The big wall fan, a new symbol of the progress of the American undertaking, oscillated in jumpy turns that rustled the papers on the polished desk. Major Bronner sat staring at the maps which covered the walls of his office. His heavily tanned face bore new lines, worry and grief and there was a new set to the heavy jaw.

Rising with sudden determination he hurried down the corridor into the Governor's office and faced Governor Mason with the strained aspect of a strong man sorely beset. The Governor gravely studied the eyes that bored beseechingly into his own, then reached into one of his desk baskets and lifted a stiff paper.

"Major," he said slowly, "here is Lieutenant Terry's promotion. They forwarded it immediately after receipt of my telegraphed report of his prompt action against Malabanan's brigands." As the Major did not take it but continued to regard him steadily out of brooding eyes, the Governor returned the commission to the basket and fell to drumming his desk.

He broke the long silence: "Major, you really think you should go?" It was hardly a question.

"Governor, I must go!"

The older man studied his inkwell: "Major, it was over three weeks ago that Sergeant Mercado sent you his report: it seems rather—rather—" he was loath, to say it—"rather hopeless."

He remained in contemplation of his uninspiring inkwell for a long minute then delved into his basket for a letter received that morning from the Lieutenant Governor of Davao, a letter he had read many times. He scanned it again.

"Major, Terry has been missing over three weeks, was ill when he was last seen. It seems certain that he either succumbed to fever or else—you know he entered the woods right at the edge of the Hill Country, and if he strayed off his course he is almost certainly—"

Bronner broke in upon him, frantically unwilling to hear the word spoken. He was furious in his grief.

"Yes, they wait three weeks before reporting his disappearance—the best officer in the Service—sick—alone in the woods!—no rations, no—nothing, except a canteen and a pistol! If I were governor I'd fire the whole damned crew down there!"

The Governor regarded him with wise patience till he choked into silence. "No, Major. There was no fault. The Sergeant reported in Davao that Terry had gone to Dalag to see the doctor, so it was not until Merchant finished his work there that they learned from him that Terry had not reached him. It was no fault of any one, Major; just hard, hard luck. Now, I have been thinking over your request to go in search of Terry's—in search of Terry, and I have decided. The despatch boat is now at the wharf subject to your orders. She makes something over twenty knots."

"Governor, I'm—I appreciate your—Governor, it means a good deal to me!"

"I will not detain you, Major. You do as you find best when you reach Davao. Pacify the planters first—this report says that they are wild with grief and rage. Of course you will take temporary command of Terry's Macabebes. The entire company is there now and with them you could doubtless smash your way up into the Hills. I had other hopes, hopes of winning them peaceably—hopes in which Terry figured.... Well, I know you are anxious—so run along."

He rose and came around the big desk to take the Major's hand in a fatherly farewell. After the Major had torn out of the room the Governor closed the door and stood at the window looking out over the busy Straits, his face older, stripped of the optimism with which he invariably confronted all of these young men who were associated with him in the Moro task. Sometimes it all seemed so hopeless, so futile.

For a long time the Governor stood at the window. He was facing westward toward India, that mystic ever-ever land that had been the goal of all the nations since before Columbus and was finally won by the steady strength and genius of a meager island people. But its cost—its cost in fair-haired, ruddy-cheeked youth! As in other matters of government we had learned colonization at Mother England's knee, had sought to apply her precepts, to avoid her mistakes: but there was no avoiding that penalty, that expenditure of young men. Quotations from the interpreter of the white man's burden came to his lips: "'The deaths ye have died I have watched beside.'" He whispered the line over and over again.

He was still gazing somberly over the wide waters when Bronner rushed down the pier below him and leaped into the cockpit of the power boat. An orderly followed on the run and dumped the Major's luggage into the boat. A Moro cast off the restraining hauser and the snowy hull leaped forward, nose high in the air. When it reached a point opposite where the Governor stood its stern was buried deep by the terrific thrash of the screw, and borne on the swift ebb tide it streaked out of sight into the west, like a thing alive. The Major was off—the Constabulary guards its own. When one falls, others search, and bury, and avenge.

The Major settled on the stern seat for the long ride. He had his thoughts, thoughts that set his jaws till they ached. The motors roared as they coursed through a shifting panorama of islands, little heavens of cool verdure as seen from the power boat which rode low, rising and falling gently in the smooth swells which ribbed the Celebes from horizon to horizon. From the low seaboard they looked back upon a thin trail of white dashes which marked the wake their speed had traced upon the tops of the oily undulations. Adams, the mechanician, a slim, clean-cut young fellow, scarce glanced at Bronner through the passing hours but hovered over his engines, absorbed in their operation.

