The Francesca, no slower and no dirtier than most of the other steamers which ply the inter-island trade routes, had waddled all night and all day through the Celebes Sea. Afternoon found her laboring over a becalmed mirror of sea, past rippled reefs, through clusters of little coral islands from which straggle-plumed palms raised wry fronds in anemic defiance of inhospitable, root resisting soil. Mindanao lay to the west and south, vast, mysterious.

Terry stood alone at the forward end of the small promenade deck watching the third class passengers, who, though still manifesting the uneasiness of the Malay landsman at sea, were comfortably sprawled upon the dirty hatch covers enjoying the seven-mile breeze created by the movement of the vessel through the still atmosphere. Upon the cooler side of the upper deck the first class passengers had disposed themselves under the once-white awning. Two natives, a Tagalog planter named Ledesma and his big-eyed, full-bosomed daughter, had withdrawn themselves from the whites and were seated in conscious dignity near the aft rail. Four Americans were grouped up forward, stretched out in full length steamer chairs in the complete physical comfort born of a cooling evening after a blistering day.

Lindsey reached out to pull up an extra chair, beckoned Terry to join them and introduced him to the fourth member of the group, naming him as Sears.

He was a big man, heavy-set, a bit untidy of dress and beard: his face was flushed, and he answered Terry's pleasant salutation with a mattered growl. Lindsey moved in his chair, uneasily.

"Lieutenant," he said, "we want to get acquainted with you. We shall see much of each other in Davao."

Before Terry could respond a harsh voice broke in: "Yes, none of us are stuck on ourselves down here!"

The words fell cold. Sensing the purpose to offend, Terry straightened in his chair to face Sears. He met his surly stare squarely: their eyes battled, but under the level gaze Sears' bloodshot eyes wavered and lowered, the flush deepening angrily with his confusion.

Lindsey hastily summoned the deckboy to take their orders and by the time he returned with the drinks the constraint had abated. Sears, the only one who had ordered whiskey, settled back in his chair in sullen relief from a situation not quite to his liking. Lindsey raised his glass to Terry.

"To your arrival among us," he offered, pleasantly.

"To you all, sir," Terry responded.

"More hemp!" suggested Cochran.

Little Casey attested to his passion: "To breeds and breeders and breeding!" he grinned: it was his never-failing toast at the Davao Club.

They waited a moment for Sears, but he had gulped his drink.

It was the enthusiastic Casey who first spoke: "Lieutenant, and when do you think you can come down to my place? I want you to see my Berkshire boar and my two American mares!"

Cochran smiled at him, affectionately: everybody liked Casey for his wild enthusiasms. His latest hobby was the importation of blooded animals to cross with native stock.

"Casey," said Cochran, "if you would pay half as much attention to your plantation as you do to your mares and that old grunter, you'd get somewhere!"

Casey snorted: "Sure, and in about three months I'll have a colt to show you—then you'll sing another tune! And wait till I get some half-breed pigs—instead of the hollow-backed scrawny things we've got now—then you'll admit that Casey was the boy!"

Casey was more or less of a character in the Gulf. His words flew so fast they overran each other in effort to keep abreast of his racing ideas. Thoroughly respected for his sterling character, he was made the target of much good-natured hilarity because of his constant hobby-riding and the rushing speech that made him almost incoherent. His mares and boar had cost him money that could better have gone into plantation improvements.

The conversation, drifting fitfully, touched upon a new stripping machine which Lindsey had purchased in Manila: he was bringing it down in the hold of the Francesca.

"I watched them load it," he declared. "I took no chances in being shy a necessary bolt or belt. I'll have it set up in a couple of weeks and if it works as well in the field as it did in the agent's warehouse—no more labor troubles for me—no more hemp rotting in the ground for lack of strippers!"

Cochran was mildly pessimistic. He had seen too many other heralded inventions which worked well experimentally but failed in the hemp fields. Of course Casey was hopeful—it was his nature.

Sears broke his long silence: "Labor troubles, labor shortage! Hell!—there's plenty of labor in the Gulf—if only the Government wasn't always hornin' in on us!"

