, I hope not. It seldom comes to that. But a number of hard
+characters have been concentrating recently in the Davao Gulf, a batch
+of discharged convicts who served long terms for brigandage and
+murder. We have been watching them, but nothing significant transpired
+till last month."
+
+The muscles of his heavy jaw tightened as he went on: "You have heard
+of Malabanan, haven't you?"
+
+"The ladrone leader?"
+
+"Yes, he. He was released from Bilibid prison last summer and came
+through here last month. One of our operatives uncovered him on the
+boat--traveling as an ordinary steerage passenger. He went to Davao,
+and I fear it means trouble. I think he gathered that tough crew
+together to operate in Davao, thinking to test us out now that the
+Army is gone."
+
+His face was grim as he snapped: "Terry, watch him! And if he makes a
+single move--smash him! Make no false starts, do not arrest him unless
+you are sure that your evidence will convict in the courts. Give him
+plenty of rope--but if he breaks loose ... smash him hard!
+Understand?"
+
+Terry nodded quietly, but something in his competent face contented
+his chief. He repeated his warning against premature action:
+
+"Be sure you can get him before you move--he is slippery and has
+friends in high native circles. We do not want to be turned down in
+the courts at this stage of the game, and it may be he intends to play
+the game square--plant hemp, for instance. But if he wants a
+showdown--smash him good and plenty!"
+
+He briefly reviewed the substance of his instructions: "You can see
+that your work is going to call for a good deal of tact and patience:
+patience with the angry planters, with the wild people. Everybody is
+scared and jumpy down there just now, and we want to restore their
+confidence."
+
+Terry had listened attentively throughout the interview, speaking only
+to answer questions. He broke the silence which followed:
+
+"Major, I have heard a great deal about the Hill People of Davao: will
+I be near them?"
+
+The Major eyed him queerly for a moment before answering: "About
+thirty miles as the bird flies," he said, "but about a million to all
+intents and purposes! No living man has been among them--those who
+have tried have left their bones rotting in the dark forest. They kill
+all who attempt to reach them, expeditions in force find nothing as
+the Hillmen simply fade away before their approach.
+
+"I don't want you to attempt to go among them--in fact I expressly
+forbid it, as it means certain death. But some day we hope to open the
+Hills up, to win among them: it is one of the Governor's cherished
+ambitions. So learn what you can about them from the old Bogobos who
+live in the foothills, and report any interesting traditions you may
+hear. Pieced together, the tales may make a helpful contribution--may
+help solve the riddle of how to get to them peaceably. Not that you or
+I are likely to live long enough to see it done--they are too
+confounded wild, too inaccessible behind their jungled hills."
+
+He shrugged his broad shoulders in eloquent dismissal of a vain hope,
+and rose: "I want you to meet the Governor. I'll see if we can get to
+him yet."
+
+He strode out of the office, returning immediately to inform Terry
+that the Governor was closeted with the two Moro datos whom he had
+fetched to the capitol by launch.
+
+"They haven't promised to be good boys yet," he chuckled, "but they
+will before he finishes with them! His Secretary says that he expects
+you and me to go down to San Ramon with him to-night at seven sharp,
+to dine with Wade, the prison superintendent. You're in luck,
+Lieutenant. It will be an evening you won't soon forget."
+
+So it proved to be.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE FANATIC
+
+
+Terry, refreshed by a shower and change to formal white uniform, was
+listening to the Major's grave summing up of the Moro problem when the
+arrival of the governor's car took them both down to join him. As
+Governor Mason alighted to meet him Terry felt the magnetism of the
+man who had been selected to attempt the difficult Moro venture.
+Governor Mason had grown up in the island service, had been identified
+with the inner government circle since the days of the First
+Commission, and had been retained and promoted by each succeeding
+administration. Far-sighted, patient, wary, suave, he was the most
+consummate master of Island policy developed under the American
+regime. A press bitterly hostile to the idea of giving the Moros civil
+government had attested to his proven capacity by moderating its
+criticism following the announcement that he would head the new
+government.
+
+Terry was welcomed with a graceful simplicity that made him feel at
+home. Immediately he fell under the spell of this man whose spirit
+enthused the small band of whites who were redeeming a people from
+their prehistoric lethargy. He was fit to lead; the sweep of line from
+temple through jaw bespoke an uncompromising force of character, but
+was gentled by the deep cleft of chin: something in the poise of head
+gave him the manner best described as aristocratic but it was toned
+down by the mischievous gleam which flickered, often without obvious
+reason, in the thoughtful eyes.
+
+The big car bore them swiftly through the cooling evening over smooth
+coral roads which were laid down like ribbons on the green tableland
+over which they sped: they shot under groves of tall cocoanut trees,
+past clumps of feathery bamboo which flanked the highway. Dusk was
+near when they entered the reservation and drew up in front of a
+red-roofed bungalow set on a great lawn facing the prison inclosure.
+
+Superintendent Wade rose from the wide veranda and came down to meet
+them, a tall, smooth-faced man of young middle-age, evidently on most
+intimate terms with the Governor and the Major. While expressing his
+pleasure in being privileged to entertain Terry, he bent upon him the
+searching look of appraisal which is instinctive in the Orient, where
+the masses are controlled by the white man's prestige, a prestige
+which may suffer through attitude or actions of each newcomer.
+
+Terry halted a moment at the curb, rapt in appreciation of the spot.
+Acres of lawn, splashed with flaming red and yellow canna beds, swept
+from roadway to edge of sea: wide shell roads, smooth as planks, wound
+in great curves into the dark groves of cocoanut palms which
+surrounded the inclosure on three sides and extended back a thousand
+acres in symmetrical rows of towering trunks which created endless
+shaded glades: turning slowly, he saw the immaculately policed prison
+inclosure showing through the steel grillwork which an intelligent
+mind had substituted for grim and stuffy prison walls. It seemed less
+prison than sanctuary.
+
+The development of the prison farm, the development of its Moro
+inmates, was Wade's life. "Lieutenant, I am glad you like it," he said
+simply. "It is home to me."
+
+The Governor had strolled out on the lawn for a lingering look around
+him. Returning to the veranda he eyed Wade and Bronner quizzically.
+
+"Each of you has too fine an establishment for the barren needs of
+bachelors. I wish you had more confidence in the blissful state of
+matrimony!"
+
+Wade shook his head decisively. The Major snorted.
+
+"Huh! No petticoats for mine!"
+
+A stolid Moro servant padded up with a tray bearing four cocktails: in
+a moment carried them kitchen-ward, rejected.
+
+The Governor laughed: "Not one in four! An unusual showing, Wade." He
+turned to Terry: "You never drink?"
+
+"I--I don't care for it, Governor."
+
+A pause, and he added, flushing slightly: "That was not quite honest,
+sir. I have never tried it."
+
+As they moved to the table the Governor exchanged a glance of
+delighted approval with the Major over the nice amend.
+
+The steady breeze off the Straits that blew across the veranda where
+they sat at dinner roused the sea into a little confusion of beach
+sounds. They ate leisurely, talking of the strange things of Sululand,
+talked as men do who find surpassing interest in the little and the
+big things of their work; and Terry listened as they deliberately drew
+him within their circle.
+
+It was a dinner deserving of the time given up to it. Following a
+vegetable soup the Moro bore in a great lapu-lapu, fresh from the
+Straits: if you have never tasted the flaky substance of a
+lapu-lapu,--don't! For once you do, you will be forever impatient of
+the quality of all other fish. Roast duck followed, with sweet corn,
+camotes, tart roselle sauce, a papaya salad, an ice, and pili nuts;
+all perfectly prepared, and flawlessly served by the expressionless
+Moro boy who moved noiselessly about the snowy table.
+
+"I want to brag a little, Governor," Wade said as he and the Major
+lighted cigars over a second cup of black coffee. "Everything we ate
+to-night--with the exception of such things as salt and pepper and
+cream,--was the product of this farm. You will be able to report at
+the end of the year that we are eighty per cent self-supporting."
+
+Pressed by the Governor, Wade explained to Terry his system of
+handling the six hundred Moro inmates. He stopped midway in a graphic
+account of three prisoners whom he had sent out with instructions to
+fetch in a runaway convict dead or alive.
+
+"I didn't ask you down here to talk you to death!" he apologized.
+
+"But what happened?" insisted the Major. "Did the three skip too?"
+
+Wade glared at him. "Skip? My trusties? I guess not! They came in last
+night after dark, after being gone in the interior for three weeks,
+carrying a gunnysack. I was sitting out here, so they came right up
+and without a word emptied the sack on the veranda floor. They had
+stayed out till they got him--his head rolled out of the sack and
+landed right under where you're sitting, Major. Then the three walked
+over to the prison gate and reported in."
+
+A moment later the Major moved his chair.
+
+The Governor had been quietly studying Terry. "How did the Philippines
+first impress you?" he asked. "About as you anticipated?"
+
+Terry hesitated, then responded to the authority of the kindly eyes:
+"No, sir. I had read enough typical stories of the tropics to absorb
+an atmosphere, but I did not find it. You know what I mean, sir: all
+that stuff about _dulce far niente_, manana, gin-soaked
+beach-combers,--that sort of thing. But I don't find it, sir. I find a
+spirit of hustle, of getting things done despite obstacles, a spirit
+which the natives seem to be absorbing,--though rather slowly."
+
+The Governor was frankly interested: "You doubtless have formed some
+opinion regarding the Filipinos--their fitness for independence?"
+
+Terry felt the three pairs of eyes drilling him as he answered: "It
+seems to me, sir, that--disregarding such baffling obstacles to
+independence as their absolute defenselessness as a nation, the
+profound ignorance of the masses, lack of a common tongue, and all
+that,--I think that in view of the fact that under our guidance they
+have advanced further than under four hundred years of Spanish rule,
+it would be kinder if we waited decision until we see what a second or
+third generation of English-speaking natives are like."
+
+He reflected a moment, serious, then added: "In short, sir, I think
+that it would be a great injustice to them to mistake our own driving
+force for their capacity."
+
+"Sus-marie-hosep!" exclaimed the delighted Major, who had fidgeted
+while his protégé was undergoing the Governor's test, "Don't mistake
+our driving force for--I'd like to hear the native demagogues argue on
+that thesis!"
+
+The Governor surveyed Terry with added interest, but was
+non-committal.
+
+They fell silent, listening to the dark sea, in its gentlest mood,
+caressing the beach: the wind flowed past them steadily, like a soft
+current, stirring the long fronds into purring contact. A sharp
+challenge from an alert native sentry rang clear, followed by the
+crunching sound of a heavy iron gate opening and closing with grating
+finality. The hourly call was sounded by a guard, who, unseen by them,
+paced the main entrance to the inclosure: "All's Well." It sounded six
+times from invisible lips. Terry pondered its ironic message to those
+who heard it from within those steel and concrete dormitories: "All's
+Well," sounding to those who had crime on their souls, and had left,
+somewhere, mothers, wives, children ... sweethearts.... It oppressed
+him heavily.
+
+Then a roar of laughter rose from within the prison, the free and
+joyous expression of mirth from hundreds of throats, from men who
+found life good. Terry looked up to see Wade observing him closely,
+smiling.
+
+"They're having 'movies' to-night," he explained. "They're crazy about
+Charlie Chaplin."
+
+Then Terry understood better the spirit of the institution, and of its
+inmates. This was no dungeon, it was a school where men were being
+taught how to live at peace with their kind, how to work,--and how to
+laugh.
+
+Vaguely conscious of being the object of intent scrutiny by some one
+stationed behind his chair, Terry turned, restlessly, to face the Moro
+servant, who stood just within the circle of light cast by the lamp,
+his smoldering eyes fixed upon him. Unabashed, inscrutable, he studied
+the white youth unblinkingly: then, as if decision had ripened, he
+entered the full glare of the lamp and faced Wade, his master.
+
+Astounded at the extraordinary intrusion, Wade questioned him curtly
+in his dialect. The Moro responded at length, in a listless monotone
+that contrasted strangely with the determined gleam of his black eyes.
+Surprise flooded Wade's face, heightened to astonishment as the Moro
+continued; and as he concluded his story with an expressive gesture
+toward Terry, Wade struck his knee.
+
+"Well, I'll be everlastingly consumed!" he prophesied. He searched
+Terry's thin face intently, then turned to the Governor.
+
+"This boy, Matak," he pointed to the passive Moro, "adopted me over a
+year ago: just dropped in and said he was going to work for me. I
+didn't need him--you know I draw on the trusties for servants--but he
+would not accept refusal: he just stayed on. He is a fine servant, but
+a queer fish--I let him stay for both reasons! I've tried to persuade
+him to go to different friends who needed servants, but he looked them
+over and then refused. I don't know where he came from, don't know
+anything about his history: I only know that he is a very faithful
+boy, with some grievance against life that leaves him morose and
+silent.
+
+"Now he coolly announces," he paused to again study Terry's
+countenance queerly, "now he says he is going with Lieutenant Terry!"
+
+The small but powerfully built Moro calmly returned the stare of the
+four white men, his face passionless, his inert hands and thick bare
+feet curiously expressive of a primitiveness beyond conception.
+Evidently he had decided upon a course of action from which nothing
+would sway him, and he waited until the white men should adjust
+themselves to the fact. The Governor's face expressed his sympathy
+with the Moro as he turned to Wade and asked permission to address his
+servant.
+
+"Matak, why do you wish to go with Lieutenant Terry?"
+
+The Moro shifted his brooding eyes to Terry, then back to the Governor
+before he answered.
+
+"Because I like him, sir."
+
+"Why do you like him?"
+
+"Because he understands, sir."
+
+"Understands what, Matak?"
+
+"He understands us, sir,--the unfortunate. Because he is lonely too,
+sir."
+
+The Governor had been trying all evening to solve the strange appeal
+of Terry's countenance: the primitive Moro had understood. Gazing at
+the white youth, the Governor saw that Matak was right. The tone in
+which he addressed Terry was gentle, fatherly.
+
+"Lieutenant, do you need a boy?"
+
+The Major's quick sympathy had been enlisted: "Lieutenant, you will
+run your own mess down there," he interposed.
+
+Meeting the black eyes turned upon him in confident expectation, Terry
+found their dull appeal irresistible.
+
+"He may come with me," he said. "I will look after him."
+
+Matak stood motionless a moment, then stepped to Wade and slipping to
+one knee pressed Wade's hand against his lips in token of gratitude
+and farewell. Then he rose and went silently into the house.
+
+The Governor, the Major and Wade were busy men with large
+responsibilities: Terry found ample material for reverie in
+contemplation of what was opening up before him. The incident served
+to stifle further conversation. The four settled comfortably into the
+long rattan chairs drawn up near the railing, each content in the mere
+association with friends and occupied with his own problems.
+
+The quiet intimacy of the group was jarred by the sudden jangle of a
+telephone. Wade jumped up with a muttered excuse but before he had
+crossed to the open door it rang again, insistent. They heard his
+murmured "hello," then an incredulous "What!" in higher pitch. He
+appeared at the door, pale, excited.
+
+"Governor Mason," he exclaimed, "Captain Hornbecker reports that there
+is a _juramentado_ loose between here and Zamboanga!"
+
+At the startling intelligence the Governor's feet rapped to the floor:
+the Major jumped to his feet, astounded.
+
+"Why," he protested, "who ever heard of a Moro running amuck at this
+time of night!"
+
+"Hornbecker insists that it is true, nevertheless. He has sent a
+detachment out after him but was worried because the Governor and you
+might have started before he got word for you to wait."
+
+The Governor shook his head decidedly: "We will not wait. Please call
+my car."
+
+The Major's protest against the Executive's endangering himself died
+in his throat at a quiet look from the Governor. They hurried to the
+car, Wade delaying them a few seconds while he secured three heavy
+pistols, handing one to each of the two officers. They found Matak
+waiting in the seat beside the driver.
+
+A sharp order from the Governor and the chauffeur shot them out of the
+reservation and into the provincial road. The big Renault roared
+through the night, the kilometer posts flitting by like specters, the
+headlights tunneling the cocoanut groves through which the white
+highway spun.
+
+The four Americans crouched low in the tonneau to escape the blinding
+rush of air that eddied over the windshield. They shot over a bridge,
+tore through a dark village, rounded a corner at top speed and took
+the grassed shoulder of the road as the little chauffeur twisted the
+wheel to avoid a bewildered carabao which blocked the middle of the
+highway. A sickening skid, and they were back in the road. At the end
+of a roaring flight down a long straightaway they rounded a sharp
+curve into a short stretch terminating in a nipa village which seemed
+to leap toward the rushing car. As the powerful lights swung upon the
+widened road which formed the village street the alert driver saw that
+which brought foot and hand to the brakes in a frantic effort that
+brought the car to a grinding, sliding stop and tumbled the Americans
+to the floor of the tonneau.
+
+Crouched in the middle of the road a Moro, gone amuck, darted fanatic
+glances in search of the Christians he had vowed to die killing, his
+eyes bloodshot with the self-inflicted torture of the juramentado
+rite. He balanced a great two-handed kris that gleamed like a row of
+stars where the headlight struck its polished corrugations.
+
+A Filipino, unaware of the terrific figure behind him, had sauntered
+from the shadows into the path of light, curious, half-blinded by the
+glare he faced. As he reached the middle of the road the most
+terrifying of all cries issued from one of the dark windows.
+
+"_Juramentado!! Juramentado!!!_"
+
+At the cry his face turned sickly green in the glare. He wheeled,
+uncertain, then ran blindly toward the frenzied Moro who was creeping
+toward him.
+
+It happened with the swiftness of nightmare. By the time the
+Americans had picked themselves up from the bottom of the car the
+Filipino's frantic burst had brought him within twenty feet of the
+black-clad fanatic. His flying feet lagged to a halt, he stood stock
+still in sheer horror till the Moro bounded toward him, then turned
+back toward the car--too late!
+
+The four white men leaped out just as the Filipino turned back toward
+them with fear-leaden feet, and in the moment of discovery of the
+Mohammedan who leaped in his shadow, they saw the glistening blade
+rise above the Filipino's head and fall in a terrific sweep that
+seemed to end at the point where neck and shoulder join. Before their
+eyes the body opened like a book.
+
+It seemed inconceivable, but the crazed face of the Moro showed
+through the cleft which widened as the victim fell.
+
+"God!" sobbed the Governor.
+
+Sighting the group of Americans the blood-crazed Mohammedan bounded
+toward them triumphantly, swinging a kris which no longer gleamed.
+Bronner had reached the road first and stood in front. His heavy
+pistol roared six times and at the last shot the leaping Moro spun
+clear around and fell heavily.
+
+He staggered to his feet and with the same implacable hatred gleaming
+in his eyes came on toward them, still grasping the awful weapon.
+Then, as Matak stepped out to meet him, armed only with a hub wrench,
+Terry's right hand extended in swift gesture as he shot once. The Moro
+collapsed to the road, limply, like a wet stocking off a line.
+
+His race was run, but he had taken one unbeliever with him to justify
+his claim to a choice seat in the Mohammedan heavens. There is a
+certain impressive earnestness about the followers of Mohammed.
+
+The dismayed villagers poured out into the street, venting their
+frenzied fear by kicking the dead fanatic. Captain Hornbecker, a
+round-faced officer, arrived with his soldiers. As the chauffeur had
+emerged from his hiding place in the brush, the Governor turned
+matters over to the captain and the four drove on into Zamboanga. All
+had been sickened by the horror of the swift tragedy.
+
+They stopped at Bronner's house to get Terry's bag, then drove him to
+the wharf. The _Francesca_ was about to cast off, her dim-lit decks
+loud with the confusion of misdirected effort.
+
+Terry sent Matak aboard, thanked the three warmly for their kindness
+to him; after a moment of hesitation he added something that was
+drowned in a sudden rumble of winch. Two waiting sailors threw off the
+hawser in response to a shouted signal from the bridge. The three
+Americans remained at the end of the pier till after Terry had mounted
+to the deck and the boat swung out into the current.
+
+As they walked along the dark pier the Governor asked: "What was that
+he was saying? I did not quite catch it."
+
+"I heard only part of it," answered Bronner. "It was something about
+how queer religions may be--he was thinking of the juramentado."
+
+Wade spoke: "Did you notice how hard the affair got him? Of course it
+was a pretty stiff sight."
+
+"It wasn't that," said the Major, slowly. "From something he said to
+me to-day I know that he has had a horror of some day being compelled
+to kill a man--and the day came. I'm very sorry I didn't stop that
+Moro devil--yet I hit him three times."
+
+The Governor walked the short distance to his residence. Wade dropped
+the Major at his bungalow, and sat oblivious to the Major's
+outstretched hand, musing.
+
+"Major," he said finally, "Matak's selecting Terry for his
+master--queer, isn't it?"
+
+"Huh!" growled the Major, "I would go with him myself--anywhere!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+NEW FRIENDS, AND AN ENEMY
+
+
+The _Francesca_, no slower and no dirtier than most of the other
+steamers which ply the inter-island trade routes, had waddled all
+night and all day through the Celebes Sea. Afternoon found her
+laboring over a becalmed mirror of sea, past rippled reefs, through
+clusters of little coral islands from which straggle-plumed palms
+raised wry fronds in anemic defiance of inhospitable, root resisting
+soil. Mindanao lay to the west and south, vast, mysterious.
+
+Terry stood alone at the forward end of the small promenade deck
+watching the third class passengers, who, though still manifesting the
+uneasiness of the Malay landsman at sea, were comfortably sprawled
+upon the dirty hatch covers enjoying the seven-mile breeze created by
+the movement of the vessel through the still atmosphere. Upon the
+cooler side of the upper deck the first class passengers had disposed
+themselves under the once-white awning. Two natives, a Tagalog planter
+named Ledesma and his big-eyed, full-bosomed daughter, had withdrawn
+themselves from the whites and were seated in conscious dignity near
+the aft rail. Four Americans were grouped up forward, stretched out in
+full length steamer chairs in the complete physical comfort born of a
+cooling evening after a blistering day.
+
+Lindsey reached out to pull up an extra chair, beckoned Terry to join
+them and introduced him to the fourth member of the group, naming him
+as Sears.
+
+He was a big man, heavy-set, a bit untidy of dress and beard: his face
+was flushed, and he answered Terry's pleasant salutation with a
+mattered growl. Lindsey moved in his chair, uneasily.
+
+"Lieutenant," he said, "we want to get acquainted with you. We shall
+see much of each other in Davao."
+
+Before Terry could respond a harsh voice broke in: "Yes, none of us
+are stuck on ourselves down here!"
+
+The words fell cold. Sensing the purpose to offend, Terry straightened
+in his chair to face Sears. He met his surly stare squarely: their
+eyes battled, but under the level gaze Sears' bloodshot eyes wavered
+and lowered, the flush deepening angrily with his confusion.
+
+Lindsey hastily summoned the deckboy to take their orders and by the
+time he returned with the drinks the constraint had abated. Sears, the
+only one who had ordered whiskey, settled back in his chair in sullen
+relief from a situation not quite to his liking. Lindsey raised his
+glass to Terry.
+
+"To your arrival among us," he offered, pleasantly.
+
+"To you all, sir," Terry responded.
+
+"More hemp!" suggested Cochran.
+
+Little Casey attested to his passion: "To breeds and breeders and
+breeding!" he grinned: it was his never-failing toast at the Davao
+Club.
+
+They waited a moment for Sears, but he had gulped his drink.
+
+It was the enthusiastic Casey who first spoke: "Lieutenant, and when
+do you think you can come down to my place? I want you to see my
+Berkshire boar and my two American mares!"
+
+Cochran smiled at him, affectionately: everybody liked Casey for his
+wild enthusiasms. His latest hobby was the importation of blooded
+animals to cross with native stock.
+
+"Casey," said Cochran, "if you would pay half as much attention to
+your plantation as you do to your mares and that old grunter, you'd
+get somewhere!"
+
+Casey snorted: "Sure, and in about three months I'll have a colt to
+show you--then you'll sing another tune! And wait till I get some
+half-breed pigs--instead of the hollow-backed scrawny things we've got
+now--then you'll admit that Casey was the boy!"
+
+Casey was more or less of a character in the Gulf. His words flew so
+fast they overran each other in effort to keep abreast of his racing
+ideas. Thoroughly respected for his sterling character, he was made
+the target of much good-natured hilarity because of his constant
+hobby-riding and the rushing speech that made him almost incoherent.
+His mares and boar had cost him money that could better have gone into
+plantation improvements.
+
+The conversation, drifting fitfully, touched upon a new stripping
+machine which Lindsey had purchased in Manila: he was bringing it down
+in the hold of the _Francesca_.
+
+"I watched them load it," he declared. "I took no chances in being shy
+a necessary bolt or belt. I'll have it set up in a couple of weeks and
+if it works as well in the field as it did in the agent's
+warehouse--no more labor troubles for me--no more hemp rotting in the
+ground for lack of strippers!"
+
+Cochran was mildly pessimistic. He had seen too many other heralded
+inventions which worked well experimentally but failed in the hemp
+fields. Of course Casey was hopeful--it was his nature.
+
+Sears broke his long silence: "Labor troubles, labor shortage!
+Hell!--there's plenty of labor in the Gulf--if only the Government
+wasn't always hornin' in on us!"
+
+Terry knew the remark was aimed at him but refrained from comment.
+Sears mistook his silence.
+
+"But no meddlin' government is goin' to interfere with me! I'm goin'
+to run my own place from now on--and get my labor where I please--and
+how I please!"
+
+As this elicited no response from the patient officer he continued
+despite Lindsey's distressed signals. Emboldened, he turned directly
+to Terry.
+
+"I suppose," he snarled, "that you were sent down to be the little
+fairy god-father to the Bogobos--to protect the poor heathen from the
+awful planters who want to make them work. No?"
+
+Terry stirred. "Mr. Sears, I am instructed to protect the Bogobos from
+any oppression--and to aid the planters in every legitimate way. I
+hope to do both."
+
+Sears' passion seemed fed by the conciliatory tone. Terry studied the
+convulsed face and through the thick veil of rage saw the lines of
+worry that had aged him prematurely: the black hair was streaked with
+gray and his hands were thickened and stained with toil. Moved by a
+quick sympathy Terry spoke again:
+
+"Mr. Sears, this is no time to discuss the matter. In a week or so I
+will come to see you and--"
+
+Sears interrupted in a voice hoarse with anger: "Terry, if any
+government man comes--snoopin' round my place--I'll--I'll--he will
+never snoop again!"
+
+In the tense silence that followed the challenge Lindsey bit clean
+through his cigar. Terry's answer was so long in coming that the trio
+of Americans who listened experienced something of the faint qualm
+which sickens a man when he witnesses another's backing-down. Finally
+he spoke, slowly, his measured words scarcely audible above the
+muffled beat of the propeller.
+
+"Sears, I am coming to your place first. I will come within a week."
+
+Sears jumped to his feet, shaking with the hatred he had conceived for
+the young officer. Terry rose easily, looking frail in comparison with
+the burly figure opposing him, but he surveyed Sears steadily,
+unafraid, and not unfriendly.
+
+Cochran coughed loudly, and again. Casey nervously undid a shoelace,
+retieing it with meticulous care. Lindsey rose with studied
+leisureliness and stood at the rail near Sears, ready.
+
+But the ship's bell rang out the dinner hour, a waiting Visayan
+steward stepped out on the deck hammering a Chinese dinner gong, and
+in the strident din the crisis passed. Lindsey lingered to speak with
+Terry after the others had passed below.
+
+"I'm very sorry, Lieutenant. Sears is a rough fellow, but he is
+half-crazed with worry. He's really not a bad _hombre_."
+
+Terry nodded: "I can see that he is worried about something."
+
+"It's his plantation. He has invested what little money he had in it,
+has worked hard for three years, and now that he has his first big
+crop he can't harvest it--the Bogobos won't work for him. He is pretty
+rough with them, I guess--but if he doesn't harvest this crop he's
+ruined. He's in debt--and pretty desperate."
+
+He paused, a deeper concern crept into his face: "Lieutenant," he said
+earnestly, "can't you stay away from his place--a while--till he gets
+his hemp cut and stripped? He is really desperate--and always packs a
+gun."
+
+Terry smiled his gratitude. "Lindsey, I am much obliged to you. You
+need not worry about it."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Neither Sears nor Lindsey were of the group which assembled on deck
+after dinner to enjoy the brilliancy of the swift sunset. The ship had
+swung through Sarangani Channel and was paralleling the west coast due
+north toward Davao. The red glory of the dying sun tinted the waters
+of the Gulf to the line of palm-fringed beach which edged the distant
+shoreline. From the shore the land sloped gently to the west and
+north, mile after mile of primeval jungle broken here and there where
+brush and thorn and creeper had yielded to man's demand for more and
+more hemp. Far inland the steady rise persisted, grew more abrupt and
+more heavily timbered, terminating in the far interior in a dim and
+mighty mountain whose dark-wooded slopes and misted crest dominated
+the Gulf: the red orb of the sun had dropped behind this towering
+summit.
+
+Cochran pointed up at the distant mountain: "Mount Apo."
+
+Terry nodded: "Where the Hill People live?"
+
+"Yes,--where they are supposed to live: no one really knows ... you
+will hear all sorts of stories."
+
+The shadows which lurked upon Mount Apo descended over the lower
+slopes, then enfolded the Gulf. The lights on the steamer shone
+murkily. The three lay back watching the stars brighten overhead. For
+a long time nothing was heard but the querulous mutterings of the old
+boat as she waddled on her way.
+
+Terry broke the silence: "Where is Lindsey?"
+
+Cochran answered quickly to head off the more explicit Casey: "Oh,
+he's busy--busy with Sears."
+
+Terry understood. Cochran sparred for an opening in the silence his
+friendship for Sears made embarrassing.
+
+"Lieutenant, you are likely to have work for your soldiers pretty
+soon. There's a rough outfit gathering down here in the Gulf--though
+I imagine Bronner told you all about it."
+
+"He told me something of it, but I would like to hear more."
+
+"Well, I don't know much about it, excepting that a score or more of
+tough characters have come down in the past two months. They settled
+on a mangy plantation up the coast, north of Davao, but they aren't
+working: just loafing around all day. They seem to be waiting for
+something--or somebody. The natives are scared, and the whites don't
+feel any too good about it either! You know we are scattered all over
+the Gulf--everybody a mile or more away from his neighbors--and that
+means a mile of jungle."
+
+Casey flared up: "We ought to run 'em out--they're no good, probably
+carabao thieves or worse--"
+
+"How worse?" grinned Cochran. "Horse thieves--or pig thieves?"
+
+Casey did not mind being ragged by his friends. He persisted:
+"Lieutenant, you ought to run 'em out as undesirables or under the
+vagabond law! They're no good--they won't work--and they're the
+toughest lookin' lot I ever did see! Sure and if I had my way I'd toss
+the lot into Sears' crocodile hole--the dirty, low-lived, shiftless
+lot of 'em!"
+
+Terry was interested: "Sears' crocodile hole?" he asked.
+
+Cochran laughingly explained: "It's more or less of a joke between
+Sears and Lindsey: each has a hoodoo on his place that makes it harder
+to get laborers. The Bogobos fear a great snake they swear haunts
+Lindsey's woods, and none of them wants to go near a pool on Sears'
+places just below the ford--they claim it is the home of a monstrous
+crocodile, thirty feet long. No white man has ever seen either; it's a
+big joke in a way--but a costly one for them as it makes the wild men
+give their places a wide berth."
+
+"What have they done about it?"
+
+"Everything. Got up hunting parties--stalked the places for hours and
+days, tried to convince the natives that it is all bosh. But they
+insist it's all true, and stay away--and loss of man power means loss
+of money they both need this year. Both of them think the stories are
+just the usual Bogobo exaggerations."
+
+Terry thought Cochran not quite convinced: "What do you think?"
+
+"I? Oh, I don't know. It's hard to swallow the stories--man-eating
+snakes and crocodiles sound all right on the lips of the old Spaniards
+but where our flag flies things seem to sober down. Yet I've usually
+found that back of all these Bogobo tales there is an element of
+truth: and two years ago when I was clearing my place I shot an
+eighteen-foot python. Stumbled on it sleeping--glad it was!"
+
+The evening monsoon had set in, rippling the surface of the sea and
+humming its cooling refrain through the rigging. Casey yawned heavily
+and went below to seek the planter's early sleep. Cochran remained
+with Terry for a half-hour, enlightening him with a running talk of
+the problems confronting the planters. He was well educated,
+progressive, and backed by ample family means had developed the best
+holding in the Gulf. He told Terry that on this trip he had succeeded
+in persuading thirty timid Visayan families to settle upon his
+plantation despite their native fear of all things Mindanaoan, and
+that his profits for the year would return him sixty per cent of the
+capital he had invested in his place.
+
+"You will soon understand conditions, Lieutenant," he declared as he
+rose to go below. "Most of the planters need labor, and they need
+capital." He threw his cigar butt over the rail, debating the ethics
+of uttering what might be thought a criticism of his associates. "And
+they need farming intelligence most--too many of them were army men or
+government men before coming down here, yet they tackle a highly
+specialized form of tropical agriculture with utter confidence! They
+aren't farmers--they're just heroes!"
+
+He half-turned to go, hesitated: "Lieutenant, you're going to like it
+down here--because we're going to like you. Now, of course it's none
+of my business, but if I were you I would keep away from Sears'
+place--he will make his threat good. He has it in him to become a
+pretty bad man--but as I say, it's none of my business. Goodnight,
+sir."
+
+After Cochran had gone, Terry, sleepless, slowly walked the gently
+rolling deck. Ledesma stood at the rail near the forward lifeboat
+gazing into the soft shadows which shrouded the muttering ship. At
+Terry's quiet approach he turned to address him abstractedly in the
+liquid Spanish of cultured Filipinos.
+
+"Buenas Noches, Seńor Teniente."
+
+Terry answered in the same tongue: "Good Evening, Seńor Ledesma. A
+fine night."
+
+The natives' vague fear of the dark--wrought into instinct by a
+thousand generations of ancestors who crouched at night around
+flickering campfires in jungles through which crept hostile men and
+marauding beasts--had fastened upon him, stripping him of the thin
+veneer of civilization the Spaniards had laid but lightly over the
+Malayan barbarism. He shifted uneasily, looked out over the starlit
+sea.
+
+"Teniente," he murmured, "I like not the night. The dead rise ... some
+sing ... some complain ... drift through the black mists searching for
+those they have long lost ... the vampires seek for unprotected
+children.... I like not the night...."
+
+Lost in the ghastly realms of native ghostlore, he ignored the
+American. Terry rounded the deck once and when he came again to where
+Ledesma had stood he found him gone to seek the cheer of lighted
+cabin. Terry stopped at the forward rail, his face upturned to the big
+stars which burned in the soft depths of the warm sky: the Southern
+Cross poised just over the crest of Apo. Below, on the black sea, the
+thrust of the vessel threw up a great welt which bordered the wedge of
+disturbed waters: phosphorescence gleamed like great wet stars. The
+tips of cigarettes glowed on the forward deck where members of the
+crew lay prone, exchanging occasional words in the hushed voices races
+not far from nature use in the still hours of the night.
+
+The morning would find him in a strange place, among strangers ... he
+leaned upon the rail in a sudden excess of yearning for those whom he
+loved, summoned the spirits of those who loved him. They came to him
+through the night--Susan fretting, Ellis affectionately gruff, Enrico
+boisterously cheerful, Father Jennings wise, patient, watchful.
+Another, fairer, unutterably dear, hovered near him: he strove, as of
+old, to bridge the gap--and was baffled, as of old.
+
+The eight bells of midnight roused him from his dejected reverie: he
+straightened from the rail. The Cross had dipped into the clouded
+crest: miles to the west a shorefire bit into the black mantle that
+draped the Gulf. The low wailing of an infant and the guttural
+endeavors of the mother to soothe it came up from the forward deck
+where the native passengers lay sprawled in the profound slumber of
+the Malay: pacified, it slept again, then the night was still but for
+the soft sounds of displaced waters and the creakings of the ship's
+old joints.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As he passed along the narrow, ill-lighted passage toward his cabin he
+heard a voice raised in ugly imprecation:
+
+"I'll get him if he comes, the ---- upstart! Just let him show his
+face on my place, by ----, I'll fix him!"