The night passed, and the day was nearly done as they shot up to the little wooden dock at Davao with a grinding of gears in reverse. Adams silenced the motors, then turned in stiff fatigue to the Major with an expression that transfigured his greasy features.

"Major, I've broken the record for this run by four hours. Now it's up to you!"

"You know, then, why I'm—"

"Yes, I know. And I knew Terry—in Sorsogon Province. I was down and out, a beachcomber,—booze. And he was kind to me, when I needed kindness.... It's up to you, Bronner."

The Major stepped up on the dock, unsteady of limb after the night and day, his ears roaring from the long punishment. Stamping the length of the dock to regain his land legs, he returned to meet Doctor Merchant, who had hastened down to the dock. His heavy hurry had glittered him with a profuse perspiration that coursed down over his exposed skin areas, and he wiped his hands and wrists with a big bandana before shaking hands with the Major. His entire mien bespoke anxiety.

"We expected you, Major—though not so soon. You know all about—about it?"

The Major nodded: "The Governor showed me Whipple's letter."

"Well, that's about all we know here. Terry was sick when he went after Malabanan's outfit—he never should have gone. And after doing that job—and it was SOME job, believe me!—he started cross country to see me—knew he was sick. It was over two weeks later that I finished and came in—and when I arrived without him there was a regular riot!"

He wiped his face and neck: "Major, I'll never forgive myself for exposing him to that fever—but I couldn't do a thing till he came—they would do nothing I told them. Do you know how it was he caught it?" He was at once mournful and enraged. "Gave his mosquito net to the chief's wife because she was 'soon to become a mother,' as he put it: and right after he rode away I found she had cut the net into four big pieces and was using them for towels! Yes, sir! For towels!"

He wiped away with the bandana, thinking that thus he concealed his emotions.

"Major, you've got your work cut out—a bunch of the planters are in town this afternoon, planning a raid into the Hills. Lindsey and Sears are the wildest—the whole bunch will get wiped out if they set foot in the Hills! You had better see them right away—and you'll have your hands full—they're mighty determined."

He paused, fretting, then turned his big bulk with surprising swiftness: "Well—say something! What are you going to do about this? Going to clean out the Hills? Or are you going to let—" he stormed on and on, checking the flow at last to press his hospitality upon the Major.

"Thanks, Medico, but I'll just sling my bag in Terry's house and sleep there to-night: and I can eat at the Club."

The doctor accompanied him as far as Terry's old quarters and passed on to his own house farther down the street. Matak, gloomy and wordless, relieved the Major of his bag at the door. The house was silent, and darkened by drawn pearl-shell shutters. The Major stood a moment at the doorway, half sickened by the unused appearance of the familiar cane chairs, table, desk, and bookcases, then he followed Matak into the bedroom he had used before. He cleaned up and changed to whites, and when he came out Matak had thrown the windows wide to the afternoon sun. But the house was thick with the uncomfortable silence that pervades unused, furnished habitations and unable to endure the room he hurried out and over to the cuartel.

The fiery little Macabebes seemed subdued. Mercado blamed himself for leaving his officer under the circumstances, was bitterly self-reproachful for not having sent a soldier with him. He went over the ground carefully but could add nothing but immaterial detail to what the Major already knew, but the Major remained in the little office until dark, listening with grim satisfaction to Mercado's account of the swift retribution that had followed Malabanan's testing of Constabulary strength.

He excused the Sergeant and sifted through the pile of official and personal mail which lay in the basket marked "unfinished." Sorting it, he came across a cablegram addressed to Terry and dated the morning that Terry had left in pursuit of the brigands.

"From the States, too," he muttered. Moved by an impulse and hardly conscious of what he did, he folded it twice and placed it in his purse.

In half an hour he had finished the few reports that must be executed, and rose to go. Mercado was waiting for him at the door.

"Sir," he said, standing stiffly at attention and watched by a score of Macabebes who knew his intention to draw the Major out, "we Macabebes are soldiers, sir—we never question. But if the Major comes to lead troops up—there, sir, to bury our Lieutenant, it is a Macabebe task! We loved him, sir."

The big Major looked down at the earnest veteran, touched by the dramatic simplicity of his appeal.

"Sergeant," he said, "if I do lead a force up there your Macabebes will be where they belong—at the front of the column!"

He took the grateful salute and passing out between two rigid lines of the stalwart little men he crossed the plaza to the Club.