Terry knew the remark was aimed at him but refrained from comment. Sears mistook his silence.

"But no meddlin' government is goin' to interfere with me! I'm goin' to run my own place from now on—and get my labor where I please—and how I please!"

As this elicited no response from the patient officer he continued despite Lindsey's distressed signals. Emboldened, he turned directly to Terry.

"I suppose," he snarled, "that you were sent down to be the little fairy god-father to the Bogobos—to protect the poor heathen from the awful planters who want to make them work. No?"

Terry stirred. "Mr. Sears, I am instructed to protect the Bogobos from any oppression—and to aid the planters in every legitimate way. I hope to do both."

Sears' passion seemed fed by the conciliatory tone. Terry studied the convulsed face and through the thick veil of rage saw the lines of worry that had aged him prematurely: the black hair was streaked with gray and his hands were thickened and stained with toil. Moved by a quick sympathy Terry spoke again:

"Mr. Sears, this is no time to discuss the matter. In a week or so I will come to see you and—"

Sears interrupted in a voice hoarse with anger: "Terry, if any government man comes—snoopin' round my place—I'll—I'll—he will never snoop again!"

In the tense silence that followed the challenge Lindsey bit clean through his cigar. Terry's answer was so long in coming that the trio of Americans who listened experienced something of the faint qualm which sickens a man when he witnesses another's backing-down. Finally he spoke, slowly, his measured words scarcely audible above the muffled beat of the propeller.

"Sears, I am coming to your place first. I will come within a week."

Sears jumped to his feet, shaking with the hatred he had conceived for the young officer. Terry rose easily, looking frail in comparison with the burly figure opposing him, but he surveyed Sears steadily, unafraid, and not unfriendly.

Cochran coughed loudly, and again. Casey nervously undid a shoelace, retieing it with meticulous care. Lindsey rose with studied leisureliness and stood at the rail near Sears, ready.

But the ship's bell rang out the dinner hour, a waiting Visayan steward stepped out on the deck hammering a Chinese dinner gong, and in the strident din the crisis passed. Lindsey lingered to speak with Terry after the others had passed below.

"I'm very sorry, Lieutenant. Sears is a rough fellow, but he is half-crazed with worry. He's really not a bad hombre."

Terry nodded: "I can see that he is worried about something."

"It's his plantation. He has invested what little money he had in it, has worked hard for three years, and now that he has his first big crop he can't harvest it—the Bogobos won't work for him. He is pretty rough with them, I guess—but if he doesn't harvest this crop he's ruined. He's in debt—and pretty desperate."

He paused, a deeper concern crept into his face: "Lieutenant," he said earnestly, "can't you stay away from his place—a while—till he gets his hemp cut and stripped? He is really desperate—and always packs a gun."

Terry smiled his gratitude. "Lindsey, I am much obliged to you. You need not worry about it."

Neither Sears nor Lindsey were of the group which assembled on deck after dinner to enjoy the brilliancy of the swift sunset. The ship had swung through Sarangani Channel and was paralleling the west coast due north toward Davao. The red glory of the dying sun tinted the waters of the Gulf to the line of palm-fringed beach which edged the distant shoreline. From the shore the land sloped gently to the west and north, mile after mile of primeval jungle broken here and there where brush and thorn and creeper had yielded to man's demand for more and more hemp. Far inland the steady rise persisted, grew more abrupt and more heavily timbered, terminating in the far interior in a dim and mighty mountain whose dark-wooded slopes and misted crest dominated the Gulf: the red orb of the sun had dropped behind this towering summit.

Cochran pointed up at the distant mountain: "Mount Apo."

Terry nodded: "Where the Hill People live?"

"Yes,—where they are supposed to live: no one really knows ... you will hear all sorts of stories."

The shadows which lurked upon Mount Apo descended over the lower slopes, then enfolded the Gulf. The lights on the steamer shone murkily. The three lay back watching the stars brighten overhead. For a long time nothing was heard but the querulous mutterings of the old boat as she waddled on her way.