+
+It was Sears' voice. As he felt his way down the dark corridor, he
+heard Lindsey's low tones, reproachful, conciliatory.
+
+A few steps further brought him near Sears' door. Suddenly he
+distinguished a figure outlined against the door, listening. As a
+match flared in Terry's fingers, the native whirled.
+
+It was Matak. He followed Terry to his cabin, unabashed.
+
+"Master," he said simply, "he talk about you. He make fight talk--kill
+talk--so I listen."
+
+The seed of his loyalty fell on ground furrowed by the lonely hours on
+deck. Shame at having given way to a great depression swept over
+Terry--friends were in the making, this splendid friend already made
+... and he had come to serve, not to seek.... He smiled into the
+worshiping black eyes.
+
+"It's all right, Matak. You do not understand. You go to your quarters
+and get some sleep."
+
+The Moro lingered. "Anything more, master?"
+
+"Yes, Matak. Don't call me 'master': call me 'lieutenant.'
+
+"Yes, master." He left the cabin.
+
+Terry, always a light sleeper, was awakened toward morning by a slight
+sound outside his door. Looking out into the dim corridor he saw that
+Matak was standing guard over his slumbers, armed with a big bolo
+whose naked length gleamed viciously in the semi-darkness.
+
+Touched by the devotion and realizing the futility of trying to drive
+him from his vigil, Terry lay back on the pillow, the rhythmic beat of
+the propeller in his ears. Asleep, he dreamed, and the chug of the
+screw became the beat of an engine bearing him away from the home of
+his fathers.
+
+The Moro heard the restless tossing and stepped silently into the
+little stateroom, his young-old eyes fastened upon the wistful lines
+that marked the competent young face. While he stood brooding over his
+young master the dawn streaked through the open porthole, and a soft
+splash sounded from up forward as the ship dropped her roped anchor.
+They were off Davao.
+
+Terry had come into port.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE LAND OF HEMP
+
+
+In three months the Gulf had laid its spell upon Terry. He had come to
+love the great slopes, from the sandy coastline to the last swift
+grades to Apo's distant top, the loveliness of the wind-tossed palms
+which fringed the water's edge, the sparkle of the ocean's blue
+expanse and its quick response to moods of sun and wind.
+
+During the noontime hours the sun was blazing hot but he could order
+his work so as to avoid exposure. Out at daybreak, he usually
+accomplished the duties of the day during the cool morning hours,
+reading through the siesta hours in the coolness of his great open
+house.
+
+Seldom did the routine of his work--the drill, the sifting of patrol
+reports, the minutiae of the service--overreach into the afternoon
+hours: then he was free to range the country, to learn its trails and
+towns, its people and its spirit. His big gray pony had become a
+familiar sight in every village, on nearly every plantation. Sometimes
+he was gone upon two-day trips up or down the coast, or riding the
+narrow trails through the deep green shade of the woods, his Stetson
+seldom touched by direct sunlight.
+
+There was a never-ending pleasure in the hemp fields, great sweeps of
+tall abaca plants glinting in the sun: and in the sluggish, useful
+river which drained the levels, its turbid bosom bearing a few silent
+native craft, its oily depths suggesting a basis for the legends of
+huge crocodiles which no white man had ever seen.
+
+He worked hard, but it was not all work. Many an early evening found
+him out on the broad Gulf in an outrigger canoe he had learned to
+handle with native skill, sometimes with Matak, oftener with Mercado,
+the first sergeant of his Macabebe company. Sometimes, when the
+surface was calm, he spent wonderful hours in studying the cool depths
+of the waters, the lee-shore coral ledges which bore fairy gardens of
+oceanic flora, brilliant-hued, weird-shaped, swaying gently in the
+tidal current: strange forms of sea-life moved among the marine
+growths,--some beautiful in form and color, others hideous. Once,
+while he watched a school of smaller fish playing around a huge
+sea-turtle, they disappeared as if by signal and the tortoise drew in
+his scaled head and sank to rest on the bottom as a swordfish swam
+majestically over the spot, then darted into deeper waters. There were
+clams as large as washtubs.
+
+Often, while Mercado--or Matak--paddled, he trolled a flashing bait to
+lure the gamefish which swarmed in the depths. Rarely did such an
+evening pass without a long fight with a leaping pampano or a sea
+bass: with thirty or forty pounds of desperate muscle at the other end
+of a hundred-yard line, the song of reel was sweet. One night he
+brought in an eighty-pound barracuda but usually the larger fish cost
+him line, leader or spoon.
+
+At times the surface of the Gulf was alive with schools of leaping
+fish: one evening he saw a great fish, a tanguingi, rise into the air
+with nose pointed upward, till, at a height of twenty-five feet, it
+reversed for a downward rush to plunge in the exact center of the
+ripples its great leap had created. Once, far out on the Gulf with
+Matak, he came upon a forty-foot whale asleep on the surface, rolling
+dreamily from side to side: the Moro, unafraid of man or devil, turned
+Malay-green with terror as Terry prodded the huge black surface with
+his paddle. Awakened, it upended in a sluggish dive, the heavy flirt
+of its great glistening tail smashing the left outrigger and drenching
+them to the skin.
+
+Terry had attended strictly to the affairs which properly came under
+his control and in doing this and doing it well, had won the respect
+of natives and whites, a respect which had warmed into admiration
+among those who knew him better, into affection with those who knew
+him best. The loyal Macabebes would have followed him against any foe,
+and, better than that, they drilled hard and worked faithfully that
+they might be a credit to their leader.
+
+The natives knew him as "_El Solitario_," "The Solitary," partly
+because he played his game alone in a quiet competent way, to all
+appearances equally friendly to all, regardless of color or condition,
+partly because he seemed unconscious of the lures of all those brown
+maidens known to be as shady of character as of color.
+
+He had often stopped to spend an hour or two with Ledesma on his
+prospering plantation. He liked Ledesma's sincere, old-school
+courtesy, and he liked him because Ledesma was known as an
+Americanista, looked upon the Americans as God-sent to guide his
+people out of their sloth and abysmal ignorance. But he gave up these
+visits following a day when he found the dark-eyed, ripe-bosomed
+daughter alone in the house and learned, in her flaming passion for
+him, that she had misunderstood the reason for his calls.
+
+The frequency of his trips to the outlying plantations had increased
+as the weeks went by, especially to the pitiful holdings of some of
+the poor natives. Malabanan's coming had been broadcasted across the
+land, and an uneasiness had settled over the Gulf, a vague fear Terry
+sought to allay. But Malabanan's record, a dark and dismal history of
+hideous crime for which he had been but half punished, was known
+throughout the country, and was the nightly subject of fearful
+conversation in every hut on every isolated plantation.
+
+Terry had ridden, alone, to the neglected settlement up the coast
+where the gang of roughs had rendezvous, but Malabanan was away. A
+dozen hard-looking natives had sullenly responded to his curt
+questions. None were working, though he had arrived during the cool of
+the afternoon and the fields cried for attention.
+
+In Davao, the town, he found consuming interest. Sleepy six days in
+the week it woke each Wednesday during the couple of hours the weekly
+steamer anchored offshore to discharge cargo into a lighter, drop a
+passenger or two, and send ashore the exiles' greatest balm--home
+mail. He came to know everybody: first the other government
+people--Lieutenant-Governor; Scout officers; Dr. Merchant, the
+district health officer; school teachers, native postmaster. Seldom a
+week passed that he failed to saunter into each of the Chinese
+tiendas, making the purchase of matches or other small articles the
+excuse for a half-hour's visit. Oftenest he went into Lan Yek's smelly
+little shop, for there the Bogobos brought their mountain hemp to
+trade for small agongs: tired from their heavy packing, they would
+squat down on the floor along the wall, one of them occasionally
+stepping to an agong to test it with deft contact of finger, all
+joining him in rapt study of its tone, measuring the duration of the
+lingering waves of sound. Terry learned, in time, that they found
+greatest merit in those agongs which rang longest to lightest stroke.
+
+Even those timid Bogobos who never left the wooded foothills knew him.
+He went among them, studying their language, learning their customs
+and hopes and fears, listening to their picturesque traditions.
+Always, when he met a file of the beaded, braceleted folk upon the
+trail, he dismounted to exchange a few words with them. Unbelievably
+shy at first, in time they came to know him as word passed through the
+foothills of the young white man who understood: so they brought their
+problems to him, some pathetic, some ridiculous--recently he had
+ridden twenty miles to settle a dispute regarding the ownership of
+some yet unborn puppies.
+
+As their confidence increased, they unsealed their tight lips in
+relation of strange tales of the Hill People, unbelievable stories of
+the wild tribe who lived in the forbidden mountain beyond the Dark
+Forest: stories told usually by old men and old women, who shivered as
+they whispered their legends to the white man by the campfire. They
+told him the dread stories because they liked his quietness, his
+slightly twisted, friendly smile, and because, as they told each
+other, he listened as one who sees not with the eyes alone.
+
+When he saw that the fear of Malabanan had spread among these widely
+scattered, defenseless wildmen, Terry grew grimmer. But as the weeks
+passed peacefully by, hope grew within him that Malabanan's presence
+in the lovely, fertile Gulf boded no ill.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Major Bronner, arriving unexpectedly, found that Terry had been away
+all day on a mission among the Bogobos. Learning from Matak that his
+master would return within a few hours the Major left his bag and
+crossed over to the Davao Club for dinner. Entering the club, a roomy
+house furnished by the planters to provide a comfortable place in
+which to put up when forced to town by business or the monotony of
+their isolation, he passed straight to the dining room, discovering
+Lindsey, Cochran and a dozen others he knew. As he paused in the
+doorway Lindsey spied him and called him to the table he shared with
+Cochran and two others. After the Major had responded to the greeting
+called from all four tables, Lindsey took up the thread of a story the
+Major's entrance had interrupted.
+
+"Major, I was just telling of my experiences with the hemp machine I
+brought down three months ago. As I was saying, I set the machine up
+in my biggest field and tried it out in private--and Man! How she did
+strip hemp! Convinced that I had the world by the tail I sent word out
+to all the Bogobos in the neighborhood to come in next day to see the
+machine work, and sent a special bid to the old chief who lords it
+over that section.
+
+"Well, they came all right--ready to see the crazy Americans' newest
+devilment--and all set for the feast they knew I'd give! The chief
+came, with the bunch who act as a staff for him, and I lined them up
+right in front of the machine in the center of a crowd of two hundred
+wild men--all about as scared by the machine's appearance as they
+could be. I was pretty proud, and pretty happy: I gave them a good
+spiel through my interpreter, telling them that from now on all who
+worked for me would be free from the hard toil of stripping--nothing
+to do but field work--and all that. I thought that they would admire
+this new evidence of the American genius, would pile over each other
+in their desire to work for me.
+
+"I nodded to the mechanic: he cranked the engine and it got off to a
+fine start and before throwing in the clutch that hooked it up with
+the stripper I looked out over the silent, brown-faced crowd. I had to
+grin at their expectant, half-scared attitude: the old chief stood
+right in front of the big machine--he was uncertain about it all, but
+game. I threw her in and waved to the feeders, who tossed in the great
+stalks as the big iron arms started to revolve in the air. It did make
+an infernal racket--but it did strip hemp. The fiber came out of one
+end, the juice ran into a trough--oh, it worked great.
+
+"I spent a minute or two seeing that everything worked right, then I
+turned triumphantly to the crowd. But, Lord--there wasn't any crowd--I
+saw the last of their brown backs disappearing into the brush!
+
+"All but the old chief. He stood right there; stiff with fright, I
+guess! I stopped the machine and went over to him to ask him to tell
+his young men to work for me as he could see how easy it would be for
+them, now that I had this machine."
+
+He paused, laughing ruefully. "But I didn't get a chance to say a
+word. He took one last look at the now quiet iron monster, clucked
+that peculiar 'Tuk!' in which they express the maximum of emotion,
+uttered two words--'_Americano devils!_'--then stalked away as rapidly
+as his bent old legs would carry him. He disappeared into the
+woods--and hasn't been seen since!
+
+"And worst of all, all of my Bogobos quit me, so that instead of
+cornering the labor market in Davao I lost most of what I had! I'm
+punching the bag every day now, getting in shape to greet the next
+_hombre_ that tries to sell me a machine!"
+
+He joined goodnaturedly in the laugh which filled the room and when it
+subsided turned to the Major gratefully.
+
+"Major, my hemp lay rotting in my fields: it meant serious loss to
+me--it would have wiped me out. But Lieutenant Terry heard about it
+and without saying anything to me, went among the Bogobos and
+persuaded sixty of them to work for me--the most I ever had was
+thirty-one. He has a wonderful hold upon them--they will do anything
+he says: and I'm not the only one he has helped out; am I, boys?"
+
+A dozen planters supported him, enthusiastic, vehement.
+
+Cochran knew the Major intimately, his hobbies and aversions. He
+turned to him solemnly.
+
+"Married yet, Major?"
+
+"Who--me? I guess not! No petticoats for mine!"
+
+In the laugh which rose over Cochran's elicitation of the bachelor's
+invariable formula, several of the planters moved their chairs near
+the Major's table. All of these quiet, efficient Constabulary were
+well liked, and the Major had been known to many of these Davao
+pioneers since the days when they had fought together against
+insurrectos, cholera, torturing sun, treachery; the days when capture
+had meant the agony of dissection piecemeal, hamstringing, the ant
+hill.
+
+The Major's face had relapsed into gravity: "Lieutenant Terry is well
+liked, then?" he suggested.
+
+Lindsey replied, earnestly: "Major, he owns this whole Gulf. He hasn't
+an enemy--not counting that gang of Malabanan's up the coast."
+
+Burns, a gruff old planter, interposed: "He had one enemy, once."
+
+Cochran understood that the uncommunicative Burns would go no further
+and thought the Major should be enlightened.
+
+"As I was the only witness," he began, "I guess I must tell the story.
+One of our planters, Sears, took a dislike to Terry on the way down
+from Zamboanga: no reason for it--he was grouchy and sore, had been
+drinking too hard trying to forget his troubles.
+
+"You know Sears, Major. His inability to get labor was ruining him and
+he went too far in 'persuading' the Bogobos to work for him. Well, he
+went after Terry on the boat, and it wound up with Sears threatening
+to do Terry up if he came near his plantation: and Terry quietly
+assured him that he would go there first of all.
+
+"We were all worried about it for a week, as Sears is a bad man when
+aroused and never goes back on his word, and we knew Terry would
+go--he was all business, though quiet and white. Well, when Sears got
+back to his place all of his Bogobos had left him, the fields were
+deserted. It meant the loss of his crop, complete ruin, so he got to
+drinking harder and finally, desperate, brought in some Bogobos at the
+point of a pistol and put them to work.
+
+"It was pretty raw, of course. Everybody knew of it that night. The
+next morning I rode over to offer him some of my men and as I came in
+sight of the house I saw Terry, riding his gray pony, enter Sears'
+clearing from the east trail.
+
+"I was pretty scared. I knew he was there on business--that he would
+be the first one to hear of Sears' coup. I spurred up to see if I
+couldn't prevent serious trouble, but when I drew near I pulled up:
+there was something in his face that made me keep out, made me
+understand that I was an outsider in this affair.
+
+"Well, Sears rushed out just as Terry dismounted, his eyes inflamed
+with rage--and with a whiskey hangover, I guess, though he seemed
+perfectly sober. He stood at the top of the steps looking at Terry,
+his face purple, trembling all over: he had his 45 in his hand. Terry
+tied the reins to the lower railing, then stood looking up at Sears
+with that queer expression which I couldn't fathom. Sears spoke first,
+his voice husky.
+
+"'So you've come, Terry,' he said.
+
+"'Yes, I have come, Sears.' He looked sort of small and white compared
+with Sears up there, but somehow I could not worry about him. I
+thought Sears would choke for a minute, then he said:
+
+"'If you put a foot on those steps I'll--I'll--'
+
+"Terry didn't give him a chance to finish the threat, but stepped
+forward. I noticed that his gray pony sort of nipped at him,
+affectionately, as he passed his head and made the first step up.
+Sears must have gone clean crazy. He raised the big pistol and fired
+pointblank!
+
+"They weren't fifteen feet apart, but he missed, and that shot passed
+over Terry's shoulder and tore a great chunk out of the cantle of his
+saddle. The pony tore loose and ran away. I just sat there, scared to
+death!
+
+"Terry never took his eyes off Sears and he still wore that same
+expression I mentioned before: he was white as a sheet but he was not
+scared. No, sir! Sears kept the pistol pointed at him and as Terry
+came up another step I saw the hammer lift again, but it eased back
+and the pistol wavered as Sears fell under the spell of Terry's
+upturned eyes. His face changed queerly as Terry kept coming, he
+stepped back uncertainly, the pistol dropped to his side. He
+understood why Terry had come, and I did also, at the same time.
+
+"Terry was SORRY for him!"
+
+Cochran paused a moment to conquer a little catch that had crept into
+his voice, and then concluded his story: "Well, Major, Sears realized
+suddenly what he had tried to do and looked down at the gun in his
+hands as in a dream, then offered it to Terry. But Terry shook his
+head, said something in a low tone I didn't hear, and they went
+inside, leaving me to cool my heels in the yard like the rank outsider
+I was! They came out in half an hour, arm in arm, and Terry stepped to
+the rail and sounded the Bogobo call. In about a minute a big gang of
+half-naked Bogobos filed out of the woods into the clearing and
+gathered around him at the foot of the steps.
+
+"Terry talked to them awhile in their own lingo, then asked Sears if
+he had living accommodations for the whole bunch. Before coming to
+Sears' place he had spent the night in the foothills and persuaded
+seventy Bogobos to come in and work for Sears--Bogobos, mind you, who
+have always feared Sears and refused to approach his place!
+
+"That's the story, Major,--except that Sears harvested his full crop,
+is on his feet again, has cut booze and treats his men as well as any
+planter in the Gulf. And he sure does worship this young lieutenant
+of yours!"
+
+The Major studied the end of his cigar. "He never reports anything
+like that," he admitted. "I'm glad you told me."
+
+"You'll hear plenty more such--" Cochran began, but was interrupted by
+the loud entrance of little Casey. He tore into the room, breezy,
+voluble, greeting every one with short, jerky sentences. He reached
+the Major last.
+
+"Hello, Major! How's everything? I passed Lieutenant Terry on the
+trail--three miles out--he was leading his pony--said it was lame
+though it hardly limped at all! Tried to get him to mount and ride in
+with me--but he wouldn't--sure and he's the merciful man to beasts!"
+
+He rambled on till the Major interrupted him with: "How are the
+breeding experiments coming on, Casey? Any foals yet--or pigs?"
+
+The little man disregarded the amused grin of the planters, pouring
+forth in long eulogy of American mares and boar. "You come down to my
+place in about two weeks," he wound up at last, "and I'll show you!
+I'll have some cross-bred colts and pigs worth the seeing--and I'm
+going to name the first one after Terry!"
+
+"First pig?" Cochran seemed serious.
+
+"No--first colt--the first pig I'll name for you!"
+
+Soon the Major left Casey capably sparring with the plaguing Cochran,
+and seated himself on a broad window ledge above the dark plaza,
+smoking thoughtfully. He had made no mistake in sending Terry here.
+Three phonographs strove against each other from different houses
+along the plaza. It is characteristic of the Americans in the
+Philippines that most of them take unto their bosoms these mechanical
+comforts, instead of the animated talking machines which the Spaniards
+affected. The sky was black with the threat of rain, low thunder
+rumbled in the west, above Apo.
+
+A few minutes, and the Major distinguished two forms making their way
+along the north side of the dark plaza and as they passed under one of
+the oil park-lamps he recognized Terry, leading a weary pony which
+limped slightly. As the Major secured his cap and waved a cheery
+goodnight to the gathering, Lindsey hurried to the door to intercept
+him.
+
+"Major, Lieutenant Terry promised to come over to my place to-morrow
+afternoon. We were going to have a drive against the wild
+pigs--they've been raising the devil with my young plants. You will
+come along with him, won't you?"
+
+"You bet! I haven't had any shooting in months. But you won't let that
+big snake get me, will you?"
+
+Chuckling, he left the club and crossed the plaza to Terry's quarters.
+Entering, he heard Terry splashing under the shower. Terry emerged
+soon, kimono clad, his face lighted hospitably when he spied the Major
+sitting by the lamp-lit table.
+
+Dressed, Terry ate and listened while the Major smoked and talked.
+
+"Lieutenant," he finally remarked, "there is no more trouble among the
+Bogobos?"
+
+"No, sir. It has stopped--as I reported to you."
+
+The Major regarded him closely: "What stopped it?"
+
+"I just talked to some of the planters, and they understood."
+
+Looking up, he flushed under the Major's quizzical gaze.
+
+"Major, those planters at the club have been stuffing you!" he
+complained.
+
+The Major gravely discussed Malabanan. "Terry, you may not have to
+move against him--I hope not, anyway. But I want you to be in a
+position to finish anything he starts. Do you want me to send you an
+additional company?"
+
+"No--I can handle anything in reason with the Macabebes."
+
+"What did you do with the secret service man I sent down?"
+
+"I planted him up the coast where he can watch that gang."
+
+Terry unfolded his plans for handling the situation should the
+ladrones break loose upon the Gulf, and the Major was satisfied.
+
+"It hardly seems possible," he said, "that they will try it--but with
+only one company here to cover the whole Gulf--and in so remote a
+settlement--it may look like easy pickings. But if Malabanan
+dares--you smash him!"
+
+The threatened rainstorm had passed to the north, leaving the night
+clear and cool: a strong breeze fluttered the lamp. Matak entered to
+clear the table and Terry, who had not eaten the fried chicken, pushed
+it toward the Moro with goodnatured impatience.
+
+"Matak, this chicken is only half cooked: I've warned the cook several
+times--tell him to eat it."
+
+Matak, silent and grim as ever, bore the offending dish out, while
+Terry turned to the Major to discuss the morrow's sport. In a moment
+their voices were drowned by the crash of dishes falling in the
+kitchen, then a fearsome shriek reached the startled pair, a moaning
+cry terminating abruptly in a choking gurgle. They sprang up and into
+the kitchen.
+
+Matak was astride the prostrate Visayan in the midst of the broken
+crockery and bent tinware spilled from the upset table. He had the
+cook's mouth pried open in determined endeavor to ram what looked like
+half a chicken down the Visayan's gullet. Half-strangled and crazed
+with fear the cook rolled his eyes beseechingly.
+
+Bronner raised Matak bodily and Terry helped the trembling Filipino to
+his feet. He turned to Matak sternly.
+
+"What does this mean?"
+
+"He would not eat it, master."
+
+The cook broke in, almost hysterical: "Matak say I must eat cheecken,
+that you say so. I say 'all right, eat to-morrow.' He say 'eat now.' I
+say 'no, to-morrow.' Then he fight. I no eat to-day--notheeng--to-day
+church fast day!"
+
+As recollection came of his joking instructions to the ever serious
+Matak, Terry turned to the Major but he had run from the kitchen,
+choking. Having patched up a truce between them, Terry followed the
+Major into the sala.
+
+At sight of his rueful face the Major burst into fresh laughter. "His
+fast day!" he chuckled. "These Moros are sure literal-minded--they
+follow your words exactly. I've had some queer examples in the past
+year."
+
+They sat through the cool evening talking of their multi-phased
+service, Bronner earnest and unwittingly eloquent in his summing up of
+its ideals, its hopes for the future, Terry silent and thoughtful as
+the big man talked about plans for Mindanao, for the Gulf.
+
+"And some day, Terry," he concluded, after a stirring account of what
+two officers, Case and Gallman, had done among the Luzon headhunters,
+"some day we will get to the Hill People: the right man will come
+along, and the right combination of circumstances. It is an unusual
+combination--the right man plus the right place plus the right time.
+Carnegie would probably have been just a tight-fisted Scot had he
+lived in Napoleon's time, and Napoleon if born in this generation
+might never get a headline.
+
+"I would like to be the man who first wins to the Hills. Think of the
+glory of such a life work--opening the doors for a benighted people
+and leading them out of savagery into the decencies and comforts and
+safety of civilization!"
+
+The steady evening breeze had stiffened, swinging the great airplants
+which hung in the big windows. The far howl of a dog sounded through
+the dark: the sleepy crowing of scores of gamecocks accurately gauged
+the passing of another hour. The Major suggested sleep.
+
+Terry, in pajamas and slippers, came in to see if his guest were
+comfortable for the night: assured, he crossed the sala, blew out the
+light and entered his own room, closing the door behind him. Shortly,
+while the Major lay watching, he threw open the door and the Major
+heard him climb into bed and adjust his mosquito net.
+
+The Major mused: "That's queer--I wonder what he does behind the
+closed door?"
+
+He fell asleep puzzling over it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+THE PYTHON
+
+
+Nothing could be more impersonal than the manner in which the Major
+inspected the company. He was very curt and official: no detail eluded
+his attention, no fault of equipment, quarters, drill or training
+escaped comment and correction. The command was in fine shape but it
+is a service in which there is but one standard--perfection, and
+perfection may never be attained. The inspection consumed the morning,
+but when they sat at lunch in Terry's quarters, rank had perished
+again.
+
+At two o'clock they set off leisurely for Lindsey's, Terry quiet, the
+Major jovial at the prospect of a drive at the wild boar. They jogged
+through the hot afternoon over a trail winding under a canopy of
+foliage shrill with the plaint of myriad insect life. An hour out and
+the Major was nearly unseated as his pony shied violently from a
+three-foot iguana that scurried across their path in furious haste.
+Farther into the woods, and they drew rein, listening to the mystic
+tone of a Bogobo agong rung at minute intervals: Terry judged the gong
+to be six miles distant westward, the Major contended for half a mile,
+north of them. Such is the weird quality of the agong in the forest.
+
+At four o'clock they drew up at Lindsey's roomy, thatched house set in
+the middle of his clearing and in a few minutes Lindsey, soaked with
+perspiration, hurried out of the tall growth of hemp ripening in his
+south field.
+
+"I feared you might not be able to make it," he smiled. "You can never
+tell what the next day may bring you Constabulary fellows!"
+
+He called his head native, a stocky Visayan, and ordered him to start
+the beaters out, explaining to his guests that they would take their
+places in an hour. The three then strolled through the streets of the
+little village Lindsey had built for his laborers and their families,
+a double row of neat bamboo huts, grass roofed, of which he was very
+proud. Returning, they passed a huge machine rusting under a rough
+shed, Lindsey's ill-fated hemp machine, introduced a little too early
+to an ignorant people.
+
+Lindsey unlocked a trunk and brought out three high-powered rifles,
+two of them borrowed, contrary to the law of a land where firearms
+must be zealously protected against falling into hostile hands. He led
+the way through the long rows of abaca which drooped listless fronds
+in the quivering heat, and into the cool woods which surrounded his
+fields. They went on for a half-hour into deeper jungle, emerging into
+a strip of natural clearing from which they could hear the beaters
+converging toward them. Lindsey stationed Terry at the left end of the
+break, Bronner in the center where the shooting should be best,
+himself taking the right end.
+
+As the beaters approached, crashing the underbrush and shouting
+lustily, the three stood motionless, guns ready: the suspense grew
+tense and the beaters grew silent as they hurried, unseen, from the
+line of fire. A moment of dead silence, then Lindsey heard to his
+right a dry twig snap and turning saw a big boar slip out from the
+brush and pause, its ugly tusks foam-flecked. His heavy gun crashed,
+the boar leaped convulsively across the clearing, falling at a second
+shot. As it dropped he whirled to cover a big buck which sped across
+his field of fire: as it fell he heard the cracking of a lighter
+weapon to his right and thought, as he shot again and again, that his
+guests were not being disappointed in their sport.
+
+It was fast work while it lasted. Lindsey inspected with keen
+satisfaction the bag of two pigs and one deer that had fallen to his
+gun: he had missed one boar and another, which he had wounded, had
+escaped down the trail which led to his house. He turned to see how
+his friends had fared.
+
+The Major was known as a crack shot but no game lay before him.
+Approaching him, surprised, Lindsey saw that he was absent-mindedly
+putting his rifle at safe the while he stared at Terry.
+
+"Major, I'm sorry you had no chances--" Lindsey began but the Major
+interrupted him.
+
+"Chances! Chances? Sus-marie-hosep! Some of those pigs almost ran up
+my breeches!" He was as nearly excited as Lindsey had ever seen him,
+and they had served together in a Kansas regiment.
+
+"Lindsey, I'm sure glad you asked me to come--I've seen something
+worth seeing. I've seen him shoot!"
+
+He pointed to Terry. His borrowed rifle stood nearby against a tree
+and he was busy clipping fresh ammunition into his pistol magazines.
+Five wild pigs lay in front of him near the opposite side of the
+clearing. Lindsey looked his unbelief.
+
+"Yes, he did!" asserted the Major. "I watched him do it--that's why I
+drew a blank. Five pigs, five shots,--and after each shot he holstered
+the gun till the next pig hove in sight! I've seen good shooting, but
+such drawing--such certainty--
+
+"Sus-marie-hosep!" he wound up, lamely.
+
+Terry, having replenished his magazine, clipped it into the big
+automatic with a deft snap, and turned round toward them. Noting their
+attitude, he colored boyishly.
+
+"Pretty lucky, wasn't I?" he said.
+
+"Yes," agreed the Major, drily, "you were pretty lucky!"
+
+The beaters had come up. Lindsey ordered them to carry the game for
+distribution among his villagers. The sun was dipping behind the hills
+as the three started back the trail through the dense woods, Lindsey
+leading the way and searching for signs of the wounded boar. Every few
+rods he found a pool of blood where it had paused in flight.
+
+They entered the deep shadow cast by the spread of a great banyan tree
+from whose thick branches a score of accessory trunks were sent down
+to seek root in the soil. Rooting, they grew into smooth, heavy
+supports for the wide-spread limbs which towered above the surrounding
+forest. Terry paused a moment in the twilight of the tree, studying
+appreciatively the miniature forest of trunks parented by the one
+ancient growth. Suddenly a warning cry escaped his lips as he saw one
+of the long dark trunks, a foot in diameter, loosen from a branch
+where it hung suspended high over the Major's head.
+
+"LOOK OUT, MAJOR!"
+
+He leaped forward, expecting to find the Major crushed, but
+involuntarily halted midway in his stride as the heavy trunk, landing
+at the Major's feet with a slithering thud, writhed a terrible length
+into massive folds. No eye could follow the inconceivably swift
+contortions that wrapped the Major in a triple fold.
+
+Two heavy coils prisoned his legs, a third passed round his back up
+over his right shoulder to curve to the trail in front of him and rear
+again in a length which terminated in a massive head poised six feet
+from the Major's blanched face. Demon-eyed, unwinking, its thin lips
+bisected the thick-boned jaws in frightful, moist grimace.
+
+Lindsey, horror-stricken, stood helpless while the hammer head
+catapulted at the sickened face of its victim. The Major's free left
+arm, raised instinctively to blot out the sight of the living horror,
+took the terrific impact, then dropped to his side, paralyzed. Still
+bearing that hideous grin the flat head drew back for another blow at
+the exposed face. The Major, faint with the terror of his helplessness
+and the crushing weight of the quivering masses of muscle about him,
+would have fallen but for their dread support. His consciousness fast
+deserting him, fascinated, he watched the monstrous leer as the head
+drew farther back, poised. He felt the agonizing pressure as the
+great muscles steeled for the blow, and in the moment before his
+senses departed, heard two crashing shots that sounded from behind
+him. With the smashing reports the poised head thudded to the ground,
+the folds fell from about him and he slid down among the great
+quivering coils.
+
+Recovering consciousness, the horror crept back into his face but
+receded when he saw Terry standing by him. Still faint and sick he
+struggled to his feet, leaning against the trunk of the banyan and
+stamping his feet weakly to restore the still numb legs. Terry helped
+him hobble over to where the Bogobos, who had come up at the shots,
+were grouped about the dead monster. Lindsey, kneeling to examine the
+head of the great reptile, struck a match to point out the jagged
+wounds that had shattered the base of the head.
+
+"Cut the spinal cord," he explained quietly. He was as pale as the
+Major. "Any other wound, even fatal,--it's death struggles would
+have--I hate to think of it, Major."
+
+At the Major's questioning look he pointed toward Terry: "He shot it.
+Pistol."
+
+The Major surveyed Terry steadfastly, striving for appropriate
+expression of what was in his heart.
+
+Then, "Terry, I am much obliged. If I ever--if ever you--I'm much
+obliged!"
+
+It was dark when they reached the house. Later they heard the
+triumphant shouts which announced the arrival in the village of the
+men bearing the carcass of the snake, which had haunted the
+neighborhood for a generation. The celebration of its passing lasted
+far into the night. After dinner Lindsey and Terry strolled to the
+village to measure the python, and Lindsey ordered it skinned
+immediately.
+
+You may still see the trophy in the Davao Club, its scaly length
+stretched along the molding on two sides of the library, where the
+Major asked Lindsey to place it with this legend:
+
+     This python attacked Major John Bronner, P.C.,
+     on the Lindsey Plantation.
+
+          Length................24 feet, 9 inches
+          Greatest diameter.............14 inches
+
+     Major Bronner owes his life to the wonderful
+     pistol marksmanship of his friend,
+
+     Lieut. Richard Terry, P.C.
+
+The ride home through the dewy night stiffened the Major's sore
+muscles and strained joints intolerably. Terry called in the Health
+Officer, fat Doctor Merchant, who looked him over and pronounced him
+uninjured, leaving some vile-smelling liniment. The Major winced under
+Matak's too efficient rubbing of bruised areas.
+
+"Horse dope!" he snorted.
+
+Later, dozing, he waked to see Terry's door close and open again after
+a few minutes. Puzzled as on the preceding night, he fell asleep over
+the problem.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Governor Mason had dropped the Major at Davao while he went on to
+Mati, planning to return for a short stop at Davao in forty-eight
+hours, but as they finished their leisurely breakfast they heard the
+whistle of his cutter approaching Davao from the south.
+
+"Wonder what's up," said the Major. "He's twelve hours ahead of his
+schedule."
+
+They walked slowly to the dock, the Major still stiff-legged, arriving
+just as the launch was lowered over the side of the trim white boat
+which lay anchored a half-mile offshore. As the launch neared shore
+they saw the Governor standing on the stern seat.
+
+He stepped up on to the little dock and greeted the Major, then turned
+his smile upon Terry, apologizing:
+
+"I planned to spend a day here with you all, but have been recalled.
+As usual my departure from the capitol was the signal for a dato to
+start a row!"
+
+A group of officials and more prominent natives had gathered at the
+pier. He shook hands with each, calling each by name, then gathered
+the officials about him in a brief conference which disclosed his
+grasp of conditions in the Gulf. At the end of the short discussion he
+drew Terry aside.
+
+"No trouble yet with that gang of roughs--with Malabanan?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+The Governor's face bore a look Terry had not seen in it, an
+unrelenting determination, a grimness: "Major Bronner has told you how
+I want this matter handled?"
+
+"Yes, sir. Wait, let him make the first move, then move against
+them."
+
+"Exactly! I want to demonstrate for all time that this province is as
+unhealthy now for criminals as during Army days!"
+
+For a moment he studied Terry keenly, then his gaze traveled over the
+splendid vista of the Gulf appreciatively, mounting higher and higher
+till it rested on Apo's dim crest. A moment and he turned to Terry
+again, to find that he, too, was lost in a rapt contemplation of the
+Hills.
+
+"Lieutenant, some day ... somehow...."
+
+"Yes, Governor."
+
+The Major fidgeted uncomfortably in the presence of the two dreamers.
+Two short blasts of the cutter's whistle restored the Governor's urban
+manner. In a minute he and the Major had said their good-bys and were
+bobbing over the little seas toward the ship.
