"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 Curie?

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, Senor," 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 Senorita 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!"