Terry broke the silence: "Where is Lindsey?"

Cochran answered quickly to head off the more explicit Casey: "Oh, he's busy—busy with Sears."

Terry understood. Cochran sparred for an opening in the silence his friendship for Sears made embarrassing.

"Lieutenant, you are likely to have work for your soldiers pretty soon. There's a rough outfit gathering down here in the Gulf—though I imagine Bronner told you all about it."

"He told me something of it, but I would like to hear more."

"Well, I don't know much about it, excepting that a score or more of tough characters have come down in the past two months. They settled on a mangy plantation up the coast, north of Davao, but they aren't working: just loafing around all day. They seem to be waiting for something—or somebody. The natives are scared, and the whites don't feel any too good about it either! You know we are scattered all over the Gulf—everybody a mile or more away from his neighbors—and that means a mile of jungle."

Casey flared up: "We ought to run 'em out—they're no good, probably carabao thieves or worse—"

"How worse?" grinned Cochran. "Horse thieves—or pig thieves?"

Casey did not mind being ragged by his friends. He persisted: "Lieutenant, you ought to run 'em out as undesirables or under the vagabond law! They're no good—they won't work—and they're the toughest lookin' lot I ever did see! Sure and if I had my way I'd toss the lot into Sears' crocodile hole—the dirty, low-lived, shiftless lot of 'em!"

Terry was interested: "Sears' crocodile hole?" he asked.

Cochran laughingly explained: "It's more or less of a joke between Sears and Lindsey: each has a hoodoo on his place that makes it harder to get laborers. The Bogobos fear a great snake they swear haunts Lindsey's woods, and none of them wants to go near a pool on Sears' places just below the ford—they claim it is the home of a monstrous crocodile, thirty feet long. No white man has ever seen either; it's a big joke in a way—but a costly one for them as it makes the wild men give their places a wide berth."

"What have they done about it?"

"Everything. Got up hunting parties—stalked the places for hours and days, tried to convince the natives that it is all bosh. But they insist it's all true, and stay away—and loss of man power means loss of money they both need this year. Both of them think the stories are just the usual Bogobo exaggerations."

Terry thought Cochran not quite convinced: "What do you think?"

"I? Oh, I don't know. It's hard to swallow the stories—man-eating snakes and crocodiles sound all right on the lips of the old Spaniards but where our flag flies things seem to sober down. Yet I've usually found that back of all these Bogobo tales there is an element of truth: and two years ago when I was clearing my place I shot an eighteen-foot python. Stumbled on it sleeping—glad it was!"

The evening monsoon had set in, rippling the surface of the sea and humming its cooling refrain through the rigging. Casey yawned heavily and went below to seek the planter's early sleep. Cochran remained with Terry for a half-hour, enlightening him with a running talk of the problems confronting the planters. He was well educated, progressive, and backed by ample family means had developed the best holding in the Gulf. He told Terry that on this trip he had succeeded in persuading thirty timid Visayan families to settle upon his plantation despite their native fear of all things Mindanaoan, and that his profits for the year would return him sixty per cent of the capital he had invested in his place.

"You will soon understand conditions, Lieutenant," he declared as he rose to go below. "Most of the planters need labor, and they need capital." He threw his cigar butt over the rail, debating the ethics of uttering what might be thought a criticism of his associates. "And they need farming intelligence most—too many of them were army men or government men before coming down here, yet they tackle a highly specialized form of tropical agriculture with utter confidence! They aren't farmers—they're just heroes!"

He half-turned to go, hesitated: "Lieutenant, you're going to like it down here—because we're going to like you. Now, of course it's none of my business, but if I were you I would keep away from Sears' place—he will make his threat good. He has it in him to become a pretty bad man—but as I say, it's none of my business. Goodnight, sir."

After Cochran had gone, Terry, sleepless, slowly walked the gently rolling deck. Ledesma stood at the rail near the forward lifeboat gazing into the soft shadows which shrouded the muttering ship. At Terry's quiet approach he turned to address him abstractedly in the liquid Spanish of cultured Filipinos.