+
+The group of Americans and natives split up as they returned toward
+the town but Terry lingered at the dock watching the cutter as it got
+under way and raced toward the horizon, leaving a white ribbon of wake
+on the blue gulf waters. Three large bancas were approaching the
+shore, belated fishermen returning with the night's catch: a fleet
+vinta, bearing Moro traders, bore toward Samal, its little sail
+glaring white in the actinic sunlight: the morning air was hot and
+filled with the heavy odors of sea and shore. It was a fair spot,
+Davao, productive, peaceful.... He looked up the coast toward the
+north where Malababan had settled with his unsavory crew.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He spent the day at the _cuartel_, correcting all the little defects
+the Major's stiff inspection had uncovered. The Macabebes responded
+eagerly--they, too, wanted to be perfect. They felt trouble in the
+air, scented impending combat, and Macabebes thrive on combat.
+Sergeant Mercado, veteran of seven campaigns in Samar and Cavite,
+drilled them tirelessly, his eyes afire with the old fighting glint.
+And that night he donned his starchiest uniform, pinned on his bright
+service medals, and made the round of the tiendas, throwing chests at
+the black-haired girls behind the counters. Great fighting blood is
+usually great loving blood.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Terry ate dinner alone. The house seemed too big without the Major.
+Restless, reading failed of its usual absorption. After a while he
+took up a letter the last mail had brought from Deane and reread it.
+
+     DEAR DICK:--
+
+     Your letter telling of transfer to the Moro Province has
+     just come. I had to study the map to find out where it is!
+     If it means advancement I am glad--though we had all hoped
+     that when you left Sorsogon it would be to come home.
+
+     Your letters are so funny, so interesting. You write such
+     nice things about the natives that I am becoming fond of
+     them too. But the other day I read an article written by a
+     cynical woman who has lived in the Islands only a few
+     months. I read part of it to father, the part which says
+     that "the Filipinos are a worthless, shiftless, lazy people;
+     improvident, untrustworthy and immoral!" After I had read
+     that he thought a moment and then said:
+
+     "Well, Deane, people are just about the same as that around
+     here!"
+
+     Everything is going about as usual around Crampville. They
+     are tearing down the old watering trough in the square--it
+     is a nuisance to automobiles. They had some trouble over on
+     the South Side last week among the foreigners but Father
+     Jennings smoothed things out. He told me that he has a
+     harder time keeping them contented since you left. I learned
+     from him that you used to spend a good deal of your time
+     among them, that they idolized you.... Why did you never
+     talk to me about such things, Dick?
+
+     Bruce is earning a great reputation but insists on staying
+     in Crampville. He has been called to Albany twice during the
+     month to perform some special operation. He finds time to
+     run in on us nearly every day.
+
+     Susan and Ellis do not change: they are quite the happiest
+     couple we have--though they both do miss you terribly.
+
+     You never mention the native girls. Are they attractive,
+     lovely? Do not let one of them fascinate you. We need you
+     here, Dick,--Susan and Ellis, Father Jennings, the
+     foreigners--all of us.
+
+                                                  DEANE.
+
+His deft fingers fumbled as he folded the letter and locked it in the
+drawer. Vainly smoothing at the lock of hair which always stuck out
+from the crown of his head, he stared vacantly at the lamp shade,
+oblivious to the entrance of the silent, morose Matak, who carried the
+bottle of boiled drinking water into the bedroom and then went out for
+the night.
+
+A hoarse ghekko lizard croaked its raucous six-song from a rafter
+overhead: a giant bat flapped through an open window, fluttered,
+crazy-winged, thrice about the big room and blundered through another
+window into the night: the low voweled voices of native passersby
+floated up from the dark street.
+
+But Terry heard nothing, nor felt the scent-laden breezes which roused
+the heat-soaked town to life.... He was walking up Main Street again,
+with rifle and snowshoes and fox, of a Sunday morning just as the
+heavy church doors swung wide to the emerging congregation....
+
+A strong gust flickered the lamp. He rose, slid shut the exposed
+window and returned to his desk. In a few moments he took pen and
+paper, and wrote.
+
+     DEANE-DEAR:--
+
+     Your letters come to me across the thousands of miles of
+     land and sea, carried by sooty train and boat, buried in a
+     dross of mail in prosy canvas sacks: I open them with the
+     delight one feels when he brushes aside the mat of damp and
+     frosty withered leaves to find the timid beauty of arbutus.
+
+     You think, perhaps, you might grow fond of these people? I
+     know that you would love this Gulf as I do. The humid heat
+     of the day oppresses me but little: I love the sparkling
+     hours of dawn, the cool of the evenings; the great tangled
+     stretches of green which clothe the slopes from sea to the
+     edge of the mountains that loom gray in the distance, like
+     the rim of the world. And I like the courageous planters,
+     toiling that the world may have its hemp: the young-old wild
+     tribes, emerging from their primitive mental shallows, a bit
+     bewildered, pathetic.
+
+     Yes, I think that you would like it all, too,
+     though--sometimes--I am not quite sure.
+
+     The mountains are not like our Vermont hills: more rugged,
+     wilder, more--what shall I say!--unsolved.... Thinking of
+     the home hills I can almost conceive the vast significance
+     of the word "eternity": but thoughts of these primeval hills
+     sweeps my mind backward, to the infinity of creation.
+     Untamed, untraveled, mysterious by day as by night, they
+     threaten as they beckon.
+
+     Nearly every evening, near sundown, I see a pair of wild
+     pigeons homing toward the crest of Apo. "Limoçons," the
+     Bogobos call them--"leem-o-sahns": the word falls limpid
+     from their lips, unaccented. They say the limoçon never was
+     heard to sing in the lowlands, and tell a strange legend
+     that it is an oracle of the Hill People, its song a
+     harbinger of good or evil tidings.
+
+     An old Bogobo woman told me of this one night, in a little
+     foothill village, when the spell of dusk had unlocked her
+     lips: and she told, whisperingly, of twice having heard the
+     Giant Agong of the Hill dwellers, once when she was a child,
+     again when she was grandmother to nineteen. I wish you could
+     have been there to watch and to listen: sitting near the
+     fire in front of her hut, surrounded by a circle of almost
+     naked wildmen who moved, uneasy, she told quaveringly of how
+     the booming tones had rumbled down the forested slopes, and
+     of how ill had befallen her people both times; when she
+     ceased, they stood breathless, their whole beings strained
+     to catch the dread sound none but she had ever heard. Yes,
+     she moved me, queerly ... I scarce know why.
+
+     I am lonely--a little--at times. But who is not? Yet I have
+     my work to keep me busy, usually happy. Just now I am facing
+     less pleasant duty--but it is, I fear, a work that must be
+     done. It is good to know that one is needed, as I am
+     here,--just now.
+
+     But never a day is born or dies but that I miss you all, as
+     I love you all ... Susan and Ellis, Father Jennings, the
+     foreigners ... all of you.
+
+                                                  DICK.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THE STRICKEN VILLAGE
+
+
+A week later, Terry stood at the window looking down over the
+blistering plaza. Davao was torpid under the noonday heat. Three
+carabaos grazed undisturbed on the forbidden square: another of the
+awkward powerful brutes dawdled up the dusty road, hauling a decrepit
+two-wheeled cart on which a naked-backed, red-pantalooned native
+dozed: Padre Velasco, the aged Spanish priest, waved a weary hand at
+Terry from his window in the old adobe convento. As he watched he saw
+the soldierly figure of Sergeant Mercado emerge from the _cuartel_ and
+hurry toward him.
+
+Entering the room the soldier saluted stiffly and reported that a
+patrol had just come in from the foothills with the information that a
+mysterious fever had attacked the Bogobos in the barrio of Dalag, that
+a score were stricken and four already dead.
+
+Terry hastened to the quarters of the Health Officer to apprise him of
+the facts. He found him cursing the heat, sweating profusely, though
+wearing nothing but a thin kimono. A very fat man, Doctor Merchant,
+inclined to be fussy about little things but magnificent in big
+things, and thoroughly imbued with the idea that his work of
+protecting the natives against their own sloth and filth was the only
+interesting problem in the universe. Alarmed at Terry's report, he
+ordered his horse saddled and rose heavily to don his field clothes.
+
+Terry expostulated. "Doctor, you ought to wait till it cools off."
+
+"Lieutenant, disease spreads all the time--it takes no time off
+duty--so why should I?"
+
+He came out fuming over a missing button: "Confound it all! I never
+have--how do you keep so immaculate, Terry? You always look as if you
+were on your way to a dinner or dance!" Wiping the perspiration from
+heavy jowl and neck he lumbered about the room collecting medicine
+cases, saddle bags, two big canteens, finally answering Terry's
+question.
+
+"No, you can't go with me--if I need you I'll send for you."
+
+Terry followed him downstairs and helped him mount the ridiculously
+small pony, then watched the sweating, cussing, bighearted doctor ride
+out into the sun on his errand of mercy. As the tough little pony bore
+his heavy burden into the trail and out of sight in the brush, Terry
+decided humorously that Casey was right--bigger ponies were needed.
+
+During the afternoon the _Francesca_ had limped in and out of port.
+Among his official mail Terry received a confidential memorandum from
+Major Bronner that erased the softer lines about his mouth:
+
+                                        Zamboanga, 12/18/191-.
+
+     Memo for Lieut. Terry.
+
+     Last night a notorious criminal, Ignacio Sakay, passed
+     through Zamboanga enroute to Davao.
+
+     Sakay was identified with Malabanan in some of the latter's
+     most vicious undertakings, was convicted of brigandage and
+     has been but recently released from Bilibid Prison.
+
+     Sakay is not a leader but is bold and absolutely relentless.
+     Among the natives he was known as "Malabanan's stiletto,"
+     and was supposed to do all of the killing.
+
+     You may look for immediate action from these men: Malabanan
+     has doubtless been awaiting his arrival.
+
+     Destroy this memorandum.
+
+                                                  BRONNER.
+
+Terry read the terse communication twice before lighting it with a
+match and scattering the charred remnants over the polished mahogany
+floor. He passed a grim afternoon with the Macabebes on the target
+range, where the scorers wagged bull's eye after bull's eye, for
+twenty-seven of the Macabebes were expert riflemen, forty-three were
+marksmen.
+
+He saw that Matak, serving dinner, was gripped in one of the
+smoldering moods that often preyed upon him. Though his attentions to
+his master were even more meticulous than usual, he moved with an air
+of somber detachment. Terry had often pondered on the history of the
+queer Moro and now he studied him as he cleared the dishes and lighted
+the desk lamp.
+
+"Matak," he said.
+
+The Moro came to him, his melancholy eyes fixed steadfastly upon the
+master of his choice.
+
+"Matak, you know that I have never asked you anything about your past
+life. I am not going to ask you now, unless there is something in
+which I can be of help to you."
+
+Matak faced his master, his brown features Moro-masked, inscrutable.
+A moment he searched the concerned countenance, then before Terry
+understood his purpose, the tight muscles of his face relaxed and he
+slid forward to kneel on one knee and raise Terry's hand to his lips
+in the Moros' final homage to an _apo_--a self-chosen master. Rising,
+he exposed a face stripped of its mask of Oriental imperturbability.
+
+"Master," he said, "I tell you. No other knows. When I am small
+boy--twelve years old--my family live east coast Basilan. Very happy
+family, master: father, mother, sister, me; three carabaos we have, a
+little house, chickens, a little _vinta_ in which to fish--everything
+Moro family want. We hurt nobody, just work.
+
+"One night, very late," his face darkened, "men come. They steal
+carabaos, everything. My father wake up, go out to see, and they
+laugh--and kill him. I--a little boy--see them do it: see them kill my
+father--with bolos. Then they kill my mother--the same man--the same
+bolo. I see that, too: they say she too old, and they laugh." He spoke
+slowly, hesitating before each short sentence, his black eyes dulled
+with the terrible memories.
+
+"My sister--she sixteen years old--they take her away. They take me,
+too, because I soon be strong boy to work. My sister--they say she
+pretty girl!" He raised his hand in unutterable execration.
+
+"We sail all night, all day. Second night, I hear my sister scream,
+see her fighting with same big Filipino who kill my father and mother.
+Another Filipino hold me away, laughing ... always I know that laugh,
+master!
+
+"She Moro girl, he Filipino, so she fight hard--she rather die. She
+hurt him, so he draw knife, kill her, and throw her in sea: then other
+Filipino holding me hit me with bolo and throw me in too."
+
+He whipped off his thin cotton camisa and exposed a deep scar which
+furrowed his left shoulder. It had severed the clavicle, and
+improperly knit, drew the left arm slightly forward.
+
+"I swim ashore, two miles, to Lassak. Next morning I take boat, find
+sister, bury her on beach. I, twelve years old, master."
+
+He paused, a picture of implacable hatred and purpose.
+
+"Master, I see Filipino who kill all three my family. He born with
+left eye all white. I know him any time, any place. That nine years
+ago. Nine years I no laugh, no sing, no play, no talk with Moro girls,
+no marry--just listen--just look; listen for that laugh, look for big
+Filipino with left white eye. Nine years I no tell anybody, just
+listen, just look. I never find.
+
+"But now I know I find him, soon. For I know you help Matak, master."
+
+He had read the distressed white face correctly. Terry rose, placed
+his hand upon the Moro's shoulder--the scarred shoulder--and looked
+down into his now emotionless face:
+
+"Yes, Matak, I will help," he said simply.
+
+Content, the Moro turned silently on his bare heels and padded out
+into the kitchen.
+
+Usually Terry strolled the dark streets before going to bed, but
+to-night a heavy downpour kept him indoors. Outside, the square was
+loud with the drum-fire of the heavy fall on iron roofs, the rush of
+water through shallow dirt gutters; inside, the big house roared, the
+roof trembled overhead. He paced the floor, sleepless, worried with
+thinking of Matak's terrible story, of the Doctor striving to succor
+the stricken village, of Sakay's joining Malabanan.
+
+There was another worry, too. Though there was nothing in the
+eternally verdant land in which he was living to make the fact seem
+real, the calendar indicated that Christmas was less than two weeks
+distant, and for the first time since the days when she had first
+intruded upon his boyish consciousness as something different,
+something wondrously dear and fine and unattainable, he had sent Deane
+nothing.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He was awakened before daylight by the arrival of a spent Bogobo
+runner bearing a note from Doctor Merchant:
+
+     Dear Lieut:--
+
+     Can you come to Dalag for a day? These people are
+     panic-stricken, won't do a thing I order, won't take
+     treatment, but are trying to exorcise the devils of disease
+     by all sorts of queer rites.
+
+     I hate to ask you to come but your influence among them is
+     so great that it seems justifiable to ask it.
+
+     If you do come, bring your mosquito net--don't fail to do
+     this. The disease is mosquito-borne, and fatal if untreated.
+     The temperature runs are terrific--highest I ever saw.
+
+                                                  MERCHANT.
+
+Terry rode out of Davao at seven o'clock, bound for Dalag. Within a
+mile he overtook Lindsey, who had spent the night in town. They rode
+together several miles to where the trail, soaked with the night's
+rain, forked toward Lindsey's plantation: the sun shone white hot, the
+earth steamed through its mat of decayed vegetation.
+
+They drew rein at the fork, dismounted. Lindsey broke the silence in
+which they had ridden following Terry's brief explanation of his
+mission.
+
+"Terry," he said, "you're too young for all this worry."
+
+Terry's face relaxed into a slow grin: "Lindsey, how old are you?"
+
+"But your work is different--and you are different, Terry."
+
+Terry's bantering grin gave way to a smile of singular sweetness, the
+queer smile which deepened the depression at the corner of his mouth.
+
+"Lindsey, I know what you mean, I think.... All my friends--"
+
+He paused, gently discouraging his pony from its persistent nibbling
+at his arm. Lindsey waited, hoping he would continue, but Terry looked
+away, idly studying the thickly planted hemp fields that extended from
+the fork to Lindsey's house, a mile distant. The still wet leaves
+flaunted on great stalks fifteen feet above the wonderfully fertile
+soil.
+
+"Lindsey, I wonder if you really appreciate what you are doing in
+taming a soil that was wild in jungle ages before Pharaoh's time, and
+making it useful to man."
+
+He pointed to the huge plant nearest them; "The fibers in those
+stalks--I can see them, woven into a rope that may warp a steamer to
+dock in Tripoli or Hoboken or Archangel: or fashioned by happy
+Japanese fingers into braided hats to cover lovely heads in Picadilly
+or Valparaiso or Montreal: or woven into a cord which will fly a kite
+for some tousle-headed boy in Michigan or for a slant-eyed urchin on
+the banks of the Yang-Tse Kiang: or, somewhere, it may be looped into
+ugliest knot by a grim figure standing on a scaffold--though I hope
+not!"
+
+Lindsey had listened in curious wonderment to this conception of his
+work. He thought it over, laughed.
+
+"Well, maybe that's what you see, Lieutenant,--but I see wild pigs
+rooting up my immature plants, lack of labor, poor transportation,
+fluctuations of price, typhoons undoing a whole year's work--take my
+word for it, I see aplenty!"
+
+Terry tightened the girth, tickling the knowing pony's nose till a
+sneeze compelled contraction of the expanded chest. Mounted, he seemed
+loath to go, and twisted in the saddle to look down at Lindsey.
+
+"About what you said a moment back--that I was 'different.' All my
+friends have always been like that--wanted to look after me, somehow,
+though I can look after myself, pretty well. I never quite understood
+why they felt like that ... about me. So, I know what you meant,
+Lindsey. And I want you to know that--that I like it."
+
+Lindsey gripped his outstretched hand, then stood at the fork watching
+the slender rider thread through the maze of the trail out of sight.
+Mounting, he started homeward along the edge of the field trying to
+interpret the strange appeal this young officer had exerted over him,
+this quiet lad whose very competence and cheerfulness he somehow found
+pathetic. He involuntarily halted his pony as solution came to him.
+
+"Why, curl my cowlick!" he exclaimed aloud. "That's it--he was BORN
+lonely!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Terry rode into Dalag at noon and found the doctor even redder and
+hotter than usual. The perspiration glistened on his hands and wrists,
+dripped from his fat face and neck, and his once-starched clothes hung
+limp from his rolypoly frame. Worn with loss of sleep and fruitless
+efforts to bring the frightened Bogobos to reason, he welcomed Terry
+weariedly to the little hut that had been sat aside for his use.
+
+Terry took command, so quietly that the doctor did not realize it. A
+few brief questions elicited the measures the doctor wished put into
+effect, simple curative methods and preventive precautions.
+Understanding, Terry started out, but was recalled by the doctor.
+
+"Lieutenant, did you bring your mosquito net?" At Terry's affirmative
+nod he continued: "It's a good thing you did--the village is swarming
+with nightflyers, and every one of them is loaded to the hilt with
+plasmodiae!"
+
+The village, a mere scattering of crudest huts along the river front,
+seemed deserted, but from nearly every hut came the low wailings of
+the sick and the frightened. Noting that the lamentations had ceased a
+few minutes after Terry went out, the doctor stepped to the door and
+watched his progress from shack to shack, saw how the picturesque
+little savages grouped about him. They knew him and listened to him
+confidently, so that the parboiled doctor was as much disgusted as
+pleased with the ease with which Terry secured the cooperation for
+which he had begged and stormed in vain.
+
+Under his direction they cut down all of the plant life whose upturned
+leaves or fronds held stagnant, mosquito-breeding water, climbed tall
+palms to brush out the rain water accumulated in the concave
+depressions where frond joins trunk, even twisted off the cuplike
+scarlet blossoms from hibiscus shrubs. They carried green brush to a
+series of smudges he lit to cordon the village against the vicious
+singing horde of germ carriers. Best of all, they ceased their
+incantations over the sick, unwound the tight cords they had knotted
+around the abdomens of the stricken to prevent the fever from "going
+further down," opened the grass windows that gasping lungs might
+obtain decent air, and swallowed the doctor's hitherto neglected
+medicines.
+
+There were no chickens in the village, no eggs. The doctor bemoaned
+the lack of nourishment for his sick. So Terry summoned four of the
+ablest hunters and disappeared into the woods for an hour, returning
+with a young buck speared through the lungs and shot mercifully
+through the head. In an hour a big pot was boiling in the middle of
+the street that throughout the night the sufferers might receive hot
+soup made up of venison, yams, eggplant and rice, all that the village
+afforded.
+
+Doctor Merchant, watching the transformation, marveled at the method
+of persuasion. There was no attempt at exercise of authority, no
+raising of voice, no gestures, only patient explanation, an assumption
+of mutual friendliness, a sincere and ample sympathy.
+
+Shortly after sundown the doctor, exhausted with the worry and stress
+of the hours before Terry came, distributed his bulk as comfortably as
+possible on the bamboo floor, tucked in his mosquito net very
+carefully, and fell into a heavy sleep, too exhausted to await Terry's
+return.
+
+It was as well that the doctor did not await him, for Terry spent half
+of the night by a fire kindled at the base of a big tree in front of
+the chief's abode. Seated on a stump near the blaze, surrounded by a
+ring of half-nude Bogobos whose timid eyes seldom wandered from his
+face, he answered their questions and erased the last vestiges of the
+panic into which the epidemic had precipitated the villagers.
+
+Interrogation at an end, he still stayed on with them. The flickering
+blaze lighted the circle of little brown folk, each flare gleaming on
+an eye here, glinting there on beaded jacket or brass trinkets with
+which both men and women were adorned. The first mad panic had abated,
+but Death had stalked through the settlement six times in as many
+days, and they listened superstitiously for the stark Tread through
+the woods which hemmed them in. Each whispering wind that stirred the
+leaves overhead brought a deeper silence, each wail from delirious
+sufferers in nearby huts tightened the little circle.
+
+The quavering gutturals of a half-blind old woman, wrinkled and
+shrivelled with a number of years no man could estimate, jarred the
+dumb circle.
+
+"My years are as the scales of a fish. Each year has brought wisdom.
+Listen."
+
+It was the invariable preface of a Bogobo legend. Terry stirred: it
+was the old woman who had told him of the Giant Agong.
+
+"This sickness takes not many more of our people. The white men will
+stop it. Trust them. These white men are Bogobo friends. These white
+men are strong, wise, honest. White is better blood than brown blood.
+Yes. The Hill People knew this."
+
+At the mention of the dread folk the group of tribesmen moved
+uneasily. A young hunter nervously stirred the flagging fire into
+brighter blaze as the old woman went on:
+
+"Yes. The Hill People knew. Have you forgotten how the Giant Agong
+rang the night the Spaniards lost their girl-child?
+
+"No. You have not forgotten. The Hill People took her--they wanted
+white blood in the veins of future chiefs. They knew what white blood
+means--the Hill People know!"
+
+Curiously thrilled by the simple legend, Terry moved nearer to the old
+woman.
+
+"Grandmother, how many years ago was this?"
+
+"Years? Years? I know naught of your white man's years, but this I
+know--it happened during the rains before the dark-eyed white men
+gave way to the blue-eyed white men."
+
+Interpreting this as referring to the departure of the Spanish troops,
+he gently pressed her for further details. But she was finished.
+
+It was dawn when the doctor rose. Groaning in the agony of the fat man
+who wakes stiff from the discomfort of an unaccustomed hard bed, he
+sat up, then forgot his miseries in a new worry as he saw Terry asleep
+under the open window, wrapped in his saddle blanket but without the
+protection of a mosquito net. He cursed, stopping midway in his
+vehement outburst to cock his head at the absurd angle in which men
+think their ears function best. As he heard the ominous drone of the
+insects his experience had taught him to fear more than wild beasts,
+he scrambled to his feet with amazing celerity.
+
+A light sleeper, Terry awakened and lay regarding him quizzically,
+enthusiastically dissecting the stream of invective the doctor poured
+upon him for sleeping without his net. Suddenly sensing the
+responsibility the doctor felt in having summoned him to the village,
+Terry explained his lack of a net.
+
+"Doctor, I gave my net to the chief's wife: she--she is about to
+become a mother, and she had none."
+
+"Hell's bells! What Bogobo woman isn't about to become a mother?" he
+stormed, refusing to concede the justice of the act. "'She had
+none'--and probably didn't use yours!"
+
+He was facing the window, past which the chief, arrayed in all his
+half-naked splendor of beads and brass, sauntered with an air of
+confidence quite different from his terror of the past week.
+
+"There goes the chief, Terry, all fancied up like a bathroom on a
+German liner! But he has no pants--why don't you give him yours? He
+'has none'! You make me--"
+
+He stormed on and on. Terry, still wrapped in his blanket, sat before
+him looking up with an absurdly rapt air as of a student at his
+master's feet. Merchant stopped to swab the thick perspiration from
+his face, laughed at Terry's humbugging pose, and desisted. Terry
+slipped on his shoes, buckled on the leather leggings he had used as a
+pillow and picking up his saddlebags went out to clean up at the
+river.
+
+Finding on his return that the doctor was again genuinely disturbed
+over his exposure to the disease, he sought to divert him. He sneezed
+violently, and as the doctor listened with professional interest he
+followed it with a series which mounted in volume and vigor. Merchant
+eyed him solicitously.
+
+"You've caught a bad cold, Lieutenant."
+
+"Yes." Terry snuffled and drew his handkerchief. "It was awfully damp
+in here last night."
+
+"Damp? How could it be damp in an open shack this time of year?"
+
+"Well, it was. A regular mist!" He sneezed explosively, then took a
+few short turns about the little hut in search of the cause of his
+malady.
+
+The doctor watched him, interested. Bending suddenly, Terry held aloft
+the perspiration-soaked nightshirt which the doctor affected.
+
+"Eureka!" he exclaimed, dramatically, then dodged the shoe the hoaxed
+doctor let drive at his head.
+
+After an hour's investigation of conditions in the village the doctor
+was convinced that he could now handle the situation alone and
+insisted upon Terry's returning home. His parting injunctions were
+worried.
+
+"Now Lieutenant, you watch yourself closely for several days and if
+you display fever symptoms, you send for me."
+
+After Terry had ridden down the river bank and into the long homeward
+trail, the doctor's overworked conscience smote him hard:
+
+"Hell's bells! I never thanked him for coming!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+MALABANAN STRIKES
+
+
+Next morning Terry rose as the first sleepy cock challenged the
+pink-streaked day. Shaving in the dim light, he watched the plaza
+merge out of its darkness and fill with the natives passing listlessly
+to field or waterfront. A few short minutes and the day arrived hot
+and still: hens sauntered forth to begin their tireless, day-long,
+scratching search: bony curs, sleepy after their instinctive vigils
+through the night, made couches in the dusty road: across from where
+Terry stood at his bedroom window, the four daughters of his Tagalog
+neighbor sat in a little circle on a sunny bamboo porch structure,
+each intently examining another's loosened hair in a community search
+for--well, for whatever might be found.
+
+By nine o'clock he had snapped the company through a sharp drill and
+by noon had finished the weekly inspection. The afternoon passed in
+preparation of monthly reports scheduled to go on the mailboat
+expected in that evening. It is the function of the Constabulary to
+know everything that transpires: health conditions, state of crops,
+appearance of any strangers, activities of native demagogues,
+movements of suspicious characters, morale of the people. Everything
+is observed and reported, and summarized at headquarters to form the
+basis for intelligent handling of a difficult problem.
+
+Of the epidemic he wrote: "A disease identified as a particularly
+virulent form of pernicious malaria appeared last week among the
+Bogobos in the barrio of Dalag. The Health Officer is on the scene and
+in conference with the undersigned decided that the use of our troops
+for quarantine duty was not necessary. It appears that he has the
+disease under control."
+
+Under the heading "Recommendations" he set down: "Request that the old
+provincial archives be searched to ascertain if a Spanish family
+living in this Gulf during the last months of Spanish occupation
+suffered the loss, by abduction, of a female infant. An interesting
+story to this effect has been communicated to me by Bogobos, who
+attribute the crime to the Hill People."
+
+The mailboat limped in early in the afternoon, waking the torpid town
+into semblance of interested activity during the brief duration of its
+stay. But before she had disappeared over the horizon native Davao had
+relapsed into stupid placidity, and the Chinos had stored the meager
+cargoes dropped for them--print goods, cigarettes, matches, rice, a
+few small agongs, and, probably, a little opium. The lethargy of the
+tropics during the hot hours is entire and complete: the angel Gabriel
+himself will fail of unanimous native response unless he toots his
+cheerful summons during the cool hours between dusk to dawn.
+
+Terry still sat in the cool orderly room at the cuartel, energetically
+clearing his desk of the last accumulations of the paper work he found
+a chore, when the dapper sergeant entered with his mail. Sorting
+quickly through the dozen official envelopes in anxious search for one
+addressed in the neat hand that always quickened his pulses, he
+discovered, miserably, that there was none from her. Fighting off the
+discouraged feeling that accompanied lapses in her correspondence with
+him, he slowly opened a letter from Ellis. Ellis' letters, few in
+number, had always been cheerful but brief statements of how matters
+went on at home, usually business affairs. He put Ellis' letter in his
+blouse pocket to read after dinner, then attacked the pile of official
+mail: he wanted no unfinished office work to keep him in the morrow,
+as he planned another quiet look at Malabanan's place. When the
+Sergeant bore in the lighted lamp Terry ordered him to have the launch
+ready at daylight.
+
+Night had wrapped the town when he crossed the plaza to his quarters.
+Matak, silent as ever but of more cheerful countenance, set the table.
+At his second laconic announcement Terry rose and crossed to the
+dinner table, and as he seated himself a white missile was tossed
+through the open window by an unseen hand and landed with a thud on
+the bare floor. Matak brought it to him, and unwrapping the paper from
+about the pebble Terry read the note. It was from the secreto whom he
+had planted near Malabanan's plantation.
+
+     Sir:
+
+     At eight o'clock last night Malabanan left here with a
+     newcomer named Sakay and 22 of his "laborers."
+
+     From my post I could not see if they were armed.
+
+     They have not yet returned. (9 A.M.)
+
+     I will follow in banca. They sailed south in a large lorcha.
+
+     Will report further when I return.
+
+                                                  "47"
+
+Leaving his unfinished dinner, he paced the floor. The midnight
+departure of Malabanan with his chief lieutenant and a majority of his
+followers might mark the beginning of outlawry, or it might be a
+legitimate excursion into the deepsea fisheries. Yet the secreto had
+said nothing of nets, and a party of twenty-four men would be in each
+others' way. Terry hastened over to the cuartel, checked up the patrol
+chart, then called the Sergeant, who verified the position and route
+of each of the two-man patrols who were covering the countryside.
+Satisfied that his men would discover and report the landing of any
+strangers within a few hours after they touched soil, Terry returned
+to the house.
+
+He sat on the wide ledge of the window, thinking. The night seemed
+unusually warm despite the stiffening breeze which blew off the Gulf;
+he opened the collar of his blouse.... Where was Malabanan--what was
+he doing? He saw a man's form outlined against the bright Club window
+and answered the arm waved at him: it looked like Lindsey, he
+thought.... "Give 'em plenty of rope and if they make a break--Smash
+'em!" He shivered at the thought of sighting a gun against a fellow
+man, and again in sudden rush of memory of the night in Zamboanga....
+He saw Lindsey appear again at the Club window to peer in his
+direction, then turn abruptly. In a moment he saw him leave the Club
+and cross the plaza, hatless.... Deane--why had no letter come--he had
+expected one, wanted one....
+
+He slid off the window ledge as Lindsey came in, sincere and direct as
+usual.
+
+"Terry," he began, "I saw you sitting here alone and came over to ask
+you to join us at the Club."
+
+"I can't, Lindsey."
+
+Lindsey studied the unusually pallid skin: "Why not?" he demanded.
+"You're working too hard, Terry, and worrying too hard. Let's forget
+it all for an hour or two!"
+
+"I'm much obliged, Lindsey, but I can't come to-night."
+
+"The fellows asked me to get you, Terry. They think it is queer you
+come so seldom."
+
+Understanding something of Terry's weariness of spirit he strove hard
+to persuade him to spend the evening in the pleasant Club, but was
+unsuccessful. Desisting, he talked a few minutes with Terry and then
+left, a little embarrassed, wholly disappointed.
+
+Alone again, Terry slumped into a big cane chair drawn up by the
+table. His cheeks burned; he thought, vaguely, that he must have
+shaved too closely. Loosening his stiffly starched blouse, he crackled
+the letter from Ellis, opened it without much interest: then his whole
+being tensed.
+
+                                        Crampville, Nov. 23, 191-.
+
+     Dear Dick:
+
+     Everything lovely here--and things are going to pick up with
+     you when you read this!
+
+     Yesterday Deane's father came in the bank and asked to see
+     me confidentially. Thinking he had come on bank business I
+     took him into my private office. Well, he just sat there
+     facing me for several minutes, not knowing how to begin. You
+     would have thought he had been robbing a train or something,
+     he looked so absurdly guilty!
+
+     I just sat there watching him, taking a most unchristian joy
+     in his trouble, whatever it was: I have had it in for him
+     ever since--since you know what. I liked the way his Adam's
+     apple chased up and down his throat.
+
+     Finally he swallowed hard and began: "Ellis, I came over
+     to--to ask you to--to send over that fox skin that Terry
+     gave Deane last Christmas."
+
+     Just like that! It sure was a pill for the old boy to
+     swallow but he went the whole hog like the old Puritan he
+     is. Once started he kept going, though still phased. Said
+     that he was glad that you had found something worth doing
+     and were doing it well, that he took a lot of interest in
+     your goings-on--as he called it--and that Deane always read
+     your letters aloud. And the last thing he said before he
+     went out was that he hoped you would soon get spunk enough
+     to write her some letters she "wouldn't dast read out loud!"
+
+     He said THAT about my brother-in-law! Great leaping frogs!
+     What is the matter with you?
+
+     Get busy! Write--and make 'em sizzle!
+
+                                                  ELLIS.
+
+     P.S.--I forgot to say that I am sure she made him come to
+     see me. Also that Sue took the skin over last night. And
+     also that Bruce is more than professionally interested in
+     the nurse he imported from Albany to look after his office.
+     It has been some time since he hung around Hunter's--and as
+     to why, I do not know, but I sure am some little guesser!
+
+Terry had never questioned the decision he thought she had made that
+Christmas eve in returning the fox skin, had thought it hers, and
+final. As the burden of a year fell from him he sat quietly, smoothing
+at his stubborn, crown lock, the wistful twist of mouth ironed out by
+a faint smile. He bent to read the letter again but after a few lines
+the words were blurred out by a salty rush to his steady gray eyes.
+Rising, he went into his bedroom and closed the door quietly behind
+him, emerging in a few minutes. Perfect peace lay in his eyes and they
+shone with the light that will never die in this world as long as men
+live, and women.
+
+Two days to Christmas, he thought, and he had sent her no remembrance.
+He stood at the window, tasting the cool thickness of the evening,
+breathing the fragrance of ylang-ylang: leaf and frond, stirred by the
+monsoon, purred in gentle contact. In the starlight the old stone
+church outlined its old-world, old-time architecture in friendly
+shadows which veiled the pitiful scars and age-stains: the bamboo
+shacks across the square--wry, flimsy, smutted by a hotly jealous
+sun--had yielded to the magic of the night to become little golden
+houses in which the fairies abode till the morning stars should fade.
+
+A present for her ... he pondered long, the while he stifled his
+desire to go outside and shout the joy that tugged at his restraint.
+Suddenly he started, tightened as the idea fastened upon him, then
+fairly ran to his desk. A hurried search for cable blanks and he wrote
+in desperate haste that consumed four misused forms before he
+accomplished an intelligible message:
+
+     Miss Deane Hunter, Crampville, Vermont.
+
+     Christmas greetings from palmed coast to snowy shore. Please
+     cable will you accept so humble a Christmas offering as an
+     equal share in the future of one
+
+                                                  RICHARD TERRY.
+
+Buttoning his blouse as he ran, he raced down out of the house and
+over to his orderly room, where he typed the message and sent it out
+by a soldier. The dozen Macabebes lounging in the _cuartel_, who had
+sprung to attention when he passed, stared at him and then at each
+other--this joyous, whistling boy was new to them! He crossed the dark
+plaza: natives, looking out of raised windows, wondered who that
+Americano was who walked in and out of the shadows of the great
+acacias, singing:
+
+    When in thy dreaming
+    Moons like these shall shine again:
+
+Being natives they did not understand the English words, but being
+natives and instinctively attuned to the most ancient of emotions that
+throbbed in the low baritone, they listened silently and stared out
+into the night long after the singer had passed.