Entering, he noted the unusual number of Stetsons that hung on the hatrack, and passing inside, saw that the steward was guarding a score of rifles and revolvers. For a moment he stood unnoticed by the groups of determined men who occupied the round dining tables in parties of four and five. Selecting the table occupied by Lindsey, he went in.

He felt the tension of the room increase as he entered. All looked up with friendly word or nod, but from the manner in which they eyed him and each other he knew that his coming and his purpose had been the subject of their conversations. He sat down with Lindsey and his two companions. One of these, O'Rourke, had been the pioneer hemp planter and now enjoyed a big income; the other, a nervous, hasty young fellow named Boynton, had borne a reputation as a squawman that had deprived him of intimacy with his own kind, but had recently put his house in order and rehabilitated himself with those who found decency in clean living.

In an effort to relieve the atmosphere of constraint the three planters attempted conversation, but it fell dead, and each applied himself to his dinner. The Major's eyes roved over the crowded room, then bored Lindsey's.

"This is the biggest crowd I ever saw in the Club," he suggested, tentatively.

All understood the question in his words, but none answered. Suddenly Boynton flushed with the hot rush of temper to which he was subject.

"Yes," he exclaimed defiantly, "and it's a good crowd, too! A crowd that's got guts! We're going to have a look at those Hills!"

Lindsey had tried to stop him, but nothing could halt the impetuous Boynton. O'Rourke snorted disgustedly: "Lave it to Bhoynton to shpill the banes!"

With Boynton's outburst the Major tightened. These determined men were hard to handle. He glanced around the room into the faces turned toward him: Boynton's tense voice had carried throughout the room and all of the planters had twisted about in their chairs to face him. They knew the showdown was at hand, were ready to support Boynton's declaration of their purpose.

The Major turned to Boynton: "You aim to leave forty or fifty more good Americans to rot in the Hills?"

Boynton fully realizing that the Major was addressing the crowd through him, and feeling their support, spoke more coolly: "Well, Major, we're ready to chance that!"

The Major continued, more slowly: "What could fifty men—even such good men as this fifty would be—do against the Hill People? And how would they find their way to them? And how would they overcome enemies they could not find or see, enemies who blow darts that just prick the skin but bring almost instant death? And if you did reach them, and kill a large number of them—what would it avail Terry?"

Pausing long enough for this to sink into their minds, he continued more sternly: "And furthermore and more important, how could such a force, organized out of worthy motives but nevertheless engaged in an unlawful enterprise, hope to even reach the Hill Country—knowing that they would have to first fight their way through a hundred of the best Macabebe riflemen in the Islands ... with me leading the Macabebes."

No one stirred. They knew the Major. This was no threat, no boast, he had merely stated a fixed purpose. This was Constabulary business, would be handled by Constabulary.

"Snap" Hoffman, a husky, keen-eyed youth who enjoyed the unique reputation of being the best poker player and the hardest worker in the Gulf, spoke coldly from an adjoining table.

"Bronner, maybe your Macabebes wouldn't fight against people going up to square things for the officer they lost—I guess you don't know what they thought of him! But forgetting that part of it—what we want to know is, what are you going to do about reaching out for him, or for those who 'got' him?"

The hissing of the acetylene burners sounded loud in the room during the pause in which the sunburned planters waited the Major's answer. He spoke to Hoffman, without resentment.

"'Snap,' I had plenty of time to think it all out, on the way down here. There is just one way to find out about Terry: I am starting into the Hills to-morrow at daylight."

"With the Macabebes?" Hoffman retained the spokesmanship.

The Major slowly shook his head. The powerful lights glinted upon the brass buttons of his uniform and etched the deep lines in the heavily tanned face.

"No," he said. "The Governor has given me a free hand in this, as it is a Constabulary job—we look after our own. You all know, as well as I, what it would mean to force our way in. We would get in eventually, but in addition to leaving too many good men in the everlasting shade of the forest, we would defeat our own ends. For if he is still living they would surely finish him if we undertook a punitive expedition.

"I have laid my plans on my absolute confidence that he is living. I know he is, somehow. So I am starting up after him in the morning ... alone."

Consternation was written upon every face excepting Lindsey's, who had understood the Major's purpose from the moment he curbed Boynton. Amazement altered to admiration, then to uneasy forebodings. The Major watched them as they whispered to each other and as he read their acceptance of his plans he turned to his cold dinner.

The planters found relief in following suit. The stewards returned to the care of the tables. Cigars, the best from Luzon's northern fields, followed Benguet coffee