"Buenas Noches, SeÑor Teniente."

Terry answered in the same tongue: "Good Evening, SeÑor Ledesma. A fine night."

The natives' vague fear of the dark—wrought into instinct by a thousand generations of ancestors who crouched at night around flickering campfires in jungles through which crept hostile men and marauding beasts—had fastened upon him, stripping him of the thin veneer of civilization the Spaniards had laid but lightly over the Malayan barbarism. He shifted uneasily, looked out over the starlit sea.

"Teniente," he murmured, "I like not the night. The dead rise ... some sing ... some complain ... drift through the black mists searching for those they have long lost ... the vampires seek for unprotected children.... I like not the night...."

Lost in the ghastly realms of native ghostlore, he ignored the American. Terry rounded the deck once and when he came again to where Ledesma had stood he found him gone to seek the cheer of lighted cabin. Terry stopped at the forward rail, his face upturned to the big stars which burned in the soft depths of the warm sky: the Southern Cross poised just over the crest of Apo. Below, on the black sea, the thrust of the vessel threw up a great welt which bordered the wedge of disturbed waters: phosphorescence gleamed like great wet stars. The tips of cigarettes glowed on the forward deck where members of the crew lay prone, exchanging occasional words in the hushed voices races not far from nature use in the still hours of the night.

The morning would find him in a strange place, among strangers ... he leaned upon the rail in a sudden excess of yearning for those whom he loved, summoned the spirits of those who loved him. They came to him through the night—Susan fretting, Ellis affectionately gruff, Enrico boisterously cheerful, Father Jennings wise, patient, watchful. Another, fairer, unutterably dear, hovered near him: he strove, as of old, to bridge the gap—and was baffled, as of old.

The eight bells of midnight roused him from his dejected reverie: he straightened from the rail. The Cross had dipped into the clouded crest: miles to the west a shorefire bit into the black mantle that draped the Gulf. The low wailing of an infant and the guttural endeavors of the mother to soothe it came up from the forward deck where the native passengers lay sprawled in the profound slumber of the Malay: pacified, it slept again, then the night was still but for the soft sounds of displaced waters and the creakings of the ship's old joints.

As he passed along the narrow, ill-lighted passage toward his cabin he heard a voice raised in ugly imprecation:

"I'll get him if he comes, the —— upstart! Just let him show his face on my place, by ——, I'll fix him!"

It was Sears' voice. As he felt his way down the dark corridor, he heard Lindsey's low tones, reproachful, conciliatory.

A few steps further brought him near Sears' door. Suddenly he distinguished a figure outlined against the door, listening. As a match flared in Terry's fingers, the native whirled.

It was Matak. He followed Terry to his cabin, unabashed.

"Master," he said simply, "he talk about you. He make fight talk—kill talk—so I listen."

The seed of his loyalty fell on ground furrowed by the lonely hours on deck. Shame at having given way to a great depression swept over Terry—friends were in the making, this splendid friend already made ... and he had come to serve, not to seek.... He smiled into the worshiping black eyes.

"It's all right, Matak. You do not understand. You go to your quarters and get some sleep."

The Moro lingered. "Anything more, master?"

"Yes, Matak. Don't call me 'master': call me 'lieutenant.'

"Yes, master." He left the cabin.

Terry, always a light sleeper, was awakened toward morning by a slight sound outside his door. Looking out into the dim corridor he saw that Matak was standing guard over his slumbers, armed with a big bolo whose naked length gleamed viciously in the semi-darkness.

Touched by the devotion and realizing the futility of trying to drive him from his vigil, Terry lay back on the pillow, the rhythmic beat of the propeller in his ears. Asleep, he dreamed, and the chug of the screw became the beat of an engine bearing him away from the home of his fathers.

The Moro heard the restless tossing and stepped silently into the little stateroom, his young-old eyes fastened upon the wistful lines that marked the competent young face. While he stood brooding over his young master the dawn streaked through the open porthole, and a soft splash sounded from up forward as the ship dropped her roped anchor. They were off Davao.

Terry had come into port.