+
+He reached the house, hesitated. Lindsey had said that the fellows
+wanted him to come over to the Club ... he had neglected
+opportunities to be with these good friends. He sailed his cap up
+through an open window and crossing a corner of the square went up
+into the gayly lighted building.
+
+That night at the Club became a sort of tradition in the Gulf. They
+still tell, wonderingly, of how he entered--a laughing, mischievous,
+fun-loving boy, and of how the crowd welcomed this new Terry that none
+of them had ever known before. They talk, still, of his deviltries,
+the clean jests and keen wit he whetted--always at his own expense,
+and as rough old Burns put it the next morning when they talked it
+over: "And he niver took a drink and he niver cussed once, I'll be
+---- if he did!" As the story of Terry's night at Club spread over the
+Gulf all of the planters found excuses to bring them into town
+afternoons in the hope of being present when he came again. They rode
+in by pony or launch every night for two weeks, and then they ceased
+coming.
+
+For two hours he held them in the spell of his infectious deviltries.
+Irrepressibly gay, impish, it seemed as if he vented all of the stored
+up boyishness in him, spilled it in one heaping measure. Story
+followed story, in quickly shifting brogues that rocked the building
+with the sidesore laughter of the transported audience; they followed
+him through a seemingly inexhaustible series of anecdote, through a
+dozen ridiculous parodies he sang to a one-handed accompaniment
+chorded on the battered piano the while he pantomimed with free hand
+and roguish face.
+
+"Why," whispered the astonished Cochran, "the--the--son of a gun!"
+
+The uproar stilled suddenly as, seated at the old piano, he forgot
+them for a moment, saw a vision on the white wall that was not visible
+to the others. A few deep chords from knowing fingers, then his low
+voice, rich with the depth of his happiness:
+
+    Love, to share again those winged scented days,
+    Those starry skies:
+    To see once more your joyous face,
+    Your tender eyes ...
+
+The song, or something in the deep voice, pulled at the heart-strings
+of those lonely men, who, womenless, never discussed women. Burns
+sniffled, then glared belligerently at the others.
+
+Cochran whispered to Lindsey: "Just what is there about--about that
+boy? Is it because he's so pale?"
+
+"Yes, that's it--you poor fish! But it's about time you quit pinching
+my arm--it's getting numb!"
+
+Flushing slightly in realization of his lapse, Terry had sprung
+astraddle the corner of the billiard table, where, absurdly solemn, he
+declaimed tragically, combing the classics for sepulchral passages,
+plunging the intent listeners into deepest melancholy but concluding
+with a droll extemporization that swept them from verge of tears to
+convulsed mirth.
+
+Lindsey, flinging a laughter-helpless arm across a call-bell, rang an
+inadvertent summons to the steward that cost him the price of the
+drinks and gave Terry a breathing spell. He sat astride the billiard
+table under the acetylene lights, vainly trying to smooth down his
+scalplock, his eyes dancing in eager enjoyment of the hour and of the
+friends who crowded around him in affectionate amazement, laughing and
+shouting at each other and at him.
+
+Cochran's voice rose above the clamor of the room in a raucous whoop.
+They all turned toward where he stood near the bulletin board reading
+a message he had just torn down.
+
+He waved the sheet joyously: "I saw the steward tacking it up a minute
+ago--it just arrived--from Casey. He couldn't wait to tell us--the
+long awaited day has come for Casey!"
+
+He bent with laughter, then straightened and sobered to read it aloud.
+
+"Casey talks like the Congressional Record but he sure minces his
+written words. Listen.
+
+     Davao Club, Davao.
+
+     Horray! American mare had a filly colt last night. Also
+     sixteen pigs by Berkshire boar.
+
+                                                  CASEY.
+
+A roar of merriment greeted the phraseology in which Casey had
+hurriedly couched the double event of his day of days. The terse--too
+terse--message passed from hand to hand till it reached Terry. He
+studied it, his head cocked to one side like a puppy's and with
+something of a puppy's quizzical expression. A moment and he slid
+slowly from the billiard table and crossed to the corner of the room
+where a typewriter had been placed for the convenience of club
+members.
+
+They watched him, glancing uncertainly at each other, as he inserted a
+sheet of paper, spelled out a few hesitating words, then jerked it
+out, crumpled it in his hand. Slipping in a fresh sheet he started
+slowly, pausing, rapt, after each few works. As line followed line the
+room became quiet save for the click of the machine, the planters
+eyeing each other, waiting impatiently for disclosure of the new
+deviltry his whole attitude betokened. Pausing after each few lines to
+seek inspiration at the roots of his thick tumbled hair, he wrote for
+about fifteen minutes.
+
+Then, tearing out the sheet, he mounted the chair and with a face
+owlish in its affectation of heavy wisdom, he thrust his hand in his
+blouse in classic barnstorming attitude and read his creation.
+
+    "CASEY"
+
+    The palm-fringed gulf of fair Davao--
+    The garden-spot of Mindanao--
+    Has been the Theater where Surprise
+    Has pried apart our mouth and eyes.
+    But bounteous Nature, in her last,
+    Has all her former deeds surpassed!
+
+    What now are Burbank's grafting deeds
+    Marconi's stunts, whose genius speeds
+    A message on a wireless tack
+    And makes of space a jumping-jack?
+    Where now does Edison hold sway?
+    Or radium's finder, Pierre Curié?
+
+    Does not this deed alone suffice
+    To render all that men or mice
+    Have wrought since days of Tubal Cain
+    Infinitesimal, and vain?
+
+    No man before has seen a dam
+    Provide the rudiments for a ham.
+    And not content with razor-backs
+    Produce a quota for the tracks.
+
+    It seems like thistles yielding figs--
+    A blooded mare with sixteen pigs!
+    And Truth receives a serious jolt
+    To find the seventeenth a colt!
+    Can anything on earth compare
+    With this performance of a mare?
+
+    But hold! For while I eulogize,
+    There is another claims a prize
+    And puts to shame all gone before;
+    I mean this humble Yankee boar!
+    What lowly hog did yet aspire
+    To ribboned fame as race-track sire?
+
+    Consult the annals of all time,
+    Great deeds extolled in prose and rhyme,
+    Delve deep in Clio's treasured store,
+    Exhaust encyclopedic lore--
+    You will not find in one edition
+    A hint of such high pig-ambition!
+
+    Had he but lived in days gone by
+    When Richard raised his voice on high
+    And offered Kingdom for a Horse,
+    To him he might have had recourse....
+    Imagine bristly Berkshire swine
+    Upon the throne of Coeur de Lion!!
+
+    But, while we give our meed of praise
+    To those who would these isles upraise,
+    Forget not him who planned all that--
+    For it was Casey at the bat!
+
+    Forget not him whose Celtic head
+    Outdid, when all is done or said,
+    That classic stunt--the herculean
+    Minerva sprung from Jovian bean!
+
+    Where else but in the Philippines
+    Amid these sunny tropic scenes
+    That lull the senses into rest,
+    Could come this genius of the West?
+    For, not content with colt and swine,
+    He must produce domestic kine--
+    To heap the brimming measure full
+    He perpetrates an Irish Bull!
+
+Finished, he still stood on the chair, frankly happy in the uproarious
+response to his effort to amuse them.
+
+The clamor subsided in a sudden and almost incredulous appreciation of
+his swift composing: and in the momentary silence during which they
+gazed at the happy, laughing boy, a pair of heavy shod feet sounded on
+the bare stairway--loud, hurried.
+
+All eyes shifted from where Terry stood on the chair to the stern
+visaged Macabebe sergeant who had stopped in the open doorway. He
+hesitated a moment, then urgency overbore his instinct against
+violation of the white man's domain, and he stepped toward his chief.
+
+Terry met him in the center of the room. The Macabebe saluted, then
+reported in a savage grating voice that carried clear to every
+startled ear.
+
+"Sir, Patrol Number Seven reports that ladrones raided Ledesma's
+plantation at one o'clock last night: killed one servant, stole all of
+Ledesma's carabaos and money, and stole his daughter."
+
+Malabanan had dared! The ladrones had struck!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+MALABANAN
+
+
+Terry's pace across the plaza taxed Mercado's shorter legs. He was
+surprised that Malabanan's move came almost as a relief after the
+weeks of anxious waiting. Scoffing the Constabulary, they had sought
+to test the strength of the new government ... "if they make a
+break--Smash 'em!" He whirled, taut, as they reached his quarters, and
+the battle-loving veteran thrilled with delight as he caught the hard
+ring of voice.
+
+"Sergeant, I'll be ready in ten minutes--you will go with me to
+Ledesma's plantation--have the ponies saddled. Double every patrol
+along the coast. Send the launch out at once to scour the gulf for
+information about a fifty-foot lorcha--add four soldiers to the
+regular crew: if they sight or learn of this lorcha they are to return
+at once and report the facts--they are not to engage. Retain in the
+post twenty of your very best men, under full field equipment ready to
+move instantly. Issue extra ammunition. Understand?"
+
+"Yes, sir!" He about-faced and hurried on his mission, eager, joyful.
+This was the life!
+
+Terry ran upstairs, turned up the light, ripped off his white clothes
+and slipped into riding clothes and flannel shirt. As he buckled on
+his belt and hooked in canteen and holster, he heard the Sergeant
+galloping down the street with his led horse. A swift inspection of
+the mechanism of his big automatic, four extra clips added to the
+belt, and he ran downstairs as the Macabebe drew up.
+
+Reaching the beach they turned south, riding fast through the chill
+darkness, Mercado keeping his pony a length behind Terry's nervous
+gray. They had covered several miles before the sun rose from behind
+Samal, gray-pinked sky and sea for a brief bewitching moment, then
+swept the low hanging mists from gulf and mountain, and smote,
+full-powered, upon the sandy shore down which they rode. The tireless
+ponies--crooked of leg but splendid of head and eye in true
+indications of their heritage of coarse Chinese and fine Arabian
+bloods--toiled steadily over the high-tide beach, sinking coronet deep
+in the soaked sand, their footprints disappearing almost as they
+lifted hoofs. Courageous, the little animals scrambled over the coral
+formations that blocked their path, picked their way, delicately,
+through sour mangrove swamps: once, unsaddled, they swam a wide
+tide-deepened creek that the riders crossed, bridle reins in hand, in
+a small dugout which they found on the bank.
+
+Their sharp shadows had shortened a third when they swung up from the
+beach and trotted down the unkempt street of Sabaga. A chorus of
+howls, set up by bony, slinking curs of the type that infest all
+native villages, announced their presence but there was no sign of
+life in any of the shambling bamboo houses. The village seemed
+deserted.
+
+They pulled up, the Sergeant pointing significantly at the carabaos
+tied up under the high perched huts. Terry understood: fear of the
+ladrones had paralyzed the natives. As he studied the closed windows
+and doors, sensed the terror of these defenseless, harmless people, a
+cold hatred of the spoilers narrowed his steel-gray eyes. They were
+about to press on when the quiet of the town was suddenly broken by a
+cry sounded from a house behind them:
+
+"_El Soltario! El Constabulario!_"
+
+The exultant shout was taken up by other voices as windows were
+cautiously raised: in a moment the doors were thrown wide and a crowd
+of natives swarmed about the two riders. The men shrill-voiced, women
+and children hysterical, they crowded around the pair in a confidence
+that was pitiful.
+
+Frightened beyond a white man's conception by the midnight visitation
+of ladrones within a half-mile of their village, cowed, witless, they
+were reassured merely by the uniforms the two riders wore--the
+red-piped uniform of the small, scattered force of five thousand
+Filipinos, who, ably officered, highly trained, intrepid, have never
+tasted defeat: have wiped out every murderous band that raised
+treacherous hand and then, outlawry scotched, have turned the power of
+their discipline against the scourges of diseases, floods, cattle
+plagues, typhoons. Unsung, unwept, they have carried on, their motto
+Service and their goal Success.
+
+Terry, patient, reassuring, lingered till he had overcome their
+immediate fears, left them content with their faith in the protection
+he promised them. Hurrying on, Terry and his Sergeant shortly came to
+Ledesma's well kept plantation, and Terry turned his pony over to the
+Sergeant and approached the big bamboo house.
+
+Ledesma, gray-haired, distinguished looking, bearing his grief with
+Tagalog stoicism, greeted him with the finished courtesy of the
+Spanish tradition and led him up the precarious slatted steps into the
+house. It was a house of desolation.
+
+The mother lay moaning wretchedly upon the cane bottom of the carved
+mahogany bed which, with four chairs, a round table and a talking
+machine made up the furniture of the main room. Ledesma's son, a lad
+of eight, sat big-eyed and solemn near an open window, not fully
+understanding the blow that had fallen but vaguely frightened by his
+mother's lamentations.
+
+The Tagalog, dignified in his suffering, answered Terry's brief
+interrogations intelligently but as he had been out on the gulf with
+his fishermen during the raid he had little to offer. Terry turned to
+the sobbing mother and in a few minutes she had quieted sufficiently
+to tell her story. He grew paler and grimmer as she dramatized the
+terror of the midnight entrance of the ominous shadows, the noiseless
+gliding of bare feet, the vicious whispered threats, the cries of the
+girl as they bore her away into the night and the long wait for
+Ledesma's return. Finishing her story, she sank back upon the great
+bed, moaning and muttering incoherently.
+
+Ledesma elaborated her story with details she had told him. She had
+recognized neither shadowed forms nor whispering voices of any of the
+four who had entered the house while the others herded the stolen
+carabaos toward the waterfront. One of them had warned her that this
+was what would happen to all of the natives who made too good friends
+with the Americanos: and the biggest of the four had bent over her to
+whisper in the dark: "And the pale Constabulario won't be able to help
+you with his celebrated pistol--soon we will visit him!"
+
+Terry soon realized that he was wasting valuable time here--and time
+was the big factor. He conferred with Mercado, who had been
+questioning the scared laborers, but equally without result: no one
+could identify any of the band, there was no evidence that would lead
+to Malabanan's conviction, though all were certain that the biggest
+figure had been his. Bidding Ledesma a hurried adieu he rode away.
+Time was pressing ... Ledesma's daughter must be rescued ... soon. He
+followed the trail of the stolen carabaos, the renewed lamentations of
+the distracted mother ringing in his ears.
+
+Fifteen minutes along the plain trail torn through the brush by the
+driven carabaos brought them out on the beach. There the trail ended:
+it was for this that Malabanan had brought the big lorcha that the
+secreto had mentioned. A moment of thought and he swung northward
+toward Davao, again following the glistening beach. At noon, and low
+tide, they forded the creek and swung up off the beach to breathe the
+sweating ponies in the deep shade of a mango tree that spread high
+above the surrounding brush. Dismounting, they stood as in a huge
+green bowl: its bottom the smooth waters of the gulf, iridescent under
+a zenith sun and framed as far as the eye could reach with a slant of
+parched beach; the sides of the vast concavity were formed by the
+verdant mat of jungled slopes that rose with ever increasing
+abruptness to the far, somber-edged mountains.
+
+The doughty Macabebe gave not a glance at the great panorama, busying
+himself in refolding the reeking saddle blankets and tightening
+girths, then lighted a casual cigarette. Terry, impatient of the
+necessary halt, paced the shadowed space restlessly after his first
+appreciation of the sun-drenched Gulf. He turned to the Macabebe with
+the first words they had passed since leaving Ledesma.
+
+"Sergant, what is your opinion? Was it Malabanan?"
+
+Mercado looked up quickly, pleased with this mark of confidence from
+his uncommunicative chief. He was positive.
+
+"Yes, sir. Malabanan."
+
+"Of course--it could be no other. But--what would you do if you were
+in my place--we have no legal proof."
+
+"I would take a platoon of our best men, sir, and visit his
+hacienda--and then there would be no Malabanan, sir--unless dead men
+live!"
+
+"But the courts, Sergeant: we could not convict him on the evidence we
+have. And what you suggest would be mere murder."
+
+"Courts, sir? Malabanan will never face a court--I know that, sir. I
+FEEL that, sir!"
+
+Terry studied the hard face of the little fighting man: "Sergeant,
+you don't seem to fear man or devil."
+
+Mercado's white teeth flashed as he shrugged pleased denial of claim
+to such courage, then his roving gaze focussed upon a distant object
+and the confident expression altered swiftly to uneasiness, awe,
+superstitious terror. Terry, startled at the transformation, followed
+the direction of his dread stare and saw that his eyes were fixed upon
+the distant, mist-wreathed crest of Apo. He understood. Even this
+sturdy little soldier cowered before the obscure menace of the hidden
+Hill People. Terry resented, vaguely, that others did not respond to
+the spell of the Hills as he did.
+
+The five minutes had freshened the wonderful little steeds, so they
+mounted and pushed on through the heat with eyes half shut against the
+glare of sand and water. At four o'clock they pulled up in front of
+Terry's quarters.
+
+A note from the secreto lay on his table. He opened it and read that
+Malabanan had not returned, that the place was deserted. He had
+anticipated this, knowing that the band would now operate from some
+secret rendezvous in the maze of the forests. His problem now was to
+locate their meeting place: his patrols must search them out.
+Information would be passed quickly to them by the inhabitants of the
+gulf--every planter, laborer, trader and native now knew that the
+ladrones were rampant: and now the Bogobos would be most valuable to
+him, as in their wanderings they covered every inch of the woods to
+the edge of the Hill Country, and news of strangers would be brought
+to him by swift Bogobo runners.
+
+A quick shower to rid himself of the intolerable stickiness of the
+long hot ride, a change to fresh shirt and breeches, and he hastened
+to the _cuartel_. Two patrols had come in during the afternoon,
+reporting no intelligence of the bandits but bearing tidings of an
+aroused American and frightened native population. The launch returned
+an hour later after a fruitless search of the west coast for signs of
+the lorcha. He manned it with fresh crew and detail and hurried it out
+to cover every inch of the east coast.
+
+He ordered out two additional patrols to help cover the back country;
+detached four of the twenty men whom he had retained for pursuit and
+sent them to guard the heedless doctor who labored with his sick at
+Dalag. The four warriors marched off cursing picturesquely at the luck
+which took them away from the combat group.
+
+An air of expectancy hung over the _cuartel_. Terry, grave, smoothly
+efficient, sat in the orderly room studying maps and keeping the
+Sergeant and the clerk busy as he wove a net of patrols of gulf and
+coast and foothills which would cover every inch of terrain within the
+night. In the big squad room the fierce little Macabebes joked with
+each other as they repolished stainless rifles and repacked field
+equipment under a zealous corporal's eye. Outside, a knot of
+frightened natives occluded each window facing the plaza, peering in
+at the laughing soldiers, dully wondering at the makeup of these men
+who grinned at the prospect of facing the dread ladrones.
+
+Every loose string tightened, every loophole closed, Terry left the
+_cuartel_ and crossed the plaza toward his quarters. Preoccupied, he
+noted that for once all of the phonographs were silenced, the plaza
+deserted; and already the town's doors and windows were closed against
+the coming night. The impact of Malabanan's first blow, struck thirty
+miles south, had been felt in native Davao. His face hardened.
+
+He strove hard, under Matak's urgings, to do justice to the perfect
+dinner. But a dull headache had fastened across his forehead, a
+symptom he attributed to his long ride over the scorching beach and to
+loss of sleep.
+
+He had spread his net, the quarry could not escape capture, he had but
+to wait as patiently as possible for information as to their
+whereabouts: some time during the night word must come from launch or
+patrol, from planter or Bogobo.
+
+Another thought had pressed all day--the answer to his cable. He sent
+Matak to the postoffice, hopeful, nervous. But nothing had come.
+Rising, he found the room stifling, and he reached for his hat to go
+out. Matak noticed that he had forgotten his sidearm and delayed him
+long enough to lift it off the wallhook and fasten the belt about his
+waist.
+
+The sun had set. As he walked aimlessly across the town he noticed
+that all of the little stores, whose main trade came during the
+evening hours, were boarded tight. He wandered down to the little dock
+and out to its end, looking over the rippled waters with eyes that
+ached strangely. The light faded swiftly, taking with it the pall of
+oppressive humidity and freeing the Gulf to the coolness of
+approaching night. None of the fishing craft which usually dotted the
+gulf at this hour had ventured out. Malabanan had indeed made himself
+felt.
+
+Terry stood near an upended pile, numb with disappointment over the
+expected cablegram. The dusk yielded in the distance to a darkness
+which crept toward him over the ever diminishing circle of water.
+
+Suddenly his dulled faculties registered an insistent warning of
+danger, he caught the slight creaking of a board behind him. Aroused,
+he whirled to face two figures which had halted ten feet from him in
+attitudes expressive of the stealth of their approach. In the dusk he
+distinguished two unusually large natives dressed in coarse unstarched
+crash, and wearing shoes. Each carried a bolo thrust in braided hemp
+belts.
+
+For a tense moment they maintained the pose in which he had surprised
+them, then the shorter of the two, who was a pace in front, took a
+slow step backward, uneasy in being the closer to the young American
+whose eyes drilled him through the gloom.
+
+Terry, idly fingering his pistol belt with his left hand, shifted his
+gaze to the larger of the pair, then unconsciously took a step forward
+to better see that queer face. In the shock of surprise he stopped
+short and his right arm jerked back into a curious position that
+brought the hand below and behind his holster. The left eye of the
+big Tagalog glittered white in the night!
+
+His impetuous, fearless step toward the pair had broken the spell
+which held them motionless. The white-eyed native hesitated, glanced
+uneasily at Terry's holster, then spoke in brief gutturals to his
+companion. Lifting his hat in salutation he bade Terry a suave
+"_Buenas Noches, Seńor_," and turning, walked off the dock, his
+consort close behind him.
+
+Through the soft darkness Terry saw them mount two ponies which were
+tethered to a tree near the end of the wharf, and heard the shrill,
+mocking laugh aimed back at him by the smaller of the two as they
+galloped away into the night.
+
+As he made his way rapidly across the poorly lighted town he gave no
+thought to the fact that the pair had evidently meant him harm,
+speculating upon the peculiar birthmark in the eye of the larger
+Tagalog and wondering if he could be the man for whom Matak had sought
+so many years.
+
+He found Matak sitting crosslegged upon the floor fastening brass
+buttons into some uniforms which had just returned from the
+_lavendera_. Terry stopped before him:
+
+"Matak, I want to thank you for reminding me of my gun. As it
+happened, it didn't do any harm."
+
+Stepping to the window he blew a blast upon his whistle, an unusual
+summons that brought Mercado running across the plaza in most
+unsoldierly fashion. Entering, he cracked his heels in salute, his eye
+agleam with hope that the break had come. Terry dismissed Matak from
+the room before addressing him.
+
+"Sergeant, do you know anybody in this Gulf who has an albino left
+eye--an eye that is all white but the pupil?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"Who might know?"
+
+"The Chino Lan Yek, sir. He knows everybody--everybody owes him money,
+sir!"
+
+"Fetch him here."
+
+In a few minutes Lan Yek stood before Terry, his Mongolian
+imperturbability shaken by this night summons from an officer of the
+law. With the natives' love of ragging a Chinamen, Mercado had been
+very stern and mysterious concerning his mission--and Lan Yek knew a
+thing or two about opium smuggling that bothered him as he faced the
+American.
+
+Terry repeated his inquiry regarding the identity of the white-eyed
+native, and Lan Yek's response was startlingly illuminating.
+
+"Yes, me know him. Me know white-eyed fellah. His name Malabanan!"
+
+Malabanan! This had been the "visit" they had told Ledesma's wife they
+would pay Terry.
+
+"Lan Yek, when did you see him last?"
+
+"To-night he come, buy cigalet, no pay--talk 'Melican talk--tell me
+'Go to Hell.'"
+
+Terry gestured his dismissal and the nervous Celestial scurried away,
+relieved that the interrogation had not been intimate.
+
+Terry briefly recounted to Mercado what had occurred on the dock,
+ordered him to send out a patrol at once to circle the town at a
+distance of five miles to discover if possible upon what trail the
+pair had ridden out, emphasizing that the patrol was to return and
+report to him, regardless of the hour of arrival.
+
+"And hold the men in instant readiness. I may need them at any moment
+during the night."
+
+There was at least one supremely happy man in the Gulf that night, for
+the Sergeant's joy was a living thing as he departed to put the orders
+into effect.
+
+A moment later Terry heard the kitchen door open slowly, and looking
+up he beheld the mottled face and burning eyes of the Moro. It was
+manifest that Matak had overheard Lan Yek. He stood in the doorway
+battling for his voice.
+
+"Master," he said huskily, "I knew you would help me find him."
+
+Gratitude suffused his face, then receded before the tide of
+Mohammedan fanaticism and fury which welled up from his bitter heart.
+Stepping backward, he kept his eyes fastened upon Terry till he had
+passed through the door into the kitchen.
+
+Terry was deeply disturbed by this unforeseen turn of events. He had
+decided against informing Matak until he had lodged Malabanan safely
+behind prison walls, then to confront him with the Moro and if he
+proved to be Matak's long sought enemy, he would add the charge of
+triple murder against the desperado. The day of private vengeance must
+pass in Mindanao--vengeful killings were murder, punishable as murder.
+
+He called to Matak, then again, but there was no answer. He hurried
+into the kitchen, into Matak's room, then down into the double stable
+back of the house. But Matak was gone, and so was Terry's spare pony.
+Realizing the futility of searching for him in the night, he composed
+himself as best he could. It added another phase to the
+exigency--everything now rested with the patrols who were tirelessly
+combing the Gulf to discover the new rendezvous.
+
+He strove for patience, but waiting is hard. He picked up a volume of
+poems, discarded it impatiently for a magazine, threw this back on the
+table and withdrew from the glare of the lamp which added to his
+insistent headache. Looking out on the dark town he saw that even the
+Club was unlighted, the first time since his arrival in Davao. His jaw
+tightened as he pictured the isolated planters sitting through the
+night, rifles on knees, listening for hostile movements in the jungle
+surrounding their hardwon acres.
+
+Drawing up a big cane chair he sat in the shadow looking out into the
+dark. The sky was like a vast black colander perforated haphazardly
+with a myriad brilliant openings which paled and glowed. The crescent
+of the young moon hung over the faintly outlined mountains: he watched
+it slant slowly down till its lower point was absorbed in the heavy
+mist which blanketed Apo.
+
+Malabanan loose with his ravaging band ... Matak, alone, searching for
+him in the night ... Ledesma's daughter, that gentle, big-eyed girl,
+at the mercy of such beasts ... would the patrols never return? He
+rose and paced the floor, frantic with the enforced inaction.
+Schooling himself to a semblance of patience, he sat through another
+long hour.
+
+Why, he thought dully, should he have had the presumption to expect
+an answer to his cable ... she was too kind to cable "no" ... her
+letter of explanation would be a month in coming.... He watched as the
+mists around Apo gathered, thickened, darkened: the banks were
+flashlighted into white billows, then the soft rumble of thunder
+rolled down the slopes, a vanguard of the rainstorm which rustled the
+forest tops as it swept down nearer, louder, to expire as it touched
+the edge of the town: a few drops splashed heavily on the tin roof of
+the silent house, then the stars shone more brilliantly than before
+and Apo loomed sharp against a cleared sky.
+
+It was a long night. At last he rose wearily and seated himself at his
+desk, shading his dulled eyes. A moment of indecision, and he wrote to
+his sister.
+
+     Dear Sue-sister:
+
+     Sometimes your sweet letters breathe the fear that harm
+     might befall me. You need not worry.
+
+     I live in a lovely land, a land of sunny days and balmy
+     nights, a land of courteous, friendly folk.
+
+     I live in a land where pneumonia is unknown, or sunstroke:
+     cholera perished in boiling water, and behind our mosquito
+     nets we laugh at malaria.
+
+     Should other dangers threaten, I have my company of loyal
+     Macabebes: laughing fighters, stern lovers, they guard me
+     while I sleep. They like me, I think.
+
+     Nothing but Old Age can befall me here; and I think the
+     Fountain of Youth lies not where old Ponce searched--but
+     here, on Apo's towering crest. I am going there to search
+     ... some day ... before I am too old.
+
+     I have but one fear: that you and the others whom I love may
+     some day cease  to--
+
+His head ached intolerably. He dropped his pen in sudden listlessness,
+crossed aimlessly to the window. Dawn wavered over Samal. The plaza
+was dark save for the lights which blazed in the cuartel to show that
+the Macabebes, too, had kept the long vigil.
+
+Suddenly he saw four fagged little Macabebes emerge from the shadowed
+street and enter the path of light which streamed from the wide
+cuartel door. Shoulders drooping under heavy packs after the long
+night's hike, they staggered into the building.
+
+A moment, and a fiercely glad yell rose from the barracks, and the
+Sergeant bounded out of the doorway to speed toward Terry's house.
+Terry straightened his relaxed muscles as the Sergeant burst into the
+room.
+
+A patrol had succeeded! They had learned from Bogobos that during the
+afternoon a number of unknown armed natives had gathered in the three
+deserted shacks near Sears' ford. Malabanan and Sakay were riding
+westward toward Sears' plantation. On the way in the patrol had
+encountered Matak riding hard on Malabanan's trail!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+INTO THE FORBIDDEN HILLS
+
+
+Terry's two black pistols, canteen and packed saddle bags lay on the
+table. Without a word he snapped holster and canteen into his belt
+holes and the Sergeant picked up the bags and extra gun. As he blew
+out the light Terry first realized that dawn had come. They hurried
+silently to the cuartel, in front of which the sixteen impatient
+Macabebes were drawn up, each equipped for the field and holding
+saddled ponies. As he drank the coffee that the thoughtful Mercado had
+prepared for him Terry gestured questioningly toward the ponies.
+
+"I knew you would want to travel fast, sir, so I borrowed these ponies
+from planters. They are very angry about the ladrones, sir, and were
+glad to help." He found ample reward for his foresight in Terry's
+unspoken commendation.
+
+Several brown heads appeared at windows to stare after the little
+cavalcade that trotted down the side of the plaza at daylight and took
+the west trail into the brush. It was not a smart outfit, it lacked
+all of the flourish and the trappings of parade, but it did look eager
+to use the carbines that flapped from pommel straps. Terry's compact
+gray set the pace for the dauntless men who rode behind him, and the
+Sergeant brought up the rear snapping sharp-voiced invectives that
+withered three over-zealous riders.
+
+A long trail lay before them. Terry maintained a steady trot that ate
+up the miles. The day grew hot, the brush thicker. Twice he halted the
+column to water the ponies at shallow fords: once he stopped to smooth
+saddle blankets and resaddle.
+
+He felt the heat intensely. His skin seemed dry and hot, and he
+slanted his campaign hat low over his eyes to dim the glare of the sun
+and relieve the strain on his eyeballs, which ached fiercely. His
+pony, having worked off its excess of spirit, settled down into a
+tireless pace that tested the picked mounts the planters had selected
+as their best, and the miles passed in silence save for staccato
+pounding of hoofs on hard packed earth and the swish of underbrush
+that lined the narrow crooked trail.
+
+At noon he drew up at Sears' plantation to freshen men and beasts.
+Sears tore out to meet them, greeted Terry enthusiastically and ran
+inside again to hurry his cook while Terry superintended the care of
+the ponies. When Sears' foreman bore the soldiers into the cookshack
+for a hot dinner of rice and fish Terry passed up the high stairway
+and into the cool house, there to sink into a big chair, faint.
+
+Sears was energetically speeding his boy in the laying of his
+"company" linens and silver. He lumbered over to Terry and in his
+enthusiasm shook hands again. Feeling the hand hot to his touch, he
+glanced keenly down into the burning eyes.
+
+"Man, you're sick! You shouldn't be out in the sun in this
+condition!"
+
+Terry mustered a weak laugh but Sears insisted: he poured out a stiff
+drink of Scotch and when Terry refused this he half wrecked his
+medicine chest in search of aspirin. He found only two tablets, and
+these Terry swallowed obligingly, finding almost instant relief as the
+perspiration cooled his parched skin.
+
+Sears' anxious hospitality suffered during lunch as despite a brave
+show of appetite Terry ate nothing, but briefly outlined the situation
+that was taking him into the foothills.
+
+"So they are coming this way?" Sears exclaimed. "I hadn't heard it yet
+but I knew something was up. Last night some Bogobos--they are fine to
+me since you--since I--" he floundered a moment, "I mean they're fine
+to me. Well, anyway, last night they came to tell me that two strange
+natives, both armed, had ridden past here toward the foothills: didn't
+know who the pair were--you may, though, as they described one as
+havin' a white eye."
+
+Terry nodded: "That is Malabanan, Sears."
+
+Sears whistled: "Pwhew! I am gettin' some likely neighbors--probably
+the other was his side-kicker, that laughin' devil of a Sakay! Well,
+anyway, that's not all, Lieutenant. About two hours ago my foreman saw
+your Moro boy, Matak. He was ridin' that black pony of yours and
+stopped to ask my foreman if he had seen two natives ridin' by,
+describin' Malabanan. Then he beat it after 'em."
+
+Terry was watching through the open window and when he saw his men
+emerge from the shack he rose apologetically, listening attentively
+while Sears told him the best trail to the three abandoned shacks
+that Terry sought. Sears, distressed in the helpless way of physically
+big men, detained him while he refilled his canteen with fresh water
+and sought Terry's habits long enough to again try to press a Scotch
+upon him.
+
+"Sears, that aspirin fixed me up. I wish you would give me a couple
+more of those tablets."
+
+Further search proved fruitless, he had no more. He turned to Terry
+with a sorrow out of all proportion to the situation.
+
+"Lieutenant, I haven't got any more. But here's some quinine--take a
+few grains every few hours--it may help you."
+
+Terry thrust the vial of capsules into his shirt pocket and after
+thanking Sears hastened outside to where his men were tightening
+girths under the watchful Sergeant's eye. Sears hovered over Terry,
+offering advice, expostulating, as Terry mounted and gathered rein.
+
+"Lieutenant," he said, "you know the ford is just above the pool they
+call the 'Crocodile Hole.' Cross the ford, come back along the bank,
+and you'll find a trail leadin' to the three shacks in the woods."
+
+"I know, Sears. Thanks. Good-by."
+
+"_Adios_," Sears called. Then he stood watching the little band trot
+through the gate and into the woods. His eyes moistened, he raised his
+big fist against an invisible foe.
+
+"If they get him--" he muttered through lips that trembled unashamed,
+"if they get that boy--that sick boy, I'll--I'll--we'll ... and I
+didn't have any medicine for him--the only thing he ever asked me
+for--or ever asked anybody for!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+For the first time Terry urged the gray. Matak over two hours ahead of
+him and mounted on the next best pony in the Gulf ... Malabanan hours
+ahead of Matak, riding toward the Ledesma girl held for him in one of
+the three shacks.... He pushed the pony hard across the open
+clearings, recklessly forced him through the underbrush that in
+frequent areas obliterated the trail. They were now well inland and
+mounting a perceptible grade toward the foothills: the sluggish stream
+they had paralleled all day ran swift here. Once, where the trail
+twisted near the bank, they heard the rush of rapids, and a mile
+farther on they came in sight of a curiously soundless waterfull. They
+had reached the Bogobo country but the afternoon quiet was unbroken by
+the sound of agongs. Fear had reached the foothills.
+
+His pony was too much for the courageous but smaller mounts of the
+Macabebes and Terry gradually drew ahead. He must overtake Malabanan
+before nightfall.... Ledesma had not put his confidence into words,
+but he had looked it--had trusted him ... the pony's head and neck
+dripped, a welt of lather fringed the saddle blanket over the withers
+and down both shoulders. The Sergeant, seeing his men fall behind,
+galloped up into the lead and cursed them on with graphic phrases
+culled from the English, Spanish and Malay tongues. But it was
+useless: the gray pony carried its desperately anxious rider faster
+than their jaded mounts could travel. Terry drew out of sight, but
+they rode on.
+
+All through the afternoon Terry had been dimly conscious that the
+headache had returned, that his face was flushed and hot, but the fast
+pumping blood seemed to energize his faculties. Never had he felt so
+keyed-up, so sinewy of nerve.
+
+The hours flew with the miles. At five o'clock he crashed out of the
+woods into an open spot where the trail bent down toward the river to
+skirt a deep black pool--the Bogobos' Crocodile Hole, which none of
+them would ever approach. It was a roughly circular depression
+extending from bank to bank, a hundred feet in diameter; it lay just
+below the ledge of rock that made a low-water ford but which, at high
+water, was the brink of a falls which had worn a deep hole in the soft
+river bottom.
