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 d.i.c.k:--

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, d.i.c.k?

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, d.i.c.k,--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 hoa.r.s.e 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 pa.s.sersby 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. "Limocons," the Bogobos call them--"leem-o-sahns": the word falls limpid from their lips, unaccented. They say the limocon 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.

d.i.c.k.

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 b.u.t.ton: "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, pa.s.sed 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.