+
+Terry slowed his steaming pony as he rounded the pool. Stories that he
+had overheard flashed across his mind, ghastly stories whispered by
+tremulous native lips into credulous brown ears, of the size of the
+Thing which dwelt here, of its age, its incredible scaly length and
+girth, its patient devilish cunning; of the toll it had taken of three
+generations, tales you would not care to hear--like that of the old
+blind Bogobo who lost his way, and groping for the trail with naked
+hands--no, you would not care to hear such appalling tales.
+
+Riding the river ledge above the pool he glanced down into the deep,
+quiet waters but his thoughts snapped back to the present as his pony
+balked at the edge of the ford. The gray had never balked at water,
+and attributing the display of vice to fatigue, he tried to gentle him
+into the shallow water, then touched him with spur--minutes were
+precious now. Driven by the steel, the gray stepped gingerly into the
+stream, took several steps, then snorted as he wheeled back to the
+bank. Terry swung him back sharply and sent the spur deep into the
+flanks of the trembling beast: half wild with the unaccustomed
+punishment he dashed into the water and splashed across in frightened
+bounds that took him up the opposite bank into the brush.
+
+Terry brought the pony round and stroked its neck soothingly to calm
+the unaccountable terror apparent in the nervous tossing of head and
+distension of red nostrils. As he guided him along the bank a sound of
+disturbed water brought Terry's head up sharply: heavy ripples circled
+away from a spot near the opposite shore just under the ford. As he
+peered keenly he discerned the indistinct outline of something that
+looked like a heavy log sink slowly into the dark depths. The pony
+fretted until they left the river-bank to follow an old trail that led
+into the woods.
+
+Here Terry held him to a walk, riding cautiously, pausing at each turn
+of the trail to scrutinize every inch of brush intently, ears alert to
+faintest sound. He knew he was nearing the deserted huts. He advanced
+several hundred yards thus, searching for the clearing, listening.
+Discerning well ahead a space where the sky was open above a cleared
+area he dismounted, hurriedly knotted the reins to a sapling, snatched
+his extra pistol from the saddle holster, then crept forward through
+the early forest twilight, wary, both pistols at full cock.
+
+Creeping round the first bend in the trail he searched the near
+thickets with penetrating keenness: he knew Malay treachery. His eyes,
+flashing from side to side, focussed upon a dim, motionless figure
+outlined in the shadow beneath the trunk of a large tree that stood on
+the edge of the clearing. His back was to Terry and he seemed
+engrossed in some silent drama that was being enacted in the clearing
+out of Terry's field of vision.
+
+Terry crept toward him soundlessly and when he had covered half of the
+distance that separated them he was overjoyed to recognize him as
+Matak. As Terry's lips parted in a low call, Matak glided from the
+tree like a swift shadow just as a shriek of pain and terror rent the
+silence of the woods, followed by a vowelled curse and the sound of a
+heavy hand on naked flesh.
+
+As Terry sprang forward to the edge of the clearing he heard behind
+him the distant sound of ponies driven recklessly through the
+underbrush, and knew that the Macabebes were coming up!
+
+He halted at the edge of the clearing, unobserved by the crowd of
+bandits who had sprung out of the three disused huts when Matak leaped
+into the open: with ready rifles and bolos they awaited the command of
+their white-eyed leader, who stood in front of them, startled, but
+coolly confronting the Moro. Ledesma's daughter, who had fallen under
+Malabanan's heavy blow, staggered to her feet and ran blindly into
+the arms of a laughing rough whom Terry recognized as Malabanan's
+companion at the dock--the sardonic Sakay.
+
+For a moment the tableau held. Terry could not see Matak's face but he
+heard the tense fury of the voice:
+
+"Malabanan, you speak English?"
+
+Malabanan looked him over insolently before answering: "Yes."
+
+Moro met Tagalog in the Bogobo's country on the common ground of the
+American-brought English tongue!
+
+"Malabanan, you know me?"
+
+"No."
+
+"You remember one night--nine years now--on Basilan? You remember kill
+old man, old woman, then girl on boat? You remember kill little boy,
+too, and throw in sea?"
+
+The Moro's voice dripped with the released passions of nine years of
+brooding over terrible wrongs. As he saw the light of recollection
+appear in the desperado's dark face, he struggled to speak the words
+that had been dammed up so long:
+
+"Malabanan, I am that boy.... Now you die!"
+
+He snatched the long knife from the scarf knotted about his waist in
+Moro fashion, his knees bending under him in a tigerish crouch as he
+slowly circled toward his powerful enemy. Malabanan drew his great
+bolo with a contemptuous sneer at the little Moro and before Terry
+could have interfered had he wished, they leaped at each other. Matak
+dodged down under the first awful sweep of the gleaming bolo and as
+he came up he struck at Malabanan, not with the classic downward
+stroke, but UP!
+
+As the glittering blade went home, deep, Malabanan threw the Moro from
+him with a convulsive heave that crashed him senseless against the
+stump of a charred tree. His colorless left eye, lusterless in strange
+contrast to the baleful fire that glowed in the right, Malabanan
+gathered his fast ebbing strength in a last effort and staggered
+toward the unconscious Moro, his glittering weapon upraised, heedless
+of the pale American who stepped out with a rasping: "Halt!"
+
+But he sank limp as Terry's heavy pistol roared a message he did
+heed--though never heard--sagging down to sprawl across the Moro's
+legs.
+
+Terry leaped full into the clearing and covered the ladrones, who
+stood paralyzed by the swiftness of the tragedy, stunned by the
+dramatic appearance of the young American whose pistols were famed
+throughout the Gulf, and as they hesitated the Macabebes smashed out
+of the fringe of timber, threw themselves off their reeking ponies and
+moved to surround the band.
+
+Sakay, supporting the girl as a screen, drew back toward the nearest
+of the huts and opened fire at Terry with a rifle. The ladrones
+scattered for cover and in a minute the woods rang with their
+fusillade and with the deadly volleys sent in answer by the Macabebes.
+
+It was a brief combat. Though outnumbered nearly two to one the
+soldiers were disciplined and highly trained marksmen. In a moment six
+of the bandits were on the ground, nine threw up their hands in
+surrender and the balance fled through the woods. The Sergeant, who
+had been slugging away with his rifle with a calculating attention to
+the details of marksmanship belied by the fierce joy in his brilliant
+black eyes, ceased firing at Terry's shouted command and detached
+eight of his man, who caught up some frightened ponies and raced
+through the woods to head off the fleeing brigands.
+
+Sakay, using the fear-crazed girl as a shield from behind which to
+shoot at Terry, found his aim thwarted by her struggles. Seeing Terry
+advancing straight upon him and fearful of exposing himself to the
+fire of the two black pistols, he dropped his rifle and holding the
+girl directly in front of him, called out in English:
+
+"I surrender! I surrender! I surrender, Lieutenant!"
+
+His deep anxiety subsiding when he realized that he would suffer no
+immediate harm, Sakay threw the girl from him with a brutal force that
+sent her prostrate and was promptly rewarded by the husky Mercado, who
+had been under American tutelage long enough to understand the virtue
+and the technique of what is vulgarly known as "a good swift kick."
+
+The Sergeant escorted Sakay into the group of prisoners rounded up by
+the four soldiers and set them to digging a grave for the six, who,
+with Malabanan, would "never appear before the court." In a few
+minutes the pursuit party rode into the clearing herding all but three
+of the criminals who had fled: those three were carried in and placed
+alongside the grave.
+
+Terry worked over Matak, who had been merely stunned. In a few minutes
+the Moro recovered fully and went back to secure Terry's pony, which
+he had abandoned near the ford.
+
+While the Sergeant attended to the duties of identification and burial
+of the dead Terry led the girl into one of the huts and quietly
+comforted her. She told him of the ordeal of her forced journey
+through the greater part of a day and a night, of the captors who
+leered at her but remained aloof because of fear of Malabanan, of
+being waked from sleep at Malabanan's arrival just before Matak
+appeared. Malabanan and Sakay, worn with the night's ride, had stopped
+during the noon hours to rest in the woods.
+
+When it came time to go, Terry placed the girl on his pony, declining
+another mount, as his head now ached too fiercely to withstand jolting
+in the saddle. He set off in the lead, afoot, followed by the
+prisoners under escort, Mercado bringing up the rear with the girl.
+
+As they neared the ford Terry heard a sharp out-cry from one of the
+guards, followed by the sharp crack of a rifle. Whirling, he saw the
+brush on his right agitated by the movements of a figure that crashed
+unseen through the tangle of vegetation. Two soldiers flung themselves
+off their ponies and leaped in pursuit, pausing fruitlessly for sight
+of the fleeing form and dashing on with trailed rifles. The aggressive
+Mercado galloped up, shouting an explanatory "Sakay!" as he charged
+straight into the brush.
+
+Terry sped down the trail toward the river, emerging on the bank just
+as the lithe Sakay burst from the brush. Laughing derisively at Terry
+Sakay leaped toward the stream, reached the bank in four great bounds
+and leaped far out from the low edge. As the bandit's powerful body
+curved in the air Terry's pistol barked twice before the supple form
+straightened to strike the pool in a perfect dive.
+
+Terry leaped down the bank to cover Sakay when he should rise. Leaning
+over the ledge he distinguished the white-clad figure sliding
+gracefully through the dark depths with the momentum of the dive: ten
+feet, twenty, thirty, then it slowed, started to rise.
+
+But as he watched, tense ... there was a rush of a massive armored
+body through the shadowed depths, a great scaly thing swirled the
+limpid pool, a flash of hideous teeth--and the white form was gone.
+
+Spellbound with the unutterable horror of what he had seen, Terry
+watched the waters become quiet again, but turned away, aghast, when
+bubbles rose like tiny silver globes against the jet depths. When he
+turned back there were no more bubbles.
+
+He sank down on the bank, sickened. The Macabebes had come up with
+their meek prisoners and waited at the ford, restless, their eyes
+fixed on the oily pool. Even Mercado was anxious to be gone.
+Unaffected by the terrible fate of the bandit he had hunted, he viewed
+the approach of sunset with vague concern, for this was the nearest
+that he had ever been to the edge of the Hill Country.
+
+Terry strove to rise, and at last realized that he was ill. He sank
+back, dazed with the sudden force of a fever that coursed through his
+body achingly, that throbbed in his head with a tumultuous roar. He
+tried again, but fell back, dizzy. He rested till his head cleared,
+then sat up and called Mercado to him. His voice came weak.
+
+"Sergeant," he explained, "I do not feel--like going in to-night. You
+push on--rest at Sears' to-night. Keep the prisoners in his corral
+under guard. He will look after Seńorita Ledesma and the men. Tell him
+that I request that he come here and dynamite this pool--thoroughly.
+Push on to Davao next morning and send for Ledesma to get his
+daughter; and if I am not there by that time, you send a brief report
+of this affair to Zamboanga. Understand?"
+
+"Yes, sir, but you look sick, sir!" A quick concern flooded the
+Macabebe's heavy face.
+
+"Yes--I do not feel--very well. I am going to cut across country to
+get to Doctor Merchant tonight. It is only six miles straight through
+the woods."
+
+The Macabebe led his charges across the ford, then, worried, returned
+to Terry's side. Reassured somewhat by the brave smile, he mounted
+after receiving a final injunction to take Matak in with him if they
+overtook him. As the Macabebes herded their cowed prisoners into the
+woods across from where he lay, Terry lay prone in another of the
+intermittent surges of mounting fever that robbed him of his strength
+and faculties.
+
+When the wave of fever subsided he rose weakly, took his bearings by
+the low sun and crossing the ford struck straight into the woods in
+the direction he knew Dalag to lie. Entrance into the deep woods
+brought instant twilight. He had covered a mile when a resurgent tide
+of fever brought him down on the thick carpet of dead leaves that
+covered the darkening forest floor, and for several minutes he lay
+gripped in the sickening spasm that rioted through his veins and
+robbed him of all reason. When it passed he rose dizzily to stumble on
+under the trees, which reached up toward a sky glorious with the
+flaming reds and deep pinks that mark the passing of a hot day over
+the Celebes Sea.
+
+He staggered on, conscious only of the necessity of getting to the
+doctor and of the agonizing explosions in his head which threatened to
+rend his skull asunder at each jarring footfall. The sky grayed,
+darkened. Dusk found him a short quarter-mile further on, where
+another surge of raging temperature brought him low. Another followed
+swiftly. When he rose at last, night had wrapped the thick woods in
+its black mantle, and he was no longer conscious of direction, or of
+purpose, or of self. He stumbled along dazedly, trying to recall the
+purpose that had taken him into the woods.
+
+The paroxysms passed. The fever had reached a consistent high level,
+lending him a singular buoyancy of body and of spirit, but his reason
+was gone. He walked faster and faster, his vision keen under the dark
+canopy, his mind racing with disordered ideas, a kaleidoscope of long
+displaced memories. Often he stopped short, puzzled, vainly striving
+to stem the fugitive currents of conceits in his efforts to remember
+what purpose had brought him here. His head throbbed. He kept step
+with each pulsing ache--it seemed to help. He hurried on through the
+night.
+
+The way grew steeper, always he traveled up the ascent. Flooded with
+the hot energy that swept through his arteries, each passing hour
+seemed to add to the fires that fed his strength.
+
+The gray beams of early dawn, filtering through a now taller vault of
+forest, found him far up the slope and mounting still steeper grades.
+He could not quite remember what his mission was ... something that
+the Governor wanted, he thought, something he, too, wanted to do ...
+or was it a Christmas present for Deane....
+
+He climbed higher, laughing, singing, talking loudly. Stumbling over a
+log his burning eyes had not seen, he turned in grotesque humor to
+offer curtsy and abject apology, then hastened on upward. Later,
+carroming from a huge tree he had hit head on, he addressed it in
+grave good humor: "Please keep to the right." His flushed face purple
+in the green light of the deep woods, he hurried on, again worrying
+over the nature of his forgotten mission and hysterically impressed
+with its importance.
+
+The sun rose high overhead but it was twilight in the deep forest
+through which he clambered, over decayed logs, through rank
+overgrowth, past little streams of filthy water flowing in sullen
+silence through channels overgrown with moss. No sounds of forest life
+challenged the vast silence of the damp and cheerless vault of green,
+no song of bird or shrill thrumming of insects that makes the tropical
+forest a palpitant discordance during the hot hours of the day.
+
+His laughter rang mockingly through the shadowed silence, the loud
+vagaries of his delirium carried far tinder the overhang of tunneled
+foliage.
+
+"It's all right, Sears ... poor little fox, you won't ... you need not
+worry about me, Doctor ... on Sunday, too--snowshoes and all.... LOOK
+OUT MAJOR!... and we need you here, Dick,--Ellis and Susan, Father
+Jennings, the foreigners--all of us...."
+
+Always he kept his face turned toward the heights, and climbed. The
+afternoon, waning, found him groping slowly upward, the furious energy
+of his fever wearing off. His voice was weaker but he babbled
+unceasingly, through dry lips parted in set fever-grin.
+
+"I hope I did not miss, Sakay. I hope I did not miss.... 'Imagine
+bristly Berkshire swine upon the throne of Coeur de Lion!'--and if
+they make a break, SMASH 'EM!... Don't wait, Deane, don't wait."
+
+Unaware of the ill omened forms which, surrounding him while still the
+sun was high overhead, had kept apace all afternoon with his
+slackening gait, he halted under a huge tree, leaning against the
+trunk in sudden weariness. His voice, weak, tremulous, carried to an
+audience he could not see:
+
+    Just to know that years so fair might come again,
+    Awhile ...
+
+    Oh! To thrill again to your dear voice--
+    Your smile....
+
+At the end of the song his hoarse laughter rasped through, the woods.
+He sank down, tried to rise, then lay where he had fallen beneath the
+great tree. He lay still while the last white rays of the dying sun
+faded from the topmost leaves far overhead, heedless of the narrowing
+circle of eyes which flashed in the dusk.
+
+Then, as he weakly pressed a hot hand against his scalding eyes in a
+gesture of pain that was infinitely pathetic, the Hill People closed
+in.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+THE MAJOR FOLLOWS
+
+
+The big wall fan, a new symbol of the progress of the American
+undertaking, oscillated in jumpy turns that rustled the papers on the
+polished desk. Major Bronner sat staring at the maps which covered the
+walls of his office. His heavily tanned face bore new lines, worry and
+grief and there was a new set to the heavy jaw.
+
+Rising with sudden determination he hurried down the corridor into the
+Governor's office and faced Governor Mason with the strained aspect of
+a strong man sorely beset. The Governor gravely studied the eyes that
+bored beseechingly into his own, then reached into one of his desk
+baskets and lifted a stiff paper.
+
+"Major," he said slowly, "here is Lieutenant Terry's promotion. They
+forwarded it immediately after receipt of my telegraphed report of his
+prompt action against Malabanan's brigands." As the Major did not take
+it but continued to regard him steadily out of brooding eyes, the
+Governor returned the commission to the basket and fell to drumming
+his desk.
+
+He broke the long silence: "Major, you really think you should go?" It
+was hardly a question.
+
+"Governor, I must go!"
+
+The older man studied his inkwell: "Major, it was over three weeks ago
+that Sergeant Mercado sent you his report: it seems rather--rather--"
+he was loath, to say it--"rather hopeless."
+
+He remained in contemplation of his uninspiring inkwell for a long
+minute then delved into his basket for a letter received that morning
+from the Lieutenant Governor of Davao, a letter he had read many
+times. He scanned it again.
+
+"Major, Terry has been missing over three weeks, was ill when he was
+last seen. It seems certain that he either succumbed to fever or
+else--you know he entered the woods right at the edge of the Hill
+Country, and if he strayed off his course he is almost certainly--"
+
+Bronner broke in upon him, frantically unwilling to hear the word
+spoken. He was furious in his grief.
+
+"Yes, they wait three weeks before reporting his disappearance--the
+best officer in the Service--sick--alone in the woods!--no rations,
+no--nothing, except a canteen and a pistol! If I were governor I'd
+fire the whole damned crew down there!"
+
+The Governor regarded him with wise patience till he choked into
+silence. "No, Major. There was no fault. The Sergeant reported in
+Davao that Terry had gone to Dalag to see the doctor, so it was not
+until Merchant finished his work there that they learned from him that
+Terry had not reached him. It was no fault of any one, Major; just
+hard, hard luck. Now, I have been thinking over your request to go in
+search of Terry's--in search of Terry, and I have decided. The
+despatch boat is now at the wharf subject to your orders. She makes
+something over twenty knots."
+
+"Governor, I'm--I appreciate your--Governor, it means a good deal to
+me!"
+
+"I will not detain you, Major. You do as you find best when you reach
+Davao. Pacify the planters first--this report says that they are wild
+with grief and rage. Of course you will take temporary command of
+Terry's Macabebes. The entire company is there now and with them you
+could doubtless smash your way up into the Hills. I had other hopes,
+hopes of winning them peaceably--hopes in which Terry figured....
+Well, I know you are anxious--so run along."
+
+He rose and came around the big desk to take the Major's hand in a
+fatherly farewell. After the Major had torn out of the room the
+Governor closed the door and stood at the window looking out over the
+busy Straits, his face older, stripped of the optimism with which he
+invariably confronted all of these young men who were associated with
+him in the Moro task. Sometimes it all seemed so hopeless, so futile.
+
+For a long time the Governor stood at the window. He was facing
+westward toward India, that mystic ever-ever land that had been the
+goal of all the nations since before Columbus and was finally won by
+the steady strength and genius of a meager island people. But its
+cost--its cost in fair-haired, ruddy-cheeked youth! As in other
+matters of government we had learned colonization at Mother England's
+knee, had sought to apply her precepts, to avoid her mistakes: but
+there was no avoiding that penalty, that expenditure of young men.
+Quotations from the interpreter of the white man's burden came to his
+lips: "'_The deaths ye have died I have watched beside._'" He
+whispered the line over and over again.
+
+He was still gazing somberly over the wide waters when Bronner rushed
+down the pier below him and leaped into the cockpit of the power boat.
+An orderly followed on the run and dumped the Major's luggage into the
+boat. A Moro cast off the restraining hauser and the snowy hull leaped
+forward, nose high in the air. When it reached a point opposite where
+the Governor stood its stern was buried deep by the terrific thrash of
+the screw, and borne on the swift ebb tide it streaked out of sight
+into the west, like a thing alive. The Major was off--the Constabulary
+guards its own. When one falls, others search, and bury, and avenge.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Major settled on the stern seat for the long ride. He had his
+thoughts, thoughts that set his jaws till they ached. The motors
+roared as they coursed through a shifting panorama of islands, little
+heavens of cool verdure as seen from the power boat which rode low,
+rising and falling gently in the smooth swells which ribbed the
+Celebes from horizon to horizon. From the low seaboard they looked
+back upon a thin trail of white dashes which marked the wake their
+speed had traced upon the tops of the oily undulations. Adams, the
+mechanician, a slim, clean-cut young fellow, scarce glanced at Bronner
+through the passing hours but hovered over his engines, absorbed in
+their operation.
+
+The night passed, and the day was nearly done as they shot up to the
+little wooden dock at Davao with a grinding of gears in reverse.
+Adams silenced the motors, then turned in stiff fatigue to the Major
+with an expression that transfigured his greasy features.
+
+"Major, I've broken the record for this run by four hours. Now it's up
+to you!"
+
+"You know, then, why I'm--"
+
+"Yes, I know. And I knew Terry--in Sorsogon Province. I was down and
+out, a beachcomber,--booze. And he was kind to me, when I needed
+kindness.... It's up to you, Bronner."
+
+The Major stepped up on the dock, unsteady of limb after the night and
+day, his ears roaring from the long punishment. Stamping the length of
+the dock to regain his land legs, he returned to meet Doctor Merchant,
+who had hastened down to the dock. His heavy hurry had glittered him
+with a profuse perspiration that coursed down over his exposed skin
+areas, and he wiped his hands and wrists with a big bandana before
+shaking hands with the Major. His entire mien bespoke anxiety.
+
+"We expected you, Major--though not so soon. You know all about--about
+it?"
+
+The Major nodded: "The Governor showed me Whipple's letter."
+
+"Well, that's about all we know here. Terry was sick when he went
+after Malabanan's outfit--he never should have gone. And after doing
+that job--and it was SOME job, believe me!--he started cross country
+to see me--knew he was sick. It was over two weeks later that I
+finished and came in--and when I arrived without him there was a
+regular riot!"
+
+He wiped his face and neck: "Major, I'll never forgive myself for
+exposing him to that fever--but I couldn't do a thing till he
+came--they would do nothing I told them. Do you know how it was he
+caught it?" He was at once mournful and enraged. "Gave his mosquito
+net to the chief's wife because she was 'soon to become a mother,' as
+he put it: and right after he rode away I found she had cut the net
+into four big pieces and was using them for _towels_! Yes, sir! For
+towels!"
+
+He wiped away with the bandana, thinking that thus he concealed his
+emotions.
+
+"Major, you've got your work cut out--a bunch of the planters are in
+town this afternoon, planning a raid into the Hills. Lindsey and Sears
+are the wildest--the whole bunch will get wiped out if they set foot
+in the Hills! You had better see them right away--and you'll have your
+hands full--they're mighty determined."
+
+He paused, fretting, then turned his big bulk with surprising
+swiftness: "Well--say something! What are you going to do about this?
+Going to clean out the Hills? Or are you going to let--" he stormed on
+and on, checking the flow at last to press his hospitality upon the
+Major.
+
+"Thanks, Medico, but I'll just sling my bag in Terry's house and sleep
+there to-night: and I can eat at the Club."
+
+The doctor accompanied him as far as Terry's old quarters and passed
+on to his own house farther down the street. Matak, gloomy and
+wordless, relieved the Major of his bag at the door. The house was
+silent, and darkened by drawn pearl-shell shutters. The Major stood a
+moment at the doorway, half sickened by the unused appearance of the
+familiar cane chairs, table, desk, and bookcases, then he followed
+Matak into the bedroom he had used before. He cleaned up and changed
+to whites, and when he came out Matak had thrown the windows wide to
+the afternoon sun. But the house was thick with the uncomfortable
+silence that pervades unused, furnished habitations and unable to
+endure the room he hurried out and over to the _cuartel_.
+
+The fiery little Macabebes seemed subdued. Mercado blamed himself for
+leaving his officer under the circumstances, was bitterly
+self-reproachful for not having sent a soldier with him. He went over
+the ground carefully but could add nothing but immaterial detail to
+what the Major already knew, but the Major remained in the little
+office until dark, listening with grim satisfaction to Mercado's
+account of the swift retribution that had followed Malabanan's testing
+of Constabulary strength.
+
+He excused the Sergeant and sifted through the pile of official and
+personal mail which lay in the basket marked "unfinished." Sorting it,
+he came across a cablegram addressed to Terry and dated the morning
+that Terry had left in pursuit of the brigands.
+
+"From the States, too," he muttered. Moved by an impulse and hardly
+conscious of what he did, he folded it twice and placed it in his
+purse.
+
+In half an hour he had finished the few reports that must be executed,
+and rose to go. Mercado was waiting for him at the door.
+
+"Sir," he said, standing stiffly at attention and watched by a score
+of Macabebes who knew his intention to draw the Major out, "we
+Macabebes are soldiers, sir--we never question. But if the Major comes
+to lead troops up--there, sir, to bury our Lieutenant, it is a
+Macabebe task! We loved him, sir."
+
+The big Major looked down at the earnest veteran, touched by the
+dramatic simplicity of his appeal.
+
+"Sergeant," he said, "if I do lead a force up there your Macabebes
+will be where they belong--at the front of the column!"
+
+He took the grateful salute and passing out between two rigid lines of
+the stalwart little men he crossed the plaza to the Club.
+
+Entering, he noted the unusual number of Stetsons that hung on the
+hatrack, and passing inside, saw that the steward was guarding a score
+of rifles and revolvers. For a moment he stood unnoticed by the groups
+of determined men who occupied the round dining tables in parties of
+four and five. Selecting the table occupied by Lindsey, he went in.
+
+He felt the tension of the room increase as he entered. All looked up
+with friendly word or nod, but from the manner in which they eyed him
+and each other he knew that his coming and his purpose had been the
+subject of their conversations. He sat down with Lindsey and his two
+companions. One of these, O'Rourke, had been the pioneer hemp planter
+and now enjoyed a big income; the other, a nervous, hasty young fellow
+named Boynton, had borne a reputation as a squawman that had deprived
+him of intimacy with his own kind, but had recently put his house in
+order and rehabilitated himself with those who found decency in clean
+living.
+
+In an effort to relieve the atmosphere of constraint the three
+planters attempted conversation, but it fell dead, and each applied
+himself to his dinner. The Major's eyes roved over the crowded room,
+then bored Lindsey's.
+
+"This is the biggest crowd I ever saw in the Club," he suggested,
+tentatively.
+
+All understood the question in his words, but none answered. Suddenly
+Boynton flushed with the hot rush of temper to which he was subject.
+
+"Yes," he exclaimed defiantly, "and it's a good crowd, too! A crowd
+that's got guts! We're going to have a look at those Hills!"
+
+Lindsey had tried to stop him, but nothing could halt the impetuous
+Boynton. O'Rourke snorted disgustedly: "Lave it to Bhoynton to shpill
+the banes!"
+
+With Boynton's outburst the Major tightened. These determined men were
+hard to handle. He glanced around the room into the faces turned
+toward him: Boynton's tense voice had carried throughout the room and
+all of the planters had twisted about in their chairs to face him.
+They knew the showdown was at hand, were ready to support Boynton's
+declaration of their purpose.
+
+The Major turned to Boynton: "You aim to leave forty or fifty more
+good Americans to rot in the Hills?"
+
+Boynton fully realizing that the Major was addressing the crowd
+through him, and feeling their support, spoke more coolly: "Well,
+Major, we're ready to chance that!"
+
+The Major continued, more slowly: "What could fifty men--even such
+good men as this fifty would be--do against the Hill People? And how
+would they find their way to them? And how would they overcome enemies
+they could not find or see, enemies who blow darts that just prick the
+skin but bring almost instant death? And if you did reach them, and
+kill a large number of them--what would it avail Terry?"
+
+Pausing long enough for this to sink into their minds, he continued
+more sternly: "And furthermore and more important, how could such a
+force, organized out of worthy motives but nevertheless engaged in an
+unlawful enterprise, hope to even reach the Hill Country--knowing that
+they would have to first fight their way through a hundred of the best
+Macabebe riflemen in the Islands ... with me leading the Macabebes."
+
+No one stirred. They knew the Major. This was no threat, no boast, he
+had merely stated a fixed purpose. This was Constabulary business,
+would be handled by Constabulary.
+
+"Snap" Hoffman, a husky, keen-eyed youth who enjoyed the unique
+reputation of being the best poker player and the hardest worker in
+the Gulf, spoke coldly from an adjoining table.
+
+"Bronner, maybe your Macabebes wouldn't fight against people going up
+to square things for the officer they lost--I guess you don't know
+what they thought of him! But forgetting that part of it--what we
+want to know is, what are you going to do about reaching out for him,
+or for those who 'got' him?"
+
+The hissing of the acetylene burners sounded loud in the room during
+the pause in which the sunburned planters waited the Major's answer.
+He spoke to Hoffman, without resentment.
+
+"'Snap,' I had plenty of time to think it all out, on the way down
+here. There is just one way to find out about Terry: I am starting
+into the Hills to-morrow at daylight."
+
+"With the Macabebes?" Hoffman retained the spokesmanship.
+
+The Major slowly shook his head. The powerful lights glinted upon the
+brass buttons of his uniform and etched the deep lines in the heavily
+tanned face.
+
+"No," he said. "The Governor has given me a free hand in this, as it
+is a Constabulary job--we look after our own. You all know, as well as
+I, what it would mean to force our way in. We would get in eventually,
+but in addition to leaving too many good men in the everlasting shade
+of the forest, we would defeat our own ends. For if he is still living
+they would surely finish him if we undertook a punitive expedition.
+
+"I have laid my plans on my absolute confidence that he is living. I
+know he is, somehow. So I am starting up after him in the morning ...
+alone."
+
+Consternation was written upon every face excepting Lindsey's, who had
+understood the Major's purpose from the moment he curbed Boynton.
+Amazement altered to admiration, then to uneasy forebodings. The Major
+watched them as they whispered to each other and as he read their
+acceptance of his plans he turned to his cold dinner.
+
+The planters found relief in following suit. The stewards returned to
+the care of the tables. Cigars, the best from Luzon's northern fields,
+followed Benguet coffee and when champagne glasses appeared at each
+plate in indication of some diner's birthday or other happy occasion,
+the planters searched each others' faces to identify the celebrant. As
+the Chino withdrew after filling the glasses Lindsey rose, glass in
+hand, speaking with his characteristic sincerity and with an easy
+grace that belied his rough planter's garb.
+
+"Gentlemen, I propose an absent friend ... a friend of all of us. One
+who has meant much to all of us, has done much for many of us, has
+harmed none by careless deed or word or thought: one who knows the
+high places but realizes that life is lived on level planes.
+Gentlemen"--he lifted his glass high--"to the--HEALTH--of Lieutenant
+Richard Terry, P. C."
+
+A swift scraping of feet and of chairs pushed back and they all stood
+in mute acclaim of Lindsey's sentiments, subscribed with him to the
+Major's refusal to believe that ill had befallen him whom they had
+assembled to avenge. Seated again they watched Lindsey, who remained
+standing while the Chino refilled the glasses. Lindsey spoke again.
+
+"I ask you now to pledge the only man I know whose bravery, sincerity
+and friendship are of a quality to fit him to be the chief of him to
+whom it was just now our honor to do honor.
+
+"Gentlemen ... Major John Bronner, P. C.!"
+
+The response was a thrilling tribute to the flushed officer who
+remained seated until the clamor had subsided, then bowed his
+embarrassed gratitude.
+
+They crowded around him as he rose to go, each offering advice and
+warnings, wringing his big hand. Boynton drew him a little aside.
+
+"Major," he said earnestly, "I hope you find him--all right--not--not
+hurt. He was fine to me--I came near making an awful mistake--about a
+native woman. But he came to me and talked me out of it--spent the
+night with me, talking about his mother ... she died when he was a
+little shaver ... and he talked about clean living, and the duty of
+carrying on your white blood unpolluted. He didn't preach--just talked
+sense, and was awfully--friendly. I quit the dame cold!"
+
+Gripping Bronner's hand, Boynton left the room. Lindsey accompanied
+the Major to the door and into the reading room, pointing to the
+placard tacked up under the skin of the python.
+
+"You remember the wording of the first sign? 'Major Bronner owes his
+life to the wonderful pistol marksmanship of his friend, Lieut.
+Richard Terry, P. C.' He was here the night that Malabanan broke
+loose--you will hear about that night of his in the Club--and the next
+day we found that he had changed the placard. Look."
+
+He pulled the Major over and they read:
+
+     This python, the largest but one measured since American
+     occupation, was killed on the plantation of Mr. Eric
+     Lindsey.
+
+         Length...................24 ft., 9 inches
+         Diameter, thickest..............14 inches
+
+"We didn't see him do it, but we knew he must have been the one who
+changed it. As that's the way he wanted it, we can't change it--now."
+
+Grief shadowed his earnest countenance again as he faced the Major:
+"Don't you think that in view of my friendship for him--and for
+you--that I am entitled to go up with you?"
+
+"No, that's all settled, Lindsey."
+
+The Major passed out, but pausing on the dark walk in front of the
+building to relight his cigar, he heard Lindsey outlining plans for
+the campaign the planters would undertake if the Major had not
+returned at the end of two weeks.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the early morning he made a light pack of rations and the beads,
+matches and red calico he had secured to use as presents in case he
+won through to the Hill People. He dressed for the field in khaki,
+filled an extra canteen and after breakfast mounted Terry's big gray
+pony and rode off with Mercado, whom he took to guide him to the spot
+where Terry was last seen. The Macabebe took the lead and pressed by
+the urgent white man lathered his pony in the rapid pace he set
+through the winding trail. They dismounted at the ford shortly before
+sunset.
+
+While the Major was transferring his pack from saddle to shoulders the
+Macabebe explored the pool with distrustful eyes. But Sears had done
+his work thoroughly: two cases of dynamite had blown in the banks and
+created a new channel through which the water flowed swiftly. The pool
+had been narrowed by half and shallowed to a depth of ten feet in the
+series of explosions Sears had detonated until the river gave up the
+rent carcass of the monstrous reptile.
+
+The Major adjusted the pack to his liking, waved farewell to the
+Macabebe and moved toward the fringe of woods with a swinging stride.
+The soldier watched the receding figure with mingled admiration and
+awe. The Malay stood irresolute as the white man's head and shoulders
+passed from view under the low hanging branches, watched the pendulous
+khaki legs swing rhythmically into the shadows of the forest and out
+of vision, then cast one long look up over the dense roof of the
+forest which swept far up to end at Apo's summit, and atremble with
+the appalling memories of the lonely spot he mounted the gray and led
+his own exhausted pony along the edge of the pool. Once he glanced
+back apprehensively as a small Bogobo agong sounded somewhere to the
+north and filled the woods with its deep and mournful tones, then
+hurried on homewards.
+
+The Major had headed due west, straight toward the summit of the
+mountain. He walked on through the last hour of the afternoon and as
+the woods became denser and darker he used the slope of the forest
+floor as his point, always facing in the direction of the rising
+ascent. He made good time, as here the going was little obstructed by
+creepers or thorned "wait-a-minute." Alert, he studied every sound of
+the forest life, for though he had placed his life on the knees of the
+gods he valued it too highly to neglect any slightest precaution.
+Inside his shirt there bulged a heavy 45 slung from a leather
+breast-holster. This lone attempt of the Hills was no sudden
+inspiration; he had planned it logically. There was no other way. Up
+there, somewhere, lay or lived his friend. Friendship was the call,
+friendship and ... The Service.
+
+The sun, glinting fitfully through openings in the thatching of
+sparkling green leaves, dropped lower and sank from sight, and before
+the brief twilight faded he selected a spot beneath a great mango tree
+as his first camping place. Gathering some dry twigs and dead boughs
+he built a fire at the edge of a little stream and ate sparingly of
+his store of beans, chocolate and tinned sausages. In his collapsible
+pan he heated water and dissolved his coffee crystals, and the coffee
+finished, he boiled more water with which he filled his canteens and
+hung them on a branch after dipping the woolen jackets into the creek
+to secure the coolness of evaporation.
+
+Night fell black in the forest. He threw more brush on the fire to
+enlarge the circle of light, and made himself a comfortable couch by
+patiently stripping the small branches of their most leafy twigs, and
+wrapped himself in his blanket, vainly hoping that sleep would come.
+
+From time to time he rose to add fuel to the fire, as he wanted the
+light to be visible from the Gulf, where troubled friends would be
+searching the night hills with worried eyes. And he wished the flame
+to be seen in the Hills by those who lurked in the dark shadows so
+that they might know that no element of stealth entered into the
+approach of this white man who invaded a territory forbidden to
+strangers since the earliest dawn of Philippine history. This
+idea--the thorough advertisement of fearless confidence--was the basis
+of his plan. He knew wild men.
+
+Desperately he fought off the forebodings which assailed him in the
+deep silence of the forest night, for hours he tossed in the distress
+of apprehension over the friend of whom he came in search. Toward dawn
+he fell asleep puzzling over the problem of Terry's reason for closing
+the door of his bedroom before going to bed and then opening it for
+ventilation. He waked from a dream in which he had slyly peered into
+the room in time to see Terry withdrawing a hypodermic needle from his
+arm, and lay worrying about the vivid nightmare until he noticed that
+the fire was dimming before the coming of dawn.
+
+He breakfasted, drowned the embers of his fire with water from the
+stream, then reslung his pack and started up the slope. The way grew
+steeper with the hours, the forest thicker. The green roof of foliage
+was now so thick that the sun seldom penetrated and where it did
+strike through the sunlit spots were dazzling in contrast with the
+somber shadow of the forest. The undergrowth grew denser, so that he
+climbed with greater toil through the maze of thorned bush and snaky
+creepers that twined in enormous lengths across the forest floor.
+
+The never-ending gloom of the weird twilight grew on his nerves. He
+tried to whistle to cheer himself but forebore when the uncanny
+echoes rocketed in the dismal cathedral of towering trunks.
+
+It was rough and cheerless going. There were no trails. Once, toward
+noon, while he was munching chocolate to appease his empty stomach, he
+suddenly came upon a sort of runway, a beaten trail. He stepped into
+this easier path but had taken but a few steps when he was startled by
+the vicious rush of a swift object that whizzed up through the air and
+tore through a fold of his loose riding breeches, then swung back
+before his eyes to vibrate into stillness. It was a bamboo dagger,
+sharpened to a keen edge and point, hardened by charring in a slow
+fire. Fastened to a young sapling, it had been bent down over the
+trail and secured by a trigger his foot had released in passing. Level
+with his thigh, it had been designed to pierce the abdomen of the
+Hillmen's natural foes. He bent to examine the glutinous material with
+which the dagger was poisoned, and paled as he considered his close
+escape. Such a death--in such a place....
+
+After assuring himself that his skin had not been broken by the
+_balatak_, he stepped gingerly off the trail and made his way upward,
+carefully avoiding every inch of ground that appeared suspicious. With
+each mile of ascent the way grew steeper, the forest deeper and
+darker, the green ceiling reared higher on more massive trunks.
+
+In mid afternoon he noticed that he was passing through a zone of
+utter forest silence. There were no relieving sounds of voice or wing
+or padded foot. It was appalling. Nothing in his vivid experiences
+had approached the menace of these silent trees.
+
+Pausing to rest in an area where an unusual amount of indirect light
+filtered down through the lofty screen of leaves he looked about him,
+found no tree he could identify, and felt the hostility that strange
+growths radiate. His thoughts flew back to the security and
+friendliness of the elms and maples of his boyhood haunts. As he
+peered through the endless avenues of trunks that rose from the dark
+slope, he learned what fear is. But he went on, faster.
+
+An hour later, clambering over the trunk of a huge windfall that
+blocked his path, he jumped down upon something that half pierced the
+heel of his heavy shoe. Leaning back upon the big log he tugged till
+the foot was released. He had landed upon a carpet of leaves which
+concealed a number of sharpened bamboo stakes bedded deep in the
+ground, point upward. Raking out the leaves with a stick, he uncovered
+a nest of sixteen spearheads smeared with the brown venom.
+
+Forced to study his every footfall, he made slower progress. He was
+far up the great slope when he noticed that the tangled underbrush had
+given way to a smooth carpet of leaves. Night was near, so he halted
+when he came to an open spot, a place where volcanic rock precluded
+vegetable growth. Water, steaming hot, poured from a fissure.
+
+It was the first time he had sighted the sky since morning, and here
+he saw the only sign of life the day had afforded. Two gray pigeons
+flew side by side across the opening in the trees, winging toward the
+crest of the mountain.
+
+Sleep did not come to him. All through the night he sat by the fire,
+staring out into the ruddy circle of vision illumined by the blaze,
+peering into the shadows cast by the great trunks. Once a dead limb
+fell from a towering tree that stood just at the edge of the circle of
+light: he started violently, his hand darting into his shirt front to
+his gun. He relaxed, slowly. Big drops of moisture dripped from the
+invisible treetops. Thinking it nearly dawn he consulted his watch. It
+was eleven o'clock.
+
+Suddenly he sensed that he was no longer alone, felt the presence of
+stealthy forms in the surrounding darkness, heard a twig snap in the
+still forest behind him. He waited, tense, the hair at the back of his
+neck stiffening as he thought of blowpipes and of darts poisoned by
+steeping in the putrid entrails of wild hogs.
+
+He felt the scrutiny of hostile eyes. Certain that he detected the
+movement of an indistinct figure on the rim of the firelight, he threw
+on a handful of dry twigs hoping to uncover the prowlers, but the
+flareup revealed only an enlarged circle of great trees and emphasized
+their shadows. He sat motionless, his eyes focussed sharply upon the
+spot, and as the fire died down he saw the flicker of a dark form as
+it darted from the shadow of the tree and dissolved into the bordering
+gloom.
+
+He gritted his teeth in an agony of suspense and enforced inaction. As
+the long minutes crawled by he writhed inwardly in the horror of
+waiting for the stinging impact of the feathered messengers of death,
+marshalled every resource of his will in his effort to appear casual,
+unafraid, confident of friendly reception.
+
+Suddenly the silence of the night hills was broken by a weird sound
+that rolled down from the heights. He listened, rigid, and realized
+that some one was striking a small agong. It came from the crest.
+Three times the faint resonance was carried down, the last note
+humming long in the tunnel of forest and fading out in slow-dying
+vibrations.
+
+Listening, he noted a change in the forest about him. Minutes passed,
+and at last he realized that he was alone, the lurking figures had
+been recalled. In the reaction fatigue came, and he wrapped himself in
+the blanket and fell asleep.
+
+At sunrise he was off again, climbing the mountain side, confident
+that the recall of his midnight visitors had ended all dangers. The
+night would see him at the summit.... APO!
+
+But with the sense of personal security there came a deep apprehension
+of what he would find at the end of his strange quest. His worry over
+the fate of the friend for whom he had made this venture increased
+with every hour. As the day wore on he fell into a panic of
+foreboding, scarce noting that the forest had lost its sinister
+aspects, had opened into a lovely wood of sun-splashed vistas broken
+here and there by great rugs of thick grass which tempered the beat of
+the afternoon sun striking through the openings above the frequent
+clearings.
+
+Suddenly he stopped, sniffing to identify the odor that had rapped at
+his heedless nostrils for an hour. Disbelieving the testimony of his
+sense of smell he scanned the woods for visual evidence, for the first
+time taking in the quiet beauty of the scene. Finding the objects for
+which he searched he exclaimed aloud in his wonder.
+
+"Pines! Pines! Sus-marie-hosep!"
+
+He drank in the bracing spice of the rare atmosphere, glorying in the
+clear coolness of the altitude after the months of oppressive heat in
+the lowlands.
+
+"Real, honest-to-heaven pines--that puts me a clean mile above sea
+level!"
+
+Worry came again, and he turned to continue his ascent, but halted in
+midstride as he discovered a form that stood, motionless, upon a
+grassy plot a few rods above him. A Hillman confronted him!
+
+Evidently a young fighting man, of small stature but wonderfully
+developed of shoulder and limb, full chested and round of barrel, his
+brown skin covered only with a red G-string, spear in hand, he
+returned the Major's stare with a steady gaze of appraisal. For a long
+minute he remained poised, then beckoned to the Major to follow him
+and whirling with a flirt of his long black hair he led the way up the
+acclivity, bearing to the right of the course the Major had taken.
+
+The Major turned his back to the savage while he reached into his
+shirt to put his pistol at full cock and safe, then followed him. The
+ascent stiffened abruptly, then ended, so that they came out on a
+wooded plateau a half-mile square in the center of which the crest of
+the mountain reared in a last upheave of perfect cone several hundred
+feet high. Skirting the edge of the cone they emerged from the woods
+and came to the border of a village.
+
+The Major paused at the edge of the clearing, congratulating himself
+upon the wonderful good fortune that had brought him safely among the
+Hill People, and studying the village. A large number of crude
+thatched huts had been erected scatteringly at the bases of the trees
+surrounding the level clearing. Not a soul was in sight except the
+young warrior who had acted as his guide, who stood in front of a
+shack somewhat larger and better built than its neighbors.
+
+As the Major stepped into the clearing he saw a figure appear at the
+door, and his sturdy heart lodged in his throat as he leaped forward.
+
+It was Terry.
+
+They met in the center of the clearing near the smoldering cooking
+fire, their hands gripping hard. Their eyes were moist with the relief
+each found in the other's safety. Both struggled for apt expression of
+their pentup emotions.
+
+The Major found his tongue first.
+
+"Well, it's fine air up here," he offered.
+
+"Ayeh." Terry's grin was uncertain. "And there's so much of it!"
+
+And they shook hands on it, complacently.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+THE HILL PEOPLE
+
+
+Occasionally one passes a stranger on the street whose face bears the
+unmistakable imprint of recent pain, a patient line of mouth and
+haunting glow of eyes that have looked close into the eternal shadows.
+Terry bore this look.
+
+He unbuckled the Major's pack straps and relieving him of the load led
+him into the shack he occupied. It was a small hut, roofed and sided
+with grass woven into a bamboo lattice work; stilted six feet above
+the ground it trembled under the Major's heavy tread. A woven bamboo
+partition divided it into two small halves, and each room was bare
+save for a slatted cot that served as chair by day and couch by night.
+The breeze blew up through the strips of bamboo flooring.
+
+Exhausted the Major sank down upon the hard cot but rose to sitting
+posture to study Terry with bloodshot eyes.
+
+"Terry," he said, "you're looking a little--what the folks back home
+call 'peaked'."
+
+Terry's face was a little haggard, his body a little slimmer, the
+steady gray eyes were deeper set.
+
+"Oh, I'm all right." He seated himself on the ledge of the window near
+the Major. "You had a tight go of it last night. Did you hear the
+little agong ring?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"The young Hillmen wanted to wipe you out. I had to work pretty hard
+with Ohto--the old chief--to persuade him to let you come in
+unharmed." His face clouded. "I have been worried ever since you
+started into the Hills."
+
+"How did you know that I was coming?"
+
+"Major, that's why I have been so worried about not being able to
+start back--I knew that you would come as soon as you heard."
+
+The Major flushed in quick pleasure at the unconscious tribute to his
+friendship and his courage. He filled his pipe and smoked contentedly.
+It was the biggest hour that he had ever known. Terry unharmed, well;
+his own hazards surmounted; and the Hill Country penetrated at
+last--the impossible again achieved by the Constabulary. He settled
+back comfortably, using his pack as a pillow.
+
+"Tell me all about it," he said.
+
+"There is not much to tell, Major. You must already know all about the
+way in which the Macabebes finished what Malabanan started, and of
+Sakay's leap into the pool--did Sears dynamite that pool?"
+
+Horror shadowed the steady eyes till the Major assured him that the
+pool and its dweller were of the past.
+
+"Major, that Sakay affair was pretty--bad: I keep wondering if I
+missed him--I would hate to think that.... Well, I had not felt well
+all day. I must have been exposed to that fever at Dalag and--"
+
+"Yes, I guess you had! Merchant told me about that!"
+
+Terry flushed and went on. "I started through the brush to get to the
+doctor, but I must have been sicker than I thought, for I don't
+remember anything after entering the woods. It's all a dream to me.
+Something pulled me up this way--I've always hoped to be the one to
+open up the Hills--and I kept coming. I remember lying down at dusk
+and being picked up and carried through the night. I must have been
+delirious for about ten days, but had conscious periods every day.
+Every time I had a clear spell I swallowed several tablets of the
+quinine Sears gave me. I guess that quinine saved me--I would like to
+have Sears know about it.
+
+"Those ten days are rather confused, of course, but I remember the
+care the women gave me and some of their rough remedies. I came out of
+the delirium two weeks ago but was pretty weak, so did not try to get
+up, but lay there listening to their talk. Their dialect is quite like
+the Bogobo--I think they're just a tribe of Bogobos separated from the
+others by those infernal woods. I soon learned that they had spared me
+and cared for me because they thought that I was daft. You know that
+these primitive tribes never molest lunatics--they think that they are
+possessed of devils which, if disturbed, will enter the heads of
+whoever harms their present host. Probably I raved a good bit on the
+way up, when they were following me.
+
+"When they realized that I was sane the tribe split into two
+factions--one wanted to finish me but the other insisted that my
+coming was a good augury. It was rather queer to lie here and listen
+to the arguments pro and con--I pulled pretty hard for the negative
+contenders! The question was finally decided by the old chief, Ohto,
+who announced that my fate would be determined when next the limoçons
+sang. That settled the immediate question.
+
+"The limoçon is a big species of pigeon that nests in the Hills. It
+seldom sings, and then only at nightfall. It is reverenced by these
+people, who believe that it sings prophecies of good or evil, the
+character of the omen being determined by the point of the compass in
+which it lights to offer its rare evening song. Direction is gauged
+from where the Tribal Agong hangs--I will show you that after supper.
+It is a queer superstition, Major: they think that a song in the west
+means greatest harm--death by famine or disease or intra-tribal wars,
+from the north the omen is ill but to a lesser degree, south is good,
+but a song from the east augurs greatest happiness to their people."
+
+The Major was pulling on a dead pipe, absorbed in Terry's story but
+building into it all of the suffering and loneliness and suspense
+which the lad ignored in the telling.
+
+"They say that the limoçon has sung in the east but once since it
+heralded the birth of Ohto, who is the greatest chief they ever had.
+But it has sung in the west eight times--and each time it was followed
+by the death of one of Ohto's family. Now the old man is the last of
+his line. These things may have been mere coincidences but you can see
+why they believe implicitly in their feathered oracles.
+
+"A week ago, while I was still kept prisoned in this hut, the bird
+sang in the south, an omen of sufficient favor to cause my release.
+Since then I have been free to wander about--and if it had not sung,
+my influence would have amounted to nothing when I pled for you. And I
+might not have been here to plead.
+
+"That's about all, Major, except as to what manner of folk these
+Hillmen are, and that you will learn better for yourself."
+
+The Major rose and stepped to the door where they could survey the
+village, unseen by the brown people who now swarmed the hard-packed
+clearing. They were a squat race. The men, G-stringed, displayed the
+same powerful physique that had marked the warrior who had conducted
+the Major, the women were clad in a single width of homespun cotton
+which draped from waist to knee and passed up over breast and back to
+knot at the right shoulder. Men, women and children were all long
+haired, and marked alike with broad, high cheek-boned faces flattened
+across the bridge of the nose. Their slightly thickened lips and
+widened nostrils were offset by large, intelligent eyes. They were
+grouped about the fires which burned in the center of the village, the
+women tending the pots which steamed over the coals. The fresh hide of
+a buck lay in the center of the ring of fires amid heaps of yams and
+unthreshed rice.
+
+"Community cooking," explained Terry. "The young men hunt, the older
+ones farm, the girls weave and the old women cook. The scheme works
+out well in such a simple manner of living. Such government as they
+have is a blending of a little democracy with strong patriarchism. The
+old chief, Ohto, lets them have their own way about the little
+things, but when he speaks it is the law."
+
+"How numerous are they?"
+
+"Six or eight thousand. This is the largest of nine villages scattered
+around the crown of the mountain. Ohto rules them all."
+
+He pointed to a wide lane leading through the fringe of woods into
+another and smaller clearing a few hundred feet south.
+
+"That is where Ohto lives. No one approaches his house unless sent
+for. You--we--are to have an audience with him to-night. He set the
+time at moonrise."
+
+"A husky lot," commented the Major. "They're bigger than the Bogobos,
+and lighter skinned--but they sure don't get much chance to tan in
+these woods!"
+
+"They're a wild lot, Major, but you'll like them."
+
+They saw a woman leave the circle of fires and approach their hut
+bearing two crude dishes. She hesitated near the door, nervously
+searching the newcomer with timid black eyes, but reassured by Terry's
+low word she climbed the bamboo steps and laid before them a supper of
+venison, yams and boiled rice, then scampered out with a twinkle of
+brown legs.
+
+While they ate the Major outlined the news of Davao. Terry, tired of
+the monotonous fare, finished quickly and sat on the threshold,
+looking out upon the savages who squatted at supper about the fires.
+
+"Major," he said, "we arrived here at a strange time. These people are
+all worked up over the question as to who shall succeed Ohto as chief
+of the tribe. You remember I told you that he has no relatives, that
+they have all died off. His last grandson died three years ago. He was
+to have married--"
+
+He broke off and turned to face the Major. "You may remember my
+reporting a Bogobo tale to the effect that a Spanish baby had been
+abducted?"
+
+"Yes, we looked it up, Terry. It was true."
+
+"It's true all right. She is here! A wonderful girl, Major, beautiful,
+wildly reared but--well, you may see her to-night for yourself. She
+was stolen by these people when she was an infant and Ohto's grandson
+was three years old, stolen to become his bride when both came of age.
+That is the way they keep their chieftain strain fresh--by stealing
+children from outside tribes and mating them when they grow up.
+Ahma--that is her name--is the only white child they ever abducted.
+
+"But Ohto's grandson died a year before the marrying age. She has
+grown up in Ohto's household, has been taught their beliefs, dresses
+like them except that as his adopted daughter she is entitled to finer
+things. She is one of them except for the whiteness of her skin. One
+of them, yet ... different."
+
+His voice trailed off into a silence in which the subdued murmurings
+of the Hill People sounded loud.
+
+The Major stirred where he lay stretched on the hard couch: "Who will
+succeed this Ohto, then?"
+
+Terry roused himself. "The tribe is wrought up over this problem, as
+well as the problem of our presence here. They gather every night and
+discuss the matter. Some want to select a new chief among the young
+men and train him so that he will be ready when Ohto dies, others
+insist that Ahma--this girl--shall select a husband from among them
+and thus raise him automatically to chieftainship. But she laughs at
+them all, though there are plenty of aspirants for the honor. The old
+chief has said nothing--he just sits and thinks.
+
+"He loves Ahma with all of the wild love of a savage for the young he
+has cared for since infancy. He seems to consider her happiness even
+above the wishes and welfare of the tribe."
+
+"Terry, you said this girl is 'different.' How different?"
+
+Terry shrugged his shoulders, rose and secured their hats before
+answering.
+
+"You will probably see her to-night, Major. Come, I want to show you
+the Tribal Agong."
+
+Leaving the shack they threaded through the tiers of huts and crossed
+through the fringe of trees that surrounded the village, coming out at
+the foot of the cone. The huge monolith rose some eight hundred feet
+above the tableland on which the village was built. Its symmetrical
+slopes were smooth and steep. A goat could not have found footing
+anywhere upon its precipitous sides.
+
+A winding shelf had been cut out of the rock to serve as a trail. It
+wound round the cone a dozen times in an ascent of several hundred
+feet where it terminated, high above where they stood, in a niche
+twenty feet square. Niche and trail had been chipped out of solid rock
+and were worn smooth by the rains of many years. Here and there the
+smooth surface was checkered with fissures, marks of erosion and
+earthquake.
+
+The Major, head bent far back, breathed deeply:
+
+"Sus-marie-hosep!" he exclaimed.
+
+High above the spot where they stood a granite arm had been carved
+over the rock platform in which the winding trail ended, and from this
+arm a mammoth bronze agong hung suspended over them.
+
+"Why, I always thought those stories of the Giant Agong were
+just--why, how in thunder did they get it up there? And how did they
+cast it? Why--Sus-marie-hosep!"
+
+The Major gazed up till the muscles at the back of his neck ached:
+"Why, it must be fifteen feet in diameter--that striking knob is--why,
+the thing must weigh six or seven tons!"
+
+With this last thought the Major moved uneasily to one side. Terry
+grinned at him.
+
+"I felt that same way when I first stood under it, but I've been up
+there. That flimsy-looking arm on which it hangs is two feet thick and
+chiseled out of solid granite to form a bracket. I think you are right
+about its size--the striking knob in the center is about six inches
+wide."
+
+The Major shook his head, still bewildered: "Terry, I feel as if this
+is all a dream--being up here on Apo, this cold air, the smell of the
+pines, and now this thing here--Sus-marie-hosep!"
+
+"The old Bogobo woman who told me of hearing the Agong insisted that
+she would live to hear it rung again. It is never rung except at the
+marriage of a chieftain or the birth of his heir. These Hillmen
+fairly worship it. They have the most absurd legends as to how it was
+cast and hung up there, and of the reasons for the wonderful tone they
+say it sounds. They believe that the souls of all the dead limoçons
+live on in it forever and that when it is sounded they all burst forth
+in song."
+
+The sun exhausted its last white rays and sank below the low hills
+beneath them. Terry moved forward into the narrow trail and indicated
+to the Major that he should follow. They ascended slowly, the shelf
+narrowing so that by the time they had mounted twice about the base of
+the crag they were forced to advance by careful side steps, their
+backs against the cliff. Terry stopped at the fourth spiral, his hands
+gripping the jagged projections, his back tight against the cliff, and
+when the Major reached his side he nodded significantly toward the
+horizon.
+
+The Major slowly withdrew his eyes from the dizzying abruptness of the
+fall beneath them, and followed Terry's rapt gaze. The great panorama
+of the Gulf lay unfolded beneath their aerie.
+
+The sun, glowing pink against the crag, cast its huge shadow over the
+now tiny huts beneath them. Dusk was already falling over the great
+sloping forest that stretched from beneath their feet far into the
+Mindanao fastnesses and ended in a dim horizon where pink-blue of sky
+melted into the misted billows of distant hills. Far southward the
+Celebes was faintly outlined, a frosted mirror framed by primeval
+verdure, and to the east the slopes extended down mile upon mile,
+flattened, then leveled to edge the great sweep of the gulf.
+
+They stood tight against the clear crest while the swift shadows
+gathered the Gulf into its fold. The little valleys faded, and
+blackened, and the lower hills disappeared. The gulf narrowed,
+shortened, and dissolved into the night. The dark crept swiftly up the
+slopes as if envious of the ruby crown set on Apo's forehead by the
+abdicating sun.
+
+A steady wind, cool and fragrant with the odorous pines, streamed
+against them, forced their bodies hard against the crag. The Major,
+enraptured of the vast grandeur, voiced his exaltation.
+
+"Jiminy!" he said. "The top of the world! An empire!--an empire of
+hemp! And our flag covers it all!"
+
+Receiving no answer, he carefully pivoted his head so as to face
+Terry, and was humbled by what he saw. Terry's face, white in the fast
+fading light, was exalted, glowed like that of an esthetic of the
+Middle Ages, his eyes shone with a vision wider than that disclosed
+from the mountain top.
+
+"Terry, what do you see--in all this?" the Major asked.
+
+The wind whipped his words into space. He repeated, louder.
+
+Terry stirred slightly, answered vaguely, his gaze still fixed upon
+the tremendous shadowed expanse below them: "I was thinking of a ...
+dozen words ... spoken upon another mountain, words that seem very
+real ... and make one feel very small ... in such a place as this."
+
+The Major puzzled, gave it up. He was on the point of asking
+explanation when Terry spoke.
+
+"We had best get down from here, Major. It is getting darker."
+
+It took them but a few minutes to work their way down, but the crag
+reared black against ten thousand stars when they reached the base. In
+the regions near the equator the sun courses in hot hurry.
+
+Returned to the hut, the Major sat on the window ledge and Terry at
+the threshold. The night was chill with the clear crispness of
+altitude. The Major sniffed the pine-laden breeze gratefully.
+
+"We have found a new Baguio," he said.
+
+Terry assented, absentmindedly.
+
+The Major nursed his empty pipe, studying the savages who grouped
+around the fires to warm their almost naked bodies. Occasionally one
+or two would detach themselves from the groups and approach near where
+the two white men sat illumined by the flames, staring at these
+strangers in frank curiosity, silent, inscrutable, unafraid. Noticing
+the glint of fire upon a nearby row of long-shafted spears which
+reared their vicious barbs eight feet above the ground into which they
+had been thrust, the Major spoke to Terry.
+
+"Your pistol?"
+
+Terry motioned toward his room; "In there. They never bothered me
+about it--probably don't know what a pistol is."
+
+The Major, thinking of the sensation the opening of the Hill Country
+would create, of the Governor's joy when he should hear the news, of
+the added prestige for his Service, turned to Terry to express
+something of his thoughts. But he desisted when he saw by Terry's
+flame-illumined countenance that he had forgotten his presence, for
+there was something about the lean wistful face that made his
+detachment inviolable.
+
+Soon the moon rose above the level of the plateau and flooded the
+village with a filtered glow. Terry rose.
+
+"Ohto ordered me to bring you at moonrise." He waited until the Major
+had secured the gifts he had packed up, then led the way through the
+lane into the smaller clearing.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+AHMA
+
+
+In the center of the moonlit clearing there stood a larger house than
+any in the village. The soft beams of light reflected from the bamboo
+sides of the structure and the heavy dew on the thatched roof
+glistened like a myriad of fireflies. A wide path led to the porch,
+and near this there was set a tripod, fashioned of saplings, from
+which was suspended the little agong the Major had heard during the
+night.
+
+As they neared the foot of the ladder that served as stairway the
+Major started violently as two brown forms appeared at their elbows;
+at a word from Terry they stepped aside to let the two white men pass,
+one calling softly to a guard stationed at the top of the ladder. The
+door was thrown open and they mounted the bamboo rungs and entered the
+house of Ohto.
+
+Pine torches illuminated the room, which was some twenty feet square,
+roughly sided and floored with bamboo slats; there was no ceiling, so
+that a quarter of the high-pitched thatching of the house showed
+overhead. A dozen middle-aged Hillmen stood along the wall, evidently
+the influential men of the village. Across from them an aged Hillman
+sat in a rough-hewed, high-backed chair.
+
+Terry advanced and addressed the old man, his whole manner bespeaking
+a sincere regard and respect; then he beckoned to the Major.
+
+"This is Ohto," he said. "I will interpret for you if he does not
+understand your dialect."
+
+The Major faced the fine, austere old patriarch. The brown face had
+been wrinkled bewilderingly by the heavy-handed years, but his eyes
+still glowed with something of the pride and spirit of his youth.
+Wrapped in a thick blanket of hand woven _kapok_, he confronted them
+with that air of dignity and distinction common to those who from
+early life have dominated the councils of a community.
+
+The Major silently tendered his gifts. Ohto motioned to one of his
+retainers and in a few monosyllables ordered their distribution among
+the people, the red cloth to the women, the beads to the children and
+the matches to be divided among the young men. As he retained nothing
+for himself the Major produced a new pocket knife he carried, and bade
+Terry make Ohto understand that it was for himself. The savage bent
+his hoary locks over the treasure, examining the mysterious blades
+that opened and closed at his will, and accepted it as his own.
+
+The Major attempted to address the chief in his scanty Bogobo,
+stumbled, and turned to Terry beseechingly.
+
+"You tell him, Terry. You know what we've got to say better than I
+do!"
+
+So Terry spoke, and though the Major did not know it, he continually
+referred to him as his chief, put all of the fine phrases in his name.
+The warriors along the wall weighed every word.
+
+Terry told Ohto of their great pleasure in having entered the Hills,
+and of their appreciation of their reception. He extended the
+greetings of the White Chief across the waters at Zamboanga, tried to
+impress him with the interest the White Chief took in the Hill People
+and of his good will toward them: told of the advantages that would
+follow intercourse with the lowlands, of the good that would come to
+his people from contact with others. Finally he dwelt upon the folly
+of isolation, of the benefits of commerce and schools and other
+elements of civilization.
+
+The flare of the pitch torches brought out the sincerity of his face.
+The old chief listened, inscrutably, his unwavering gaze fixed upon
+the earnest speaker. Before the aged infirmity of Ohto Terry stood in
+apt symbol of lithe youth.
+
+It was apparent that Ohto did not grasp much of what Terry strove to
+impart, for the primitive imagination was powerless to understand
+institutions he could not conceive. He listened gravely but gave no
+inkling of what went on behind the mask of his wise old eyes.
+
+Terry finished, awaited expression of his decision. For a long time
+the patriarch remained silent, idly opening and closing the blades of
+his knife. The Hillmen ranged along the wall, who had listened
+attentively to Terry's arguments for opening up their country to the
+outlanders, waited their chief's pronouncement with set faces and
+gleaming eyes, their brown bodies still as bronze figures.
+
+At last the patriarch raised his head high, so that the snow white
+hair fell back across his blanketed shoulders. He spoke so slowly
+that Terry was able to follow him with whispered interpretations into
+the anxious Major's ear.
+
+"Many rainy seasons have washed my hair white. I live to see strange
+things--I never thought to see a white man's face within my
+walls--except, perhaps, upon a spear, grinning.
+
+"When I was born--and no other man or woman of my tribe lives who saw
+the sun of that far day--they said, the wise men, that much good would
+come to my people before I died.
+
+"They read it in the stars, they said. No great ill has come, except
+to my own blood. All gone--wife, sons, grandsons. Never again will the
+Agong ring for one of Ohto's blood!"
+
+They felt the greater pity because the proud old chieftain demanded no
+sympathy, but merely stated the pathetic fact with a simple dignity.
+
+He was silent for a time, lost in an old man's memories. Then he
+turned to one of the four retainers who flanked his chair.
+
+"I am lonely," he said. "I would that Ahma would sit by me."
+
+As the swart Hillman crossed the springy floor and rapped gently upon
+a closed door, the Major saw that every black eye focussed upon it
+with eager expectancy. For a moment the room was palpitant with
+suspense. He looked to Terry for explanation, but turned back at the
+grinding crunch of the hingeless door which opened to frame a fairer
+vision than the Major had ever dreamed, asleep or awake.
+
+A white girl had stepped out of the other room and paused a moment
+against the dark background of the door to sweep the room with big
+black eyes.
+
+A single piece of white cloth, fringed with bat fur, was draped about
+her waist and fell below her knee, the ends passing up in front and
+back of her round body to fasten loosely at the right shoulder. This,
+with a little sleeveless garment fashioned, bolero-like, out of the
+delicate bat skins, and a pair of sandals contrived in such a way as
+to bring the hair of the deer skin against the little feet, was all
+she wore.
+
+Bronner scarcely realized the symmetry of the slender form, so lost
+was he in the spell of the dark eyes that plumbed his for one long
+second, leaving him tingling with a curious conviction that his soul
+had been bared. Vivid of white skin, of jet eyes, of a mass of
+midnight hair that hung loose to her waist, she radiated the fire and
+spirit of vibrant youth.
+
+"God! Such a girl--up here--all these years!" he breathed.
+
+She left the doorway and crossing the room with the light grace of
+slender, untrammeled limbs, sank down on a bench drawn up at Ohto's
+side. He set his withered hand contentedly upon the mass of her hair,
+and in a moment he spoke again.
+
+"If the prophecies of the wise men are to be fulfilled, it must be
+soon. The good fortune of which they spoke has not come to my
+people--and Ohto cannot tarry long in wait.... Death calls an old man.
+
+"It may be that the prophecy had to do with the coming of these white
+men. It may be that it would be better to no longer guard the Hills
+with balatak and stake and spear and poisoned dart. It may be that our
+people would be stronger--happier."
+
+Again he halted his slow monosyllables, searching the faces of the
+Hillmen who waited upon his words: utter devotion and loyalty were
+apparent in every brown face. Proudly conscious of their fidelity, he
+regarded them kindly, then his thoughts reverted to the girl at his
+side, and he gently stroked the lustrous black hair. She sat quiet
+under the caress, her head bent down in an attitude that revealed the
+white line from shoulder to throat, her eyes sheltered behind long
+lashes. At last Ohto raised his head again and when he spoke he gazed
+straight at Terry.
+
+"Ever since we ... found ... her, this lovely flower has flourished.
+She now blooms in full blossom in my house--a white orchid on a
+gnarled old root.
+
+"Before Ohto leaves the Hills he would like to see Ahma safe,--guarded
+and cherished by one who loves ... and knows. Though not of Ohto's
+blood, she is of Ohto's heart. I will that when she finds a stronger
+tree upon which to fasten--the Tribal Agong shall be rung for her."
+
+Astonished out of their racial imperturbability, the Hillmen eyed each
+other at this departure from the ancient custom of ringing the Giant
+Agong only for those of chieftain blood. The girl's wide eyes raised
+to Terry, shifted momentarily to the Major, and lowered.
+
+The old man concluded: "You both speak fair, but I do not know what
+is best for my people. I do not know.
+
+"We must await a sign to guide us. The Spirit will speak to us through
+limoçon or nature, will solve the problem that you have brought to us
+... and will decide your fate.
+
+"Until the Spirit speaks, you are safe with us, white men.
+
+"I am weary now."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The venerable savage gathered the blanket more closely about his thin
+shoulders and closed his eyes as if exhausted. One of the four who
+stood behind him pointed to the door to indicate that their audience
+was at an end. As they passed out, the Major turned for a last look at
+Ahma, who was leading the old man into his room.
+
+In the middle of the clearing he stopped short.
+
+"Say, you forgot to translate what Ohto said after she came into the
+room!"
+
+Terry smiled whimsically up into the chagrined face: "That's right, I
+did! But you seemed to lose interest in his words!"
+
+As they made their way through the village Terry explained Ohto's
+decision, concluding with: "And so he awaits one of their 'signs,' the
+appearance of the limoçons, or some freak of weather or natural
+phenomenon like an earthquake--they read prophecies in everything."
+
+The Major sat down heavily upon the bench. He was genuinely disturbed
+at this new phase, as he had thought their hazards passed.
+
+"Why," he exclaimed, "that puts us square in the Lap o' Luck! Think of
+just waiting around for an earthquake or something--or for some darned
+bird to sing! With the opening up of this country as the stake--yes
+and our own hides. Sus-marie-hosep!"
+
+Terry had taken his usual seat on the threshold, chin in hand, his
+face bathed in the light of the moon that now hung high overhead and
+flooded the mountain top with a friendly glow. The cool night breezes
+came in strong gusts which rustled the foliage about them.
+
+Calmed by Terry's attitude of quiet confidence and strength, the Major
+faced their problem coolly, sought a way out. For a while his mind
+raced with plans, but each died in the minute of inception. He could
+not influence winds, or induce wild birds to sing in given quarters of
+the compass, or devise earthquakes. He fell to thinking of Ahma.
+
+Later, observing Terry closely, he asked: "And what are you dreaming
+about now?"
+
+Terry stirred as though awakened: "Oh, home--mostly."
+
+The Major wanted to talk, but the patient distress in the voice
+deterred him from what seemed intrusion.
+
+Later he suggested sleep. Terry lighted a torch and stuck it into the
+doorway, so that while lighting both rooms its fumes carried into the
+open. The Major discarded shoes and leggings, and wrapping himself in
+his blanket lay down with his pack as pillow. Terry waited till the
+Major had disposed himself as comfortably as possible, then
+extinguished the torch and went into his own room, closing the door
+behind him.
+
+The Major stared through the dark at the closed door, wondering, as
+usual, what was going on behind it. Then as a gust of cold wind blew
+in through the window he snugged down into his blanket.
+
+Another and stronger gust, and he heard the door into Terry's room
+creak as it swung to the breeze. Looking up, he learned at last.
+
+In the rectangular patch of moonlight which entered Terry's room
+through a raised window he saw him by the side of the rough slatted
+cot, kneeling in that most ancient of attitudes, in which the children
+of all the ages have bowed to supplicate and render homage to the
+Keeper of the Great Secret.
+
+The Major's eyes moistened. As the last clear phrase reached him he
+again stood flattened against the wind swept crag--"on the top of the
+world," and he now understood the "dozen words spoken on another
+mountain." They came from Terry's lips low, simple, majestic:
+
+"--is the Kingdom, and the Power, and the Glory.... Forever...."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+THE SIGN
+
+
+The sun striking on his face through the open window waked the Major
+to the cool clear morning. Sitting up, he saw Terry sunning himself on
+the threshold, wrapped in a scant blanket such as Ohto had worn, his
+hair wet from his bath in the creek which emptied the big spring at
+the foot of the crag. Even in the stupor in which he woke from his
+heavy sleep the Major noted the ruddy glow of the skin which covered
+Terry's bare arm and leg, was surprised at the development of the
+muscles which played into being at each slight movement. His face was
+as evenly pallid as ever.
+
+The Major stopped yawning. "Terry, I always thought of you as
+being--sort of skinny, but you're as hard as nails."
+
+He wrapped closer in the cotton cloth. "I've always taken good care of
+myself, Major. From the time when I was a boy I have thought a good
+deal about--all sorts of things--and I realized early that one thing
+was certain--that this is the only body I'm ever going to have."
+
+Learning from Terry where he could wash up, the Major made his way to
+the creek and after disrobing waded into the deepest spot and soaped
+himself liberally. For a moment he enjoyed the bath, but as the
+spring was the source of water supply for the village and as the young
+women were allotted the task of carrying it, his exhilaration was
+short lived. The water came but to his knees, so most of the half hour
+he spent in the pool he lay submerged to his chin, his agonized
+bachelor face exposed to the maidens who observed him from the spring
+three rods away. He would have taken no comfort from the thought--if
+it had come to him--that to them comparative nakedness was the normal
+state.
+
+Mountain springs are usually clear and chill, and this was no
+exception. He was numb with cold when, hearing a snort of
+irrepressible joy behind him, he twisted his head about to discover
+Terry enjoying his discomfiture. After Terry drove the girls away the
+Major jumped out of the creek and hurried into his clothes, blue
+lipped, shivering.
+
+"T-Terry, you'd better q-q-quit laughing! M-Millions have been
+m-m-murdered on less p-p-provocation!"
+
+After breakfast Terry, intent upon discovery of some way out of their
+predicament, left for a long walk. Alone in the little house, the
+Major brooded half the morning over the plight in which the old
+chief's dictum had placed them, then dismissed the profitless
+forebodings and went out to the village to study the natives.
+
+The clearing was empty of men. A score of the older women were
+fetching wood to the fires, another group were washing camotes and
+threshing rice with hand flails. Upward of a hundred naked children,
+pot-bellied, straightbacked, stared at the big white stranger as he
+passed, then ceased their pathetically futile efforts at play and
+trooped along behind him, their eyes as old as Ohto's. He looked in at
+the young women weaving kapok thread into cloth for blankets and the
+garments the women wore, but recognizing in the third house he entered
+three of the girls who had watched him in the creek, he fled in
+confusion.
+
+He ate dinner alone, as Terry had not returned. In the afternoon he
+continued his study of tribal customs. He had known the Luzon head
+hunters intimately, so had a basis of comparison. He went among the
+older women freely and sat with them about the fires, practicing his
+Bogobo, questioning, enlarging his vocabulary, winning their
+friendliness.
+
+As the afternoon waned he left the clearing, feeling in need of
+exercise. He strode rapidly about the circumference of the plateau and
+as he threaded the fringe of woods that separated the main clearing
+from Ohto's reservation, he halted suddenly as he saw Ahma tripping
+toward him on her way to Ohto's house.
+
+His first wild impulse was to dodge among the trees and avoid her, but
+as she had seen him he stood still until she should pass. But she
+swerved toward him and approaching with light, swift tread of free
+limbs she stopped a few feet before him, smiling.
+
+Embarrassed by the creamy curves of shoulder and limbs, he sought
+diversion in the treetops. She spoke, and at the sound of the clear
+little voice he looked at her, and in looking forgot the eccentricity
+of her frank costume. Her dark eyes held him: he knew that he was
+gazing at the only wholly ingenuous being he had ever seen. He
+swallowed convulsively.
+
+"Hello," he said.
+
+Bronner was subtle to a fault!
+
+Puzzled at the word, she wrinkled her nose in delicious groping for
+understanding, then laughed up at him. And with the laugh something
+popped within his sturdy chest.
+
+He hastily substituted the Hillmen's word of greeting, which he had
+learned during the morning, and joined loudly in her merriment. Elated
+with this success, he marshalled his resources of dialect to further
+impress her but with a last bewildering glance from her dark eyes she
+flitted homeward.
+
+He watched the white figure out of sight in the woods, vaguely aware
+that some new emotion had come to him. He stood among the trees some
+minutes after she had disappeared, then turned toward the village.
+
+"Sus-marie-hosep!" he exploded.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At supper time the clearing was again crowded with the entire
+population of the village, the men having returned from their pursuits
+of hunting, gardening and patrolling the great slope. Terry and
+Bronner talked little, each taking his usual seat at window and door
+to idly watch the crowd outside.
+
+Most of the Hillmen ignored their presence, but one, a squat, powerful
+fellow, swaggered by the door where Terry sat. Twice he passed, and
+each time he leered derisively at the white man.
+
+"Who's your friend, Terry?" queried the Major.
+
+"Oh, that's Pud-Pud. He's the town bully--and never has liked me. He
+led the crowd that opposed my--staying. He has bothered Ahma a good
+deal, too: wants to marry her. She laughs at him, of course. What have
+you been doing all day, Major?"
+
+The Major told him of everything but the meeting with Ahma, spoke
+enthusiastically of the tribe.
+
+"They're straight Malay, Terry," he wound up. "A pure strain,
+something you seldom see in the lowlands where the Spanish and Chinese
+have addled the blood. They ought to develop rapidly under proper
+guidance--they are a single-minded, sincere, fearless people."
+
+Terry nodded agreement: "Nor are they the terrible people that the
+Bogobos think them. Their fear of them must have been based on dread
+of that sinister belt of forest. A good road will end all that."
+
+They waited till Pud-Pud made a third mocking trip past their hut, gay
+in a G-string contrived of a length of the cloth the Major had brought
+up: it flamed against the naked brownness of back and legs.
+
+"He's a lady-killer all right!" Terry said. "Ahma told me that he had
+coaxed the calico away from one of the girls."
+
+The Major stirred. "You saw Ahma to-day?"
+
+But he had hesitated so long over the question that Terry, sunk in
+deep thought, did not hear him, and somehow he did not feel like
+repeating. He turned in on the hard bed with new things on his mind.
+Measles is not the only affection that "takes harder" near maturity.
+
+Several days passed without incident. Each morning the clearing
+emptied after breakfast as all but the cooks left for the day's work.
+Usually Terry wandered out alone, returning at evening to sit in the
+doorway, lost in study.
+
+Daily the Major loitered about the village till late afternoon, then
+took up his stand in the woods near Ohto's domicile, waiting: and Ahma
+never failed him. Bashfully distressed at first in the close proximity
+to the wealth of charm revealed by her scant costume, he soon became
+unconscious of it, her garb was so entirely congruous to her free,
+unschooled nature. He practiced his sketchy dialect upon her,
+delighted in each successful transmission of thought, more delighted
+in the naďve bewilderment that many of his linguistic efforts wrought
+in her frank features.
+
+The fifth day she failed to appear. He waited long, restless, till
+certain that she would not come and then set off through the woods,
+his big heart yearning for an unattainable something he could not
+define or classify.
+
+Regardless of where he went the Major crossed the tableland and
+started down the incline of the slope. A mile, and he came across some
+young hunters beating deer into a fenced runway that converged to a
+narrow opening where two warriors stood ready, armed with great
+spears. He turned to the left, crossing a little burnt clearing which
+still bore the stubble of the season's harvest. Another half-mile and
+he suddenly came upon a grass lean-to behind which two old Hillmen
+grimly stirred a simmering pot from which arose an overpowering
+stench: he fled the spot, knowing the sinister character of the
+venomous brew.
+
+The sun was low when he returned to the hut, still unhappy over
+Ahma's failure to appear. In a few minutes Terry entered the shack. He
+had come from the direction of Ohto's house, and his face was cleared
+of the perplexity of the last few days.
+
+During supper Terry studied the moody face of his friend, but forebore
+comment. At the hour of sunset--the hour when the superstitious
+Hillmen looked for their "signs"--the savages thronged the clearing in
+mute expectancy. It was apparent that Ohto's injunction had been
+communicated throughout the Hills, as each night the crowd who waited
+the sign was augmented by contingents from other villages. The
+hundreds stood, silent, as the sun sank slowly into a horizon of white
+clouds which flushed pink, brightened into shades of rose and crimson.
+For a brief moment the upturned faces of the brown host were ruddied;
+they stood motionless, mute, while dusk settled. Then night fell
+almost at a stroke.
+
+Again there had been no revelation. As the heaped fires illuminated
+the clearing, five mature Hillmen stalked past the white men's hut and
+into the forest. Terry identified them to the Major as the sub-chiefs
+who ruled the five adjacent villages.
+
+The Major sat in the window a while, watching the Hillmen, who
+squatted around the fires smoking their ridiculously tiny pipes and
+conversing in low gutturals. He fidgeted, then left Terry
+unceremoniously and skirting the village through the woods unseen by
+the crowd, he waited an hour near Ohto's house in the hope of seeing
+Ahma. Disappointed, he returned and threw himself on the cot.
+
+Terry sat in his accustomed place in the doorway, watching the fleecy
+clouds that a high wind drove across the sky, vast sliding shutters
+which opened and closed over the cool glow of the moon. The cold
+breeze chilled the Major, and he drew his blanket tight about him.
+Terry's voice roused him from his dejected reverie.
+
+"Major, I notice that you didn't carry your gun to-day. Don't go
+without it again."
+
+The Major half rose: "Why--you don't think--I haven't seen any
+indication of--"
+
+"I guess you've forgotten that we are in the Hill Country. If they
+find a 'sign' that is unfavorable to us--there won't be any delay. And
+we don't want to sell out cheaply."
+
+The grave judicial tones startled the Major. In his absorption in the
+white girl he had lost sight of their precarious situation.
+
+Terry went on: "The tide of sentiment is turning against us. They seem
+more antagonistic, more sullen. So please be careful."
+
+Terry lapsed silent and sat in the door, chin in hand. Soon the
+increasing wind drove the Major under his blanket again, and overcome
+by a curious feeling of comfort and security in the mere presence of
+the slight figure huddled at the door, he soon fell asleep.
+
+Terry, unmindful of the chill breeze, remained in the doorway, deep in
+thought. Suddenly he brought his hand to his knee in quick decision,
+and after tip-toeing over to the Major to be sure that he slept, he
+silently departed the hut and skirting the edge of the moonlit
+clearing, disappeared into the lane that led to the house where Ahma
+lived.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Toward morning the Major woke with a start, bewildered by an unearthly
+sound that smote his ears. The wind had risen to a gale, tearing the
+fleece from the sky, so that the moon peered down upon a sea of
+treetops turbulent with the buffets of rushing air.
+
+He sat up straight to relieve the thunderous humming in his head, then
+comprehending that the amazing sound was a reality, he strove to solve
+the source of the bewildering tones. A deep, low murmuring filled the
+air, swelling in volume with each heavier gust which drove over the
+mountain: the sound deepened and strengthened, mounting to a sustained
+musical rumble that almost stupefied him.
+
+"Ooooommmmmm-ah-oooommmmmmmm-ah-oooooo-ommmmmmm." The muffled volume
+diminished, increased again with fresh burst of fleeting wind, and as
+the wind subsided suddenly, the vibrant note fluttered, died away.
+
+The Major had lived too long and too much to believe in the
+supernatural but in the dark he found relief in the sound of his own
+voice.
+
+"Sus-marie-hosep!" he breathed. "Some ghost! No wonder they believe in
+signs up here!"
+
+He saw that the wind had blown shut the door into Terry's room.
+Knowing his habit of ventilation he rose to open it, and as it swung
+ajar he saw that Terry was not there.
+
+He stood in the dim room a moment, staring out of the window at the
+triple rows of huts which the moonlight had transformed into elfin
+playhouses. Perplexity as to Terry's whereabouts gave way to deep
+anxiety. Then his eyes caught the flicker of something white in the
+shadowy grove that fronted Ohto's house. Looking closely, he watched
+it flutter away among the trees, then a darker figure emerged from the
+spot.
+
+It was Terry.
+
+The Major's big hands closed hard upon the bamboo sill. Ahma! Terry!
+For the first time in his passionless life he felt the fangs of the
+green-eyed monster.
+
+An impulse to deceive, unusual with him, hurried the Major into the
+folds of his blanket before Terry entered, but by the time Terry had
+thrown himself upon his couch the Major was ashamed of the duplicity
+and spoke to uncover the deceit.
+
+"Terry, what was that infernal sound that waked me up a while ago?"
+
+"The gale playing on the Agong, Major."
+
+The Major said no more but tossed on the hard couch until daylight
+shot through the trees. He rose at once and in a few minutes Terry
+joined him, a little hollow-eyed with fatigue. The Major pointed at
+his soiled shirt and breeches, then at the soaked leggings and shoes.
+
+"Man, you're a sight! Fall in the creek?"
+
+Terry grinned contentedly. "No. This waiting was getting
+monotonous--so I fixed up a sign for them!"
+
+"That infernal noise, you mean?"
+
+"No. The wind always does that."
+
+"Well, what did you do?"
+
+Terry's grin broadened. "I'm not going to spoil it for you by telling,
+but if you stick around you'll see a sizeable 'natural' phenomenon
+within a day or so. In the east, too, the most favorable quarter!"
+
+The Major could extract nothing further from him, so desisted after an
+irate: "Well, you let me in on these stunts after this. You're all
+in--and here I lay sleeping all night!"
+
+Terry sobered. "Major, we did not need you--we got along all right."
+
+"We?" Heartsick, the Major sought to plunge the iron deeper. But Terry
+had slipped out to clean up at the creek before the girls should come.
+
+That morning they noted that for the first time a number of warriors
+hung around the village, watching the hut where the white men lived
+with a studied insolence that proved their hostility. Pud-Pud was of
+them, and loudest in his talk. At noon a large crowd had gathered,
+composed of those most inimical to the strangers.
+
+While the two stood near the entrance to their shack watching the
+eddying currents of almost naked humanity they saw Pud-Pud detach
+himself from his companions and swagger toward them, spear in hand.
+
+The crowd watched him eagerly as he advanced to test the mettle of the
+pale outlanders: Pud-Pud had boasted that he would end this suspense.
+
+The insolent savage advanced, stopped ten feet from them and
+brandished his weapon, his attitude one of utter contempt. He spat at
+them.
+
+Rage suffused the Major's face and his hand crept into his shirt
+front, but before he could withdraw the gun Terry whispered a
+restraining caution.
+
+"I know him, Major,--a grandstander."
+
+Terry stepped in front of the Major and returned the savage's stare. A
+moment they battled, then the Hillman saw something in the white face
+that disconcerted him, so that his offensive black eyes lost their
+hint of insult, wavered, fell. As Terry moved toward him slowly,
+Pud-Pud hesitated, then gave way before the stern visage of the
+approaching American.
+
+Terry, boring him with cold gray eyes, came faster: retreating rapidly
+to maintain his distance from the white man, Pud-Pud hurried his
+backward pace toward the ring of silent Hillmen who watched them.
+Heedless of his steps, conscious only of an overwhelming desire to
+maintain a safe distance from this purposeful white man whom he had
+affronted, Pud-Pud backed away, eyes fastened upon the pale avenger.
+
+Moving suddenly to the right, Terry forced him to alter the direction
+of his hurrying footsteps. The rapid heels hit a bowlder and Pud-Pud
+fell backward into one of the cooking places, his spear flying
+aimlessly into the air as the sitting portions of his anatomy came
+into contact with the red hot stones.
+
+One howl and one swift contortion of outraged flesh lifted him from
+the spot and he escaped through the crowd, followed by the mocking
+laughter of the Hillmen. Terry picked up the spear and crossed the
+circle of savages to hand it to the largest and loudest savage in the
+group to which the braggart had belonged. He looked him full in the
+eye with a significance fully understood by the onlookers, then
+turned his back upon him and returned to the Major.
+
+The Major was convulsed: "I saw what you--had in mind--when you
+circled him toward it," he laughed. "It must have been hot with
+nothing but a red G-string between his rump and those coals!"
+
+But the incident was significant of the attitude of many of the
+Hillmen. Inside the hut they examined their pistols carefully, Terry
+insisting that the Major take two of his extra magazines.
+
+The Major, in grim mood, left for a long walk. In crossing the
+clearing he purposely cut straight toward a group of warriors who at
+the last moment stepped sullenly aside to let him pass. Surlily
+pleased with his little victory, he crossed the broad plateau and
+struck down the slope, unconscious of his direction in the worried
+fumbling of his problems and his hurt. He started down the first great
+incline, distrait, sorely troubled. He crossed a green expanse where
+grass had sprung up over the site of an abandoned clearing, and as he
+reached the trees which marked its edge he was startled by the sudden
+appearance of two Hillmen who stepped out to confront him, pointing
+their spears toward the village in unmistakable gesture.
+
+As he angrily struck another course he realized for the first time how
+complete his absorption in Ahma had become. He had forgotten that he
+and Terry were prisoners, had lost sight of the mission that had
+brought him into the Hills.
+
+Chastened, he slowly retraced his way to the edge of the woods and sat
+down upon a windfall to think it all out. He blamed only himself. Her
+interest in him, he thought dully, had been but a friendship natural
+toward the friend of the one for whom she cared. Little things came
+back to him: her expression when she watched Terry approach, the
+sympathy that existed between them, little understandings which he had
+attributed to nothing more than longer acquaintance. It suddenly
+occurred to him that she had helped nurse him when he was ill. And it
+came to him that he had given little thought to the days when Terry
+had fought off death, had been heedless of what those days must have
+been when Terry looked from the mountain deep into the valley of the
+shadow, he groaned aloud.
+
+He shook his head, miserably: "Here I've been, mooning around like
+a--like a--and left him to do all the worrying--all the planning! Last
+night I slept while he--" He cursed himself for a fatuous fool.
+
+When he rose, the bitterness of spirit had left him, and his sacrifice
+had been made, but his lips were white with suffering.
+
+As he neared the village his course took him about the base of the
+crag, and as he rounded the western side he heard the murmur of
+subdued voices. He slowed and approached cautiously. A jutting
+buttress of rock masked the talkers until he was almost upon them, and
+as he turned this corner he halted in a wretched pang of the jealousy
+he thought he had subdued.
+
+Terry and Ahma sat on a bench of rock, their backs to him, unaware of
+his presence. Terry's trim head was bent forward as if he studied the
+western horizon; she leaned against him in gentle contact of firm
+white shoulder.
+
+For a moment the Major's heart thumped painfully, then the confusion
+of the unwitting eavesdropper compelled him to make his presence
+known. He did so with that fine discrimination and artful delicacy he
+summoned in times of emotional stress.
+
+"Hello," he said.
+
+Both turned, and rose, unembarrassed. Terry's welcome shone in his
+face, and Ahma was radiant with a quick emotion which, true to the
+traditions of those among whom she had been reared, she made no effort
+to dissemble or restrain. The Major dropped his eyes before the gaze,
+noting, dully, how wind and sun had faintly tanned the neck and
+shoulders and limbs. Sun and wind were patent, too, in the vigor and
+elasticity of the slim, loose clad form.
+
+"I'm teaching her English, Major," Terry said.
+
+For a moment she maintained her searching of the Major's averted eyes,
+then spoke a word to Terry and turned to go. A few steps took her to
+the buttress, where she stopped and turned her eyes full upon the
+Major, and spoke in English, teasingly:
+
+"Hello, sir."
+
+The Major answered in a voice that sounded harsh in his own ears and
+watched her disappear around the corner. Then he spoke to Terry
+without facing him.
+
+"She does speak English!"
+
+"Not much, yet. She really meant 'good-by.'"
+
+They started toward the village slowly, each wrapped in his own
+meditations. Passing round the eastern side of the cone, Terry halted
+to gaze searchingly at the Great Agong hung over the stone platform
+far overhead. Anxiety was evident in his manner as he hastened to
+catch up with the Major, who had walked on.
+
+The throng had gathered earlier than usual, the clearing was packed
+more densely than upon any previous afternoon. The two Americans
+avoided the clearing, passing to their shack directly through the
+woods.
+
+The Major dropped down on his bench and pillowed his head on what
+remained of his pack, staring up at the grass roofing. Shortly the
+serving woman appeared with their suppers, but neither moved, so she
+placed the two bowls on the floor mat near where Terry sat and
+withdrew noiselessly.
+
+As the sun sank below the trees, the Major stirred out of his
+melancholy and twisting over on the hard cot sought the reason for
+Terry's long silence. Terry sat, as always, at the top of the crude
+steps, gazing over the trees. The Major was shocked at the utter
+dejection of the slumped figure, the pain that showed in the set
+muscles of the thin face.
+
+The Major sat up. "What is the matter, Terry? You aren't sick?"
+
+"No, Major. I'm all right." His tone was weary.
+
+"What is the matter! Is this suspense--"
+
+Terry shook his head. "No, Major. It's something else--something home.
+I expected--I hoped for some news before I came up--news I did not
+receive."
+
+A flash of memory, and the Major asked: "A cable?"
+
+At the bare nod of head he jumped upright and reaching into his hip
+pocket brought out his purse to extract the cablegram he had brought
+up but forgotten. Crossing the little room, he dropped it on Terry's
+knees.
+
+Terry ripped open the envelope, hesitated, then unfolded the message.
+And as the Major looked on, every vestige of care and patient
+suffering left the white face, the wistful line was ironed from the
+corner of his mouth and Terry stood up a joyous, vibrant youth.
+
+He had read:
+
+     Lieut. Richard Terry, P.C.
+
+                                        Davao, Mindanao, P. I.
+
+     At last the perfect Christmas gift. Am sailing immediately
+     to claim it. Arriving Zamboanga January twenty-sixth with
+     Susan and Ellis.
+
+                                                  DEANE.
+
+He carefully refolded the sheet and placed it in his shirt pocket,
+then turned to the Major, his eyes darkened with such a joy as the
+Major had never seen.
+
+"This message will cost you a wedding present, Major!"
+
+"What now?" asked the Major. Things were moving too fast since he
+reached the Hills.
+
+"It is from ... a girl. I left home--oh, foolishly. But she is on her
+way over here, with my sister and brother-in-law. That's where the
+present comes in!"
+
+"But--but--what about Ahma?"
+
+"Ahma?" Terry asked, in his turn astounded. In Terry's bewilderment
+the Major understood that his own unhappiness had been unfounded. At
+his shout of delight the Hillmen all turned toward the white men's
+hut, wondering at the joyous antics of the strange pair.
+
+In a few minutes the Major had calmed sufficiently to discuss their
+affairs.
+
+"But, Major," Terry asked him, "why did you think that we--Ahma and
+I--that we--you know?"
+
+"Why, everything. I saw you leave her early this morning over there in
+the woods. Then, this afternoon--the way you sat together, and--and
+everything!"
+
+"Last night--why, she helped me fix up that 'sign' I told you about:
+and to-day we were talking about you--she has asked me a million
+questions about you--and about white girls. She has a jealous streak
+in her--as you will learn!"
+
+More explanations, and Terry suddenly reverted to their plight.
+
+"Now everything depends upon that sign I fabricated. If it fails--or
+if an unfavorable natural sign comes first.... You know I must be in
+Zamboanga on the twenty-sixth, some way."
+
+He lapsed into reverie. The Major fidgeted, reached for his hat and
+stepped to the door, a bit shamefaced.
+
+"Terry," he said, awkwardly, "if you don't mind I think I'll run over
+toward Ahma's house. There is a lot to talk over with her now and I
+guess I--"
+
+His words were drowned in a resounding crash that blotted out all
+other sounds. The village shook with the jarring impact of some vast
+missile striking near, the air filled with the roar of shattering
+rock and heavy rumble of sliding earth.
+
+The Hillmen bounded upright at the first terrific crash and stood
+transfixed, witless, superstitious fear written upon every brown face.
+
+A dead silence followed the dying out of the last thunderous echoes,
+then a child whimpered, another, and the women took up the whining
+note. A warrior, one of the sub-chiefs from a neighboring village,
+raised a braceleted arm in astounded gesture toward the crag.
+
+"The SIGN! The SIGN!" he shouted.
+
+The thousand heads raised as one, and taking up the cry, surged toward
+the great cone, sifting through the timber like brown seeds through a
+screen.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+CIVILIZATION DAWNS IN THE HILLS
+
+
+When the tumult had subsided, the amazed Major wheeled to face Terry's
+quizzical grin.
+
+"Well, Major," he said, "there is their merry little 'sign'! The darn
+thing worked!"
+
+The Major pulled him toward the door. "Come on," he exclaimed. "Let's
+see what happened."
+
+He hurried down the short ladder ahead of Terry and raced through the
+strip of woods to where the mob was packed about the base of the cone.
+The Major smashed an unceremonious pathway through the brown jam and
+in a moment they stood at the foot of the crest.
+
+A large segment of the huge pillar of rock had broken off and in
+falling had carried thousands of tons of shale and eroded stone. The
+immense rock, whose fracture and fall had precipitated the slide, lay
+directly under the Tribal Agong, at which the Hillmen were staring up,
+dumfounded.
+
+Following their upward gaze the Major saw that the fallen stone had
+formed the platform beneath the Agong, which now pivoted on its
+granite bracket over a cliff which fell sheer for hundreds of feet
+before curving into the stiff slope where crag fused into tableland.
+The great black gong hung directly over them. Looking closely,
+Bronner saw that it swung slowly in the evening breeze, and moved by
+the same impulse that had impelled him the first time he stood beneath
+it, he shouldered their way through the crowd to a safer position.
+
+"You need not worry about its falling, Major. It will hang there for a
+thousand years."
+
+"I know it, but it gets me just the--what's that they're yelling?" he
+exclaimed, as a swelling chorus of guttural shouts rose from the
+excited throng.
+
+"They are saying that the Tribal Agong can never be sounded
+again--without the platform they can't reach it." As a new phrase was
+caught up and repeated by hundreds of voices he added: "And now they
+are calling for Ohto to interpret the sign!"
+
+Several of the older savages tore out of the densely packed throng and
+sped toward Ohto's house. In a few moments one of them returned and
+announced that the chieftain would arrive shortly. The two white men,
+absorbed in the drama, did not notice that four of the warriors who
+had summoned Ohto had returned by another path and taken up their
+position behind the captives, spears in hand, grim.
+
+Ohto advanced slowly through the trees and emerged into the open space
+about the crag. The Hillmen gave way respectfully and he walked to the
+base of the cone through a wide lane opened up for his passage. Age
+slowed his steps but he walked erect, his head held high in simple
+dignity and gratitude for the silent homage his people offered.
+
+Pausing near the base he surveyed the evidences of cleavage of the
+ancient rock, the tribe's historic rallying point. Then he raised his
+eyes to the Agong.
+
+The dense circle of Hillmen bated their breath while the beloved
+patriarch communed with the spirits of the long line who had heard the
+happy song of the bronze-lipped gong. A deep hush pervaded the
+plateau, now lighted with the last white rays of the dipping sun.
+
+The sage turned to his people, his furrowed face burdened with an
+added melancholy. His voice came low and weak, so that the assemblage
+bent forward in strained silence to hear his fateful words. Terry
+gripped the Major's arm, whispering the translation.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Listen, my children. We asked for guidance, and a sign is sent to the
+east of Ohto's lodge--a happy omen.
+
+"The breaking of this age-old stone betokens the breaking of our
+ancient custom ... no longer will we bar the stranger from the Hills
+... and those who are with us now may go in peace, or stay in peace."
+
+He paused, and a great sigh of relieved suspense rose from the throng.
+The four armed men left their position behind the two white men and
+melted into the dense circle.
+
+Terry gave the Major's arm a last ecstatic squeeze. "It's working out
+just as we planned! I'll be back soon."
+
+He raced through the trees toward Ohto's house, returning in a couple
+of minutes to find Ohto still standing with bowed head before his
+people.
+
+A rustle of whispers roused him, and he raised his silvered head to
+behold the loveliness of his stolen foster-child. Summoned by Terry,
+Ahma had come out of the shadows of the trees and stood at the forest
+end of the lane made for Ohto's passage through the crowd.
+
+The old man extended his hand toward her in compelling gesture and she
+went to him with the agile swiftness of a half-wild thing. A moment he
+lightly stroked the rippling mass of hair, then he turned to his
+people again.
+
+"Ohto said that the Tribal Agong would ring for the marriage of this
+white daughter of our tribe--but now--"
+
+They followed his sadly expressive gaze to where the gong hung far out
+over the cliff, inaccessible to human touch.
+
+"Daughter, it _will_ be rung for you ... somehow.... Ohto has said it.
+I hope to live to hear it rung ... when you have found him who is to
+share your house--and after that, I do not care."
+
+He paused again--lost in a patriarch's vague memories of other years.
+Retrieving his vagrant thoughts, he caught the frank message of the
+upturned face, a message which startled as it pleased him.
+
+"Ah! You have found him, then? Let him step forth."
+
+Ohto searched every brown face in the hushed circle, but none stepped
+forward.
+
+Ahma slowly turned her head toward where the two white men stood
+apart, her eyes fastened upon Major Bronner. Terry gently pushed him
+forward. Trembling, his tanned face bloodless, the Major advanced and
+took her outstretched hand.
+
+Ohto studied the Major, then turned to Terry. For a long moment he
+searched the lad's strong face, a deep disappointment in his own,
+before he again faced the two before him.
+
+"I had not thought of this. But it will do. It is as it should
+be--white will be happier with white. But ... will she stay until Ohto
+joins his fathers?"
+
+The Major hesitated, then answered the sadly anxious question with a
+nod. He had no voice.
+
+"Then she is yours ... after you have found a way to ring the Tribal
+Agong for her marriage. Ohto never spoke in vain. Ring the Agong
+first."
+
+The Major's glance swept from Ahma to the lofty gong. His triumphant
+joy gave way to deepest dejection. He saw no way to fulfil the chief's
+requirement, and he turned despairingly to Terry, who had shouldered
+through the crowd and stood beside him.
+
+The Hillmen had accepted Ohto's interpretation unquestioningly. Their
+chief had spoken. The unexpectedness of the new phase, the avowal of
+love by the tribe's adopted daughter for one of the outlanders, had
+appealed to the keen sense of the dramatic that is shared by all
+primitive peoples. Their brown skins coppered by the rosy glow of the
+setting sun, they stood in strained suspense awaiting the climax.
+
+All but Pud-Pud. He jostled an avenue through the innermost ring of
+Hillmen and leaped out in front of Terry, brandishing a short blow
+tube he carried and laughing in shrill derision.
+
+"Ya, white men! Now ring the Agong! Ring the Agong and get your woman!
+I saw! I watched! And I laughed because I knew the Agong would never
+ring again! Yeah! Now ring it!"
+
+The Major was in no mood for finesse: with a vicious shove he sent the
+vindictive Pud-Pud sprawling, then turned to Terry, worriedly.
+
+"What are we going to do?"
+
+Terry shook his head, at a loss. This was a contingency he had not
+foreseen. He glanced penitently at the melancholy girl, at the old man
+who waited, swept the circle of tense faces, then resumed his hopeless
+contemplation of the gong overhead.
+
+Swiftly Ahma broke the tableau. Dropping the Major's hand she darted
+forward to where Pud-Pud had risen to his knees, her white foot
+flashing up to dash from his lips the blow tube he leveled at Terry.
+The venomous dart sped aimlessly into the air and fell outside the
+ring of Hillmen.
+
+Pud-Pud's violation of the sanctity of council roused Ohto to a wrath
+terrible to see. All of the savagery, all of the unbridled fury of a
+primitive, passionate nature mounted to his wrinkled face as he
+pointed to the culprit with a majestic gesture that summoned the four
+armed men. At a word they hustled the terror-stricken savage away to
+await Ohto's judgment.
+
+Ahma calmly returned to the Major's side and together they resumed
+their hopeless contemplation of the Agong. He peered up till his neck
+ached.
+
+"Terry," he whispered, "to ring it you have to strike that little knob
+in the center, don't you?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+Then inspiration shone in the Major's face. He eyed Terry covertly.
+
+"Wish we had a rifle," he suggested.
+
+Terry caught his meaning. He fingered his holster but shook his head.
+"It can't be done, Major."
+
+"Sure it can--sure _you_ can! I've seen you shoot!"
+
+Terry shook his head but the excited Major insisted: "Try it. Rest
+your gun on my head. Sure you can do it--and think what it will
+mean--the Hills opened up for all time--think what it will mean to the
+Governor--and to the Service!"
+
+The hushed crowd stiffened as they saw the two white men draw back a
+hundred feet, wondered as to the character of the strange black thing
+the smaller drew from his leather pocket. They watched intently,
+thinking to see sorcery wrought before their eyes.
+
+Terry cocked the weapon and resting his wrist upon the tall Major's
+head, sighted carefully. A thousand pairs of eyes focussed upon him.
+Could the slim white man ring the gong by pointing a magic finger?
+
+The Major, braced for the shock of explosion, felt the iron wrist
+tremble, grow limp and lift away. He wheeled around to find Terry
+shaking his head, uncertain, faltering. He slowly holstered the gun.
+
+"Major, I keep thinking how I have deceived--this fine old man," he
+said.
+
+The Major stared at him, then exploded: "By making this 'sign' that
+saved your life--and mine? Sus-marie-hosep! I've heard of those New
+England consciences but--Sus-marie-hosep!"
+
+Disgust, dismay, affection swept in succession across the Major's
+countenance: affection held. He laid his hand upon Terry's shoulder as
+he played his ace:
+
+"Terry, I thought you had a date in Zamboanga on the twenty-sixth!"
+
+The crowd then saw the white youth stiffen with swift decision, saw
+him whirl to face the crag. For a moment he stood with eyes riveted
+upon the Agong till the little knob swung toward him, then he bent
+slightly at the knees and his hand swept back with a swiftness that
+seemed to bring the pistol leaping to meet the extended arm. It raised
+to the darkening sky, and the Hills awoke to the resounding crash of
+white man's weapons. Six times Terry shot, but only the first two
+reports were heard, for the others were swallowed in the booming of
+the Agong.
+
+The sound beat down deafeningly, seemed to enfold them bodily in its
+mighty volume, blotting out all else. From the sounding board of cliff
+it smote upon their ears in thunderous, sustained, musical tone.
+Slowly, the note lessened in volume, deepened, and tumbled down in
+vibrant waves that rolled on and on. The sonorous reverberations died
+out, then surged again and again in ever fainter, ever deeper tones.
+
+At last the air quieted, and nothing but the roaring in his ears
+remained to convince the Major that the vast sound had been reality.
+"Jimmy!" he exploded. "What a noise--and what shooting!"
+
+A whisper of awe rustled through the surrounding ranks. Ignorant of
+firearms, they thought the young American wielded some uncanny power
+with his black weapon. Already distinguished as the first white man to
+set his foot upon Apo, he was now regarded with a feeling akin to
+worship.
+
+Ohto was silent, lost in a protracted, inscrutable study of Terry's
+face. At last the old man turned on his heels to sweep the circle of
+his people for confirmation of his surmise. Satisfied, he raised his
+hand for silence.
+
+"There has been worry ... doubt ... among you--who should take up
+Ohto's burden when he lets it fall ... soon. You are entering new
+times, will meet new and strange things. To Ohto it seems best that he
+leave his people under the guidance of a young and strong and kind
+chief who knows all these strange things ... one who can lead you
+safely into the new life. What say you, my people? Who shall sit in
+Ohto's chair when he is gone?"
+
+For a moment the multitude was silent as the significance of Ohto's
+query sank into their slow minds, then a murmur of approval rose among
+them, swelled into a deafening shout of acclamation.
+
+"The pale white man! The pale white man!"
+
+Terry understood. Uncertain, he turned to the Major, but Ohto
+interrupted by addressing him directly.
+
+"You have heard. When Ohto leaves--and it can not be long--he leaves
+his people in your hands. You will be patient, kindly, gentle, with
+them. That Ohto knows ... it is written in your face."
+
+As Terry slowly bowed his head slightly in acceptance of the trust,
+the delighted Hillmen stirred, whispered to each other. The hum of
+voices grew louder but was instantly hushed by the dramatic gesture
+with which Ohto extended his arm toward a low cotton tree that stood
+at the edge of the woods. The thousand eager heads turned almost as
+one.
+
+Upon a slender leafless branch which extended at right angles from the
+trunk of a _kapok_ tree two large gray wood pigeons had perched side
+by side in the close communion of mated birds, heedless of the host
+below them. Unafraid, tired, content with what the day had brought
+them in the lowlands, they were happy in safe return together to their
+mountain home.
+
+In the hush which followed recognition by the throng, the limoçons
+moved closer to each other, wing brushed wing, sleepy lids lowered
+over soft eyes to shut out the crimson glory of the dying sun. Then
+the little throats throbbed as they voiced gratitude to their Creator
+in gentle, low pitched notes, lilting with the joy of life, plaintive
+with the brevity of its span.
+
+The sweet song died with the day, and as dusk reached down in brief
+embrace of tropic earth, the birds winged side by side into the
+darkening forest.
+
+Peace settled upon the face of the old man who had made decision
+vitally affecting the welfare of the people over whom he had ruled for
+two generations. The limoçons had sung in the East. His fathers were
+pleased with him.
+
+A shout of fierce joy burst from the Hillmen. Then the women
+surrounded the dainty white girl and bore her off to prepare for the
+long ceremony with which the Hill People give in marriage. And the two
+friends walked through the woods, arm in arm, silent, profoundly
+humble.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+"SUS-MARIE-HOSEP!"
+
+
+Terry was happily engaged in remaking the Major's old pack for his own
+use when the Major entered the torchlit shack. It lacked an hour till
+dawn. Outside, the main clearing was dark, but the big fires which
+illuminated the surrounding trees revealed the excited natives still
+celebrating Ahma's nuptials in the clearing around Ohto's house.
+
+Terry straightened up from his task and studied the face of his
+friend: fatigue and happiness had softened the serious lines that had
+given the Major an appearance of age beyond his years.
+
+"Major, isn't the ceremony finished yet?"
+
+"No, it takes forty-eight hours to get married up here--and only two
+hours to get buried! But a month ago I would have said that it was
+about the correct ratio, at that."
+
+Terry grinned as he finished the pack and threw it on the floor near
+the door, then sat beside the Major on the cot.
+
+"Major, I want to send up a gift for Ahma by the first runner the
+postoffice people send through. It's hard to decide what to give her,
+because she is entirely different from other girls, and the usual
+bridal gifts would hardly do. Can't you help me out?"
+
+For a minute the Major pondered heavily: "How about a mirror? She is
+twenty years old and has never seen her own reflection."
+
+"Just the thing! Enter the civilizing influence of vanity in the Hill
+Country!"
+
+Terry drew a notebook from his shirt pocket. "Major, I have jotted
+down a list of things we are going to need for this work up here. I
+thought it would be better if I had a definite program to submit to
+the Governor, with estimate of appropriations necessary, and so on.
+First I listed those things you will need in order to build and
+furnish your house: cook stoves, lamps, dishes, window glass, and so
+on. I think I have included everything, so just run over those things
+you will need to begin this work."
+
+For an hour earnestly they discussed the problems the Major would
+confront pending Terry's return to take up the work. They listed a
+wide variety of needs--pigs, chickens, medicines, books, tools, seeds:
+contingent upon the Governor's approval, they outlined several months
+of planting, trail making, establishment of regular communication with
+the lowlands, selection of school teachers, of a health officer--all
+of the varied instruments needed for the initial work of elevating the
+tribesmen out of their barbarism.
+
+Dawn had dimmed their torches when they finished. For a while they sat
+silent, Terry happy in the outcome of this strange adventure in the
+Hills, the Major thrilling with the joy that had come to him.
+
+The Major broke the silence: "Terry, I AM a chump! All this time I've
+forgotten to tell you that a captain's commission is waiting your
+acceptance in Zamboanga!"
+
+He went on, slowly: "Are you sure that you can come back here for a
+year--after your honeymoon? Maybe she--your wife--won't wish to come."
+
+"Yes, she will." Terry was confident. "It will be for only one year,
+and then--"
+
+"And then what?" the Major demanded after a while.
+
+"Then--back home, among my own people. I left home foolishly, Major. I
+was restless--looking for a dragon to slay. But I have had a year in
+which to think--and I see things differently. During the time I was
+sick up here I--I ... well, I know now that a man need not cross the
+world to find service: he can be just as useful in preventing bunions
+as in--as in such lucky ventures as this."
+
+"Preventing bunions?" The Major was puzzled.
+
+But Terry did not answer. He had risen to finish his preparations for
+the journey down.
+
+"Just one more thing, Terry. You promised to tell me how you started
+that little avalanche--the 'sign.'"
+
+Something of the serenity faded from Terry's face as he turned to
+explain: "I had been up there several times, and had noticed a deep
+crevice that split the platform from the parent rock. It would have
+fallen within a few months. I carried up some softwood wedges, drove
+them into the fault, poured in a lot of water and expansion did the
+rest."
+
+The Major visualized the toil and peril of lugging heavy logs up the
+spiral trail at night. "Why didn't you let me help?" he demanded.
+
+"Well, Ahma kept guard for me, and that was enough. If I had been
+caught I could probably have talked myself out of the scrape, but it
+might have gone harder with you. Luckily the timbers I used for wedges
+were buried in the slide."
+
+The Major's face clouded swiftly: "Say, Terry! That scoundrel Pud-Pud
+said that he saw you that night--he can ruin the thing yet if he
+talks!"
+
+Terry shook his head, a little sorrowfully: "No, Pud-Pud will never
+talk to anybody about anything again. I got to Ohto too late: they had
+already executed sentence."
+
+"What did they do with him?"
+
+"Shot him full of darts and turned him loose in the Dark Forest. So I
+confessed to Ohto that I contrived the 'sign.' Of course I made him
+understand that you had nothing to do with the--trickery."
+
+"What did he say--what is he going to do about it?" The Major was
+anxious.
+
+"He had known about it all the time--his men have trailed every step
+we have taken, watched everything we have done."
+
+A slow blush mounted the Major's rugged features as he thought of the
+possibility that secret onlookers had witnessed his meeting with Ahma
+just before the wedding ceremony when he had sought to teach her the
+White Man's customs of caress. The flush persisted as he turned to
+Terry.
+
+"There's one thing I forgot to ask you to buy for me. I want a good
+talking machine, with plenty of records." He paused, then continued
+abstractedly: "She can keep it in her house."
+
+Terry looked up in astonishment. "In _her_ house? Aren't you both
+going to live in the same house?"
+
+"No. Not till you send a missionary up here to marry us. I don't
+figure that two days of savage rites constitutes a marriage--but I'm
+going to have a deuce of a time trying to explain it to Ahma!"
+
+Terry nodded sympathetically and walked the springy floor a dozen
+times, nonplussed by the Major's dilemma. Pausing in his preoccupation
+before the open window he noted vaguely that the nuptial fires were
+yellowing before the approach of dawn: a moment and he started
+violently as the solution struck him and he whirled upon the dejected
+groom with beaming countenance.
+
+"Say!" he shouted, "I'm certainly not going down with you two only
+half-married--she a bride and you not a groom! You forget that as
+Senior Inspector of Constabulary I am an ex-officio Justice of the
+Peace! Come on!"
+
+He lifted the Major by the arm and shot him through the doorway with
+an exuberant shove that left him no alternative save a jarring leap to
+the ground. Terry landed beside him as light as a cat, and catching
+him by the elbow he hurried him on through the woods and into the
+fading light of the big fires that burned before Ohto's house.
+
+Terry, his eyes dancing joyously, broke up the dance with which a
+hundred Hill People were keeping the ceremonial pot boiling, and
+despatched two women to fetch the bride, who had sought a brief
+respite from the interminable ritual. Shortly Ahma appeared before
+them, her dark eyes shadowed with fatigue, but radiant with
+exaltation.
+
+Understanding from Terry's few words that the Major desired that they
+be united also in accordance with the rites of his own people, she
+stepped quietly before Terry and took the Major's outstretched hand.
+The crowd of natives, who had crowded about them, waited the alien
+ritual curiously.
+
+Ahma was clad in the white costume in which the Major had first seen
+her. A scarlet hibiscus blossom, the Hillmen's nuptial flower, was
+thrust in her black hair, but there was no other addition to her scant
+covering.
+
+Possessed of a sudden spirit of banter Terry turned to the Major:
+"Before I begin, Major, I wish to congratulate you upon having won to
+the bliss of matrimony without violating that bachelor formula which
+you so often boasted."
+
+"What formula?"
+
+Terry's voice deepened in mimicry: "'No petticoats for mine!'"
+
+A moment he enjoyed the Major's embarrassment, then composed himself
+to the business in hand, happy, confident.
+
+But--the competent Terry fumbled. Swept away in the exuberance of
+having found a way out for the Major, he had forgotten that, never
+having exercised his legal privilege of joining in marriage in a
+province where all of the natives were either Catholic or Mohammedan,
+he was wanting in the phraseology the ceremony demanded.
+
+Vainly he sought inspiration in a sky chill with the pale lights of
+daybreak. He shuffled his feet nervously, scowled at the ring of
+brown-skinned spectators, looked at his watch. As the sweat of worry
+appeared upon his white forehead he drew his handkerchief and wiped
+his face vigorously, then blew his nose resoundingly. This last device
+seemed to serve.
+
+He turned to the serene couple who waited patiently: "Do you, John
+Bronner, take this woman, Ahma--Ahma of the Hills, to be your lawful
+wedded wife, to love and cherish and to--er--provide for?"
+
+"I do," said the Major. He was proud of Terry--trust the Constabulary
+to see a thing through!
+
+Terry was triumphant in his success. He unconsciously drew up his
+slim, muscular figure as he turned to the bride, focussing his gaze
+upon the blossom in the waves of jet locks that tumbled smoothly about
+the downcast head.
+
+"And do you, Ahma of the Hills, take this man, John Bronner, to be
+your wedded lawful husband, to love and to--er--care for when
+he--er--is sick?"
+
+She caught the groom's whispered instructions and grasped the
+wonderful import of the unknown words that Terry had spoken. Twice her
+silent lips formed the two words of response in soundless practice,
+then she looked up squarely into Terry's eyes and pronounced them.
+
+"I do."
+
+Either the clear voice was too rich with gladness, or else she should
+not have turned the starry eyes so suddenly upon him. Lost for a long
+moment in the splendor of the vision opened up to him, he forced
+himself back to the duty of the minute. But he was off the track
+again.
+
+He floundered for an opening. Bits of biblical and legal phrases
+raced through his tortured brain, but none seemed appropriate to this
+situation. The haunt of the dark eyes obscured his vision, the limpid
+"I do," filled his ears. "I do." The significance of the words brought
+him back to the point of interruption, and he turned to them,
+desperate, vague.
+
+"You do? You do, eh--you both do ... well, ... join hands! I do say
+and declare this twenty-third day of January that you are man and wife
+in accord with the law of this land, and now--"
+
+He glared at the grinning beneficiary of the service, and finished:
+"And now--and now what I--what God and I have joined let no man put
+asunder ... till death do us part ... so help me God, Amen!"
+
+In an agony of torment he ripped through the crowd and raced to the
+shack, where the Major joined him after taking Ahma into Ohto's house.
+It was now broad daylight, and the huts were emptying of the crowd
+waking to take up the burden of fiesta.
+
+Terry buckled up his pack, joining in the Major's mirth.
+
+"But you are married all right. I will send you up a certificate as
+soon as I reach Zamboanga, all signed and sealed and everything."
+
+They became serious in thought of imminent separation. Now that the
+time had come Terry dreaded leaving his friend alone in the Hills.
+
+"I will relieve you in three months, Major," he said.
+
+"You needn't hurry--don't forget I'm on a honeymoon, too!"
+
+Terry hesitated, then risked the question that had been bothering
+him: "After we come--what are you going to do? Will Ahma be ready to
+go below?"
+
+"No, she will not. I am figuring on leaving her here a few
+months--your wife can teach her to--to dress, and all that. And I
+can't take her away so long as Ohto lives. After that, I want to take
+her to the States. She learns fast, Terry,--and I want her to see
+Europe--she will learn a lot there, too!"
+
+The old woman brought them their breakfast. The Major hurried through
+the meal and left to secure a guide to take Terry down, explaining
+that he would join him in the woods. Terry ate under the sorrowing
+eyes of the faithful woman, and when he finished he presented her with
+the only gaud that remained to him, the gold medallion from his fob.
+She scurried out to display it, the proudest woman, save one, in all
+the Hills.
+
+Slinging the pack across his shoulders he turned for a last look at
+the little hut that had sheltered him. Within its cramped walls he had
+suffered, had known grave peril, and great joy. A hint of the old
+wistfulness flickered about the corner of his mouth, then he left the
+hut and strode through the clearing into the woods, halting to wave
+cheerfully at the Hillmen who somberly watched the departure of their
+future chief.
+
+He dipped over the edge of the plateau and found the Major awaiting
+him with Ahma and the young warrior who was to guide him down. From
+where they stood at the edge of a wide glade they could see far down
+over the tops of the trees that matted the slope. In the clear morning
+air the mists which gleamed over the distant Gulf shone white as
+billowed snow. There lay Davao! Davao, then Zamboanga, then--! A
+fiercely glad light blazed in Terry's gray eyes, then darkened in
+anticipation of leaving the Major alone and with that melancholy with
+which all men face the knowledge that even as Life turns the pages of
+existence into its happiest chapter, she closes each finished page
+forever.
+
+The Major spoke first. "This guide knows the shortest route. He will
+take you safe past all the man traps--you should sleep but one night
+on the trail. Give my regards to Lindsey, Sears,--everybody."
+
+Ahma looked from one to the other, not quite understanding what they
+said, but understanding fully what they did not say. That showed in
+the face of each.
+
+"Major, I have never said anything about your--how I feel about your
+risking the Hills to search for me, when it meant almost certain
+death."
+
+Death!... For an instant the Major again stood helpless in the dark
+woods behind Lindsey's plantation embraced in coils of steel that
+quivered, and heard the crash of delivering shots.... He searched the
+white face, in which the lines of suffering from a chivalrously
+contracted fever still lingered. An extraordinary warm cataract
+suddenly obscured his vision.
+
+"Sus-marie-hosep!" he spluttered. "Good-by."
+
+Their hands gripped hard in an abiding friendship, then Terry turned
+to Ahma doubtfully, at a loss as to how to bid adieu to this creature
+of the Hills who knew so few of the white man's words or usages. He
+found, too, a source of embarrassment in her new capacity of wife. As
+she gazed up at him he looked away in boyish confusion.
+
+The Major grasped the situation and addressed her very slowly in
+English: "Ahma, say good-by to him."
+
+As she nodded brightly, understanding, the Major turned to Terry as
+proud as Punch: "You see--she is learning fast! Can't you imagine her,
+all dressed up and everything, in Europe?"
+
+Terry focussed his eyes safely upon the white line that marked the
+part in her hair, and carefully pronounced each English word.
+
+"Ahma, I am leaving for a while. Understand?"
+
+She bobbed the dark head: "I do," she said.
+
+The memories wrought by the limpid "I do" were a bit unsettling. He
+addressed the jet locks again: "Good-by."
+
+She looked at the capable hand he extended toward her, puzzled at the
+gesture, then looked at the Major. He said a single word in dialect
+and her small white teeth glistened in a smile of comprehension. She
+approached close to Terry.
+
+"I know. You say--good-night. I know how--to good-night."
+
+Her concentration upon the unaccustomed pronunciations was bewitching.
+To relieve the strain of embarrassment he felt in her closeness to
+him, he turned to the grinning Major.
+
+"As you say--she _does_ learn quickly," he offered, rather vaguely.
+
+She came closer still. "Yes, I know--how to--good-night!" she trilled:
+"Good-night is kiss!"
+
+She called it "Keez" but Terry understood. If he did not then he did
+an instant later when he felt the clasp of warm round arms, the
+molding pressure of a soft form and the swift impress of full
+sensitive lips.
+
+Loosed, he straightened up. His blush was explosive. Bewildered, he
+shrugged the light pack higher on his shoulders and gestured his
+readiness to the warrior who had stood watching the inexplicable ways
+of these strange white folk.
+
+Following the Hillman, Terry set off across the glade. Midway down the
+green sward he wheeled.
+
+"I should say she DOES learn fast!" he called. "You won't need to take
+HER to Europe!"
+
+The two stood watching him as he followed the powerful little savage.
+As the forest swallowed up the slim form the Major blinked rapidly,
+and gripped the little hand he held.
+
+"Sus-marie-hosep!" he exclaimed huskily. "But won't they be glad to
+see him in Davao! And in Zamboanga!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+THE FOX SKIN
+
+
+Terry pushed the hardy Hillman to his limit, so that when night fell
+they were far down among the foothills, the Dark Forest behind them.
+At daylight the Hillman was proudly mounting homeward, Terry's belt
+tightly buckled about his naked trunk. The white man's last
+dispensable possession had gone as a reward for the service.
+
+Terry's joyous urge carried him swiftly, so that in an hour he dropped
+out of the foothills and into the heat of the jungled lowlands. At
+noon he climbed Sears' steps and dropped into a porch chair, his
+clothes wet with perspiration and torn by contact with brush and
+thorn, for he had cut straight through the woods.
+
+He had nearly emptied Sears' water bottle when he saw the big planter
+coming out of a wonderful growth of hemp. Sears advanced slowly, deep
+in thought, not looking up till he had mounted the last step. At sight
+of Terry's grinning features he recoiled violently, then as the lad
+rose, he jumped forward to wring his hand furiously. Incapable of
+coherent speech for several minutes, he at last mastered his vocal
+cords.
+
+"Man! I thought you were a ghost!" he cried.
+
+Terry sketched his journey into the Hills, and added a brief account
+of the experiences he and the Major had undergone. Learning that the
+Major was also safe, Sears called a Bogobo boy and issued instructions
+that sent him scurrying into one of the Bogobo huts. In a few minutes
+he returned bearing a small agong and striker.
+
+Under Sears' directions he hung it upon a pole in front of the house
+and struck it sharply, again and again. As the deep notes carried out
+through the still, hot woods Sears motioned to him to desist and
+turned to Terry.
+
+"Listen!" he exclaimed, intent, his hand on Terry's shoulder.
+
+In a moment another agong, somewhere close to the south, sounded
+several times, then another further away, then another, another. Soon
+the noon stillness of the brush pulsed with the mystic multi-tones of
+scores of far agongs rung from plantations. Slowly the murmur grew as
+hundreds of agongs rung by Bogobos in the foothills took up the
+signal, flooding the hemplands with a glad, bronze chorus.
+
+Sears gripped Terry's shoulder hard, his eyes brimming.
+
+"That's the signal we fixed up," he said. "Welcome home!"
+
+He hovered over Terry, questioning, commenting, incredulous over the
+Major's marriage, overjoyed that the quinine he had given Terry had
+been a factor in his recovery. After lunch Terry borrowed Sears' best
+pony and rode away with the planter's profane benedictions in his
+ears.
+
+He rode hard, but each familiar landmark, each twist in trail, each
+sight of river, each expanse of glistening hemp plants, thrilled him
+with a sense of homecoming. Once, drawing up to cool and water his
+pony, he caught the sparkle of the sunny Gulf, his nostrils sensed its
+tang, and with the surge of thanksgiving for the wonderful good
+fortune that had attended him, he first realized the strain of the
+past weeks.
+
+Great as was his hurry to reach Davao--an hour's tardiness might mean
+the loss of the weekly steamer--he spent a half-hour with Lindsey, who
+had ridden out to the trail in the hope of intercepting him. From
+Lindsey he learned more of the suspense that had hung over the Gulf
+since his disappearance, the deep anxiety that had spread among the
+Bogobos and silenced every agong in the foothills.
+
+"And Terry--the night the Giant Agong rang up there--we most went
+crazy!"
+
+"We wondered if you heard it, Lindsey."
+
+"Heard it! Heard it? It reached clear over on the East Coast. Boynton
+heard it over there."
+
+Terry pressed on. Three miles below he found Casey was out to meet
+him, and further on, Burns. At four o'clock he dismounted to greet
+some Bogobos whom he overtook on the trail. Pushing Sears' little
+brown hard, he rode into Davao at five o'clock.
+
+The plaza was crowded. Warned of his coming by the agong chorus, the
+whole town had turned out, Americans, Filipinos, Chinese, several
+Spaniards and Moros. The sleepy, dusty square waked to their noisy
+welcome.
+
+"_El Solitario!! El Conquistador del Malabanan!_"
+
+Laughing, misty eyed with the warmth of their greeting, he stood in
+the center of the jostling crowd, shaking hands, calling each white,
+native and Mongolian by name. Then the Macabebes claimed him and swept
+him into the privacy of the cuartel.
+
+The jealous Matak had waited till Terry entered the house that his
+welcome might be unshared.
+
+"Master, I know you come back. All time I know," he assured him
+gravely, then looked him over and sent out for the barber. Solemn and
+efficient as ever, he hustled his master under the shower, helped him
+into the first starched clothes he had known in five weeks, then went
+into the kitchen to frighten the cook into greater haste in
+preparation of dinner.
+
+Barber shears, soap and clean linens restored Terry to his usual
+nattiness, and he delighted the cook with the zest with which he
+approached a good dinner after the weeks of the crude and
+undiversified fare of the Hillmen. Halfway through dinner he beckoned
+to Matak who stood with folded arms near the kitchen door as matter of
+fact as though the routine of the household had never been disturbed.
+
+"Matak, when is the mail boat due?"
+
+"She come this morning, go noontime."
+
+And this was the twenty-fourth. Terry's keen disappointment was
+apparent to the watchful Moro.
+
+"Master, you want go to Zamboanga?" he said.
+
+"Yes. I must go as soon as possible, Matak."
+
+"Take little boat Major come in. She still here."
+
+Terry jumped up from the dinner table and hurried to the dock and
+found the speedboat tied up alongside. After a hurried conference with
+Adams he raced back to the house, where the forehanded Matak was
+already packing his bags. Terry added a steamer trunk which held his
+civilian clothes, and as dusk fell master and man stepped aboard the
+frail craft. Adams was ready. A sharp thrust of foot quickened the
+engine into life, and they swung in a short circle. Straightening,
+motors roaring, the stern sucked deep as they sped in swift flight
+into the south.
+
+From his seat in the stern Terry watched the light fade out of the
+western sky. The stars invaded the deserted field and dimly outlined
+the rim of the mountains, a smooth line save where Apo reared high in
+the west. For a moment the dark peak seemed lonely to him, but he knew
+that the Major was happy on the pine clad height.... After Ohto's
+passing, his own responsibility, the guidance of a child-tribe, would
+be a heavy one ... a year of that, perhaps, and then--but first ...
+his heart throbbed in vivid realization of all that awaited him in
+Zamboanga.
+
+Adams hovered about his engines, happy in Terry's return and in this
+opportunity to render him service. Matak stretched out on a cross
+seat, unhappy in the deafening roar of the motors and the rhythmic
+rise and fall of the speeding craft in the smooth landswells.
+
+As they rounded Sarangani in the middle of the calm moonlit night
+Adams left the cockpit long enough to cover Terry with a thick
+blanket, for he had succumbed to the monotonous chorus of the motors
+and the lull of the bewitching night at sea.
+
+As the calm weather held, Adams steered straight for Zamboanga,
+putting out to sea in the little motorboat. When Terry woke Basilan
+was in sight, and at five o'clock they rushed down the tidal current
+of the Straits and eased into the slip alongside the dock.
+
+Adams, grimy, worn with his long vigil, grinned contentedly under
+Terry's warm thanks. Leaving Matak to secure a bullcart to transport
+his luggage to the Major's house Terry hurried down the dock and
+entered the Government Building. The clerks had left for the day but
+at Terry's knock the Governor himself threw wide the door.
+
+Profound thankfulness lit Mason's intellectual face. Grasping Terry's
+hand he led him into the office.
+
+"And the Major?" he questioned.
+
+"Well--and very happy, sir!"
+
+Keen-eyed, observant, in the moment of welcome the Governor had sensed
+the new Terry, read the new contentment and confidence manifest in his
+face and bearing.
+
+In a few minutes Terry had sketched his experiences to his eager
+auditor. The Governor contented himself with a bare outline, though
+his eyes glistened. The Hills opened!
+
+"Captain Terry," he said, "come in to-morrow and tell me the
+details--I will give you the entire morning. To-morrow I will try to
+tell you how happy I am in your safe return, and in the service you
+have rendered this Government."
+
+He rose, beaming with the news it was his privilege to impart.
+
+"You had best run along now, Captain. You will find three
+anxious--friends--awaiting you at the Major's house. They expected to
+arrive to-morrow but caught the transport and docked yesterday. They
+will be relieved to see you, for I had to tell them something of the
+uncertainty we felt regarding your--whereabouts. Take my car, and run
+along!"
+
+And Terry ran along! He flew down the steps and into the automobile
+and in three minutes was leaping up the stairway into the Major's
+house.
+
+Ellis, fatter, somehow absurd in tropic whites, met him at the
+entrance. Meeting halfway around the world from where they had parted,
+choking with the end of the dread suspense into which the Governor's
+guarded references to Terry's disappearance had plunged him, Ellis'
+big heart thumped in glad relief, but true to the traditions of his
+lifetime environment he strove to repress it, to appear as casual as
+though they had been in daily association. Pumping Terry's hand
+spasmodically, he measured the ecstatic lad with extravagant care,
+studied him from crown to heel.
+
+"Dick, how do you do it?" he asked.
+
+"Do what, Ellis?" Terry's voice was unsteady, too.
+
+"Keep so fit in this oven of a country--you're as hard as nails!"
+
+Terry's unsteady laugh rang through the big bungalow: "Go on, you
+fakir--you're crying right now!"
+
+Ellis was. He turned away as Susan rushed out of an adjoining room.
+Laughing, sobbing, she threw herself upon her brother, held him away
+to study his appearance, hugged him tighter, pouring out a volume of
+questions she offered him no opportunity to answer.
+
+Five minutes, and she recovered sufficient reason to catch the
+significance of Ellis' vehement gestures toward the second of the row
+of four bedrooms that opened off the sala. Understanding, she left
+Terry and followed Ellis into their room, closing the door with a bang
+intended as a signal to another who listened.
+
+Terry waited, idly stroking the long frond of an air plant that hung
+in the wide window near where he stood. He wondered, vaguely, that he
+should be so collected, almost unconcerned, in the face of what
+awaited him. He saw the door open slowly, wider, then arrest as if the
+hand on the knob had faltered, and in the instant his self-possession
+deserted him.
+
+His heart skipped a beat, then accelerated into a heavy thumping that
+seemed to fill the room with pulsing muffled roar. He moistened his
+lips as the door moved again, opened wide.
+
+Deane stepped into the room, pale, her wide blue eyes fixed upon him.
+Slender, rounded, white of arm and throat, she had fulfilled
+gloriously all of the fair promise of her youth. The rich heritage of
+womanhood had stamped the softly curved form and the sweetly pensive
+face. Virginal, she was a mother of men.
+
+He faced her from the window, powerless to move, to speak, but there
+was that in his eyes that made words unnecessary. Scarce breathing,
+atremble, she saw the steady gray eyes blaze with a light no other had
+ever seen, ever would see.
+
+To him she suddenly became unreal, and his mind reverted to another
+hour when they had stood facing each other. Again she stood before
+him in the dimlit hall, sobbing, and with the memory came a surging
+realization of what he might have lost. Unconsciously his last words
+to her, spoken that Christmas night, sprang brokenly to his lips as he
+held out his arms:
+
+"Don't wait, Deane-girl, don't wait."
+
+With the sudden deepening of the wistful lines of his mouth she felt a
+burning rush of tears, and at his words she crossed to him, starry
+eyed, full red lips aquiver.
+
+There never was a merrier party of four than theirs that night. The
+questions flew back and forth, answers clipped short by new and more
+pressing queries. Ellis and Susan were full of the newcomers' interest
+in the country, its peoples and customs. Deane, quieter, was
+interested most in Terry's work, in Davao, in the story of the Hills.
+Terry learned of the home friends. Father Jennings, Doctor Mather, Mr.
+Hunter, a score of others, had sent messages to him. Deane had brought
+special greetings from his friends on the Southside, and a garish
+picture of little Richard Terry Ricorro. Half of her larger trunk was
+filled with silver and linens which had poured in when news of the
+purpose of her journey had sifted through Crampville.
+
+They were seated on the cool veranda at coffee when the Governor's car
+drew up outside the gate, and the chauffeur entered with a note.
+
+     Dear Captain Terry:
+
+     This car is yours throughout the stay of your--will not the
+     word "family" soon properly cover all three of them?
+
+     Please use it freely. I have another entirely suited for my
+     present needs.
+
+     I am very happy to-night, happy in your safe return and in
+     the achievement you have wrought in the name of the
+     Government it is my unmerited privilege to head. And this
+     happiness will be the greater for knowing that you are
+     driving through this glorious evening by the side of her who
+     came so far to join her life with yours.
+
+                                                  MASON.
+
+After Terry had read the note aloud Deane added her pleas to his that
+Susan and Ellis should share the car with them. But they would have
+none of it. When Susan wavered, Ellis became emphatic.
+
+So the two rode through the tropic night alone, that night and during
+the glorious evenings that followed for a week. They came to know
+every village along the ribboned roads, each grove of tall palms, each
+stretch of beach where smooth highways ran along the coast. She loved
+the island empire.
+
+They talked as such do talk. The third night, as they rolled through
+the moonlight down the San Ramon road, he found courage to broach the
+one subject he had hesitated to mention.
+
+"The Governor wants me to stay a year," he faltered. "A year up in the
+Hills."
+
+She had expected it, was ready. She looked full up at him, and in the
+soft light her lovely face shone with a strange beauty that humbled
+him.
+
+"Dick, 'and thy people shall be my people.'"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+They planned their house in the Hills, bought and stored picturesque
+odds and ends of furniture and fittings; brasses, embroideries,
+carved teak: and he outlined their honeymoon, which was to be a
+three-months' ramble through Japan, the magic lover's land. They
+arranged no exact itinerary, just a wandering through Miajima, Kyoto,
+Nikko,--a score of out of the way places.
+
+The mornings he spent with the enthusiastic Governor, planning,
+discussing. Two tons of supplies went out to the Major the fourth day.
+
+"I put in an assortment of presents for him to give to the Hillmen,"
+the Governor told him. "And plenty of matches--you say they went wild
+over those he packed up. They will be rich!"
+
+"Governor, the Hillmen are the richest people I have ever seen."
+
+The Governor was puzzled: "How?"
+
+"They have everything they want. Land for the clearing, a spear,
+cotton growing wild on trees for such clothes as they wear, meat in
+the forest, bamboo to cut for shelter against wind and rain, upland
+rice springing up from barely scratched soils. No social striving, no
+politics, no taxes. All their wants are satisfied--was Croesus as
+rich?"
+
+"Then you do not believe in civilizing them--it means introducing new
+wants--some of which they never will satisfy!"
+
+"Yes, I do, Governor. Civilization means doctors, less suffering,
+longer life: schools and books: agriculture and better diet: commerce
+and clothes: churches, and morality--and soap!"
+
+The day came when Terry and Deane drove down the San Ramon road where
+the Governor had preceded them, with Ellis and Susan and a score of
+the new friends they had made in Zamboanga. Wade had insisted that his
+spacious bungalow be the scene of their wedding.
+
+Even before he had wrought the house into a fairy-land of palm and
+cadena and hibiscus the great flowered sweeps of lawn and grove set by
+the sea had been an ideal setting. Ellis, given his choice of
+functions, had elected to officiate as best man, so the Governor was
+happy in giving the bride away. Susan cried, as matrons of honor
+always do, as she stood with them in the fret-work of shadows under
+the palms which stirred gently in the off-sea breeze.
+
+None of those most concerned remembered many of the details of the
+evening, excepting Matak, who met there a young Moro maid and found
+her fair.
+
+They returned to Zamboanga under enchanting stars, and at nine o'clock
+they saw Ellis and Susan leave, for they were returning home at once
+through the Suez, taking steamer first for Borneo and Java. Their own
+boat left an hour later for Manila, Hong Kong and Nagasaki.
+
+Bidding Ellis good-by, Terry woke from the dream in which he had moved
+through the afternoon.
+
+"Ellis, do not sell the shoe store. We may be home in a year, and I'll
+want to pitch into something."
+
+"But you'd never fool with that after--after all this over here!"
+
+Terry laughed happily: "You never can tell, Ellis. I am learning
+lessons every day!"
+
+Later, Ellis sought to dry Susan's tears. "Dick, you're a fine lover!
+After all these years of search for things for Deane you failed to
+give her a wedding gift!"
+
+Terry flushed miserably, for it was true. But Deane thrilled the more
+happily for the utter absorption in her that had expelled all other
+things from his mind: she knew that Susan had prompted him to both
+engagement and wedding rings.
+
+From the pier they watched Ellis and Susan at the rail till the
+altering course of the brilliantly lighted steamer swept them from
+sight.
+
+An hour later their own liner carried them northward through the dark
+Straits.
+
+The deck was deserted, dark. They sat close, in long steamer chairs,
+watching the mysterious coastline of Mindanao, the shadowy masses of
+distant mountains that seemed less substance than opaque obstruction
+of the warm, starry sky. Neither spoke. It was the hour of fullest
+gratitude, of mutual dedication. The night about them was filled with
+that humming heard only on a big ship plowing through a calm sea after
+sundown, the drone of light winds through lofty rigging, the heavy
+slipping of displaced water, the muffled roar of great engines
+throbbing in the deep hold.
+
+Eight bells rang the midnight hour. Deane rose, whispering that she
+had a few things to unpack, bidding him come in ten minutes. Leaning
+over him, she smoothed his hair lightly with her two hands, curling
+about her fingers the obstinate scalp lock that always would stand
+forth from his crown. Reaching up, he took her cool hands and held
+them tightly against his cheeks. Releasing her, he watched the
+progress of the buoyant form down the long deck, his soul lit with the
+flame that warms all mankind.
+
+The moon, in its last quarter, peered over the dark rim of the
+mountains. When its lower tip cleared, he rose.
+
+When he joined her in their stateroom, her eyes filled happily as she
+watched the fine, white face.
+
+The fox skin lay on the cabin floor before her berth.
+
+
+PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Transcriber's Notes:
+
+Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully as
+possible, including obsolete and variant spellings and other
+inconsistencies.  The transcriber made the following changes to the
+text to correct obvious errors:
+
+1. p.  70, "Sear interrupted" changed to "Sears interrupted"
+2. p.  81, "wierd-shaped" changed to "weird-shaped"
+3. p.  96, "guaged" changed to "gauged"
+4. p. 189, "move toward the fringe" changed to "moved toward the fringe"
+5. p. 200, "spit into two factions" changed to "split into two factions"
+6. p. 207, "beneath their eerie" changed to "beneath their aerie"
+7. p. 219, "the swind swept crag" changed to "the wind swept crag"
+
+End of Transcriber's Notes]
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Terry, by Charles Goff Thomson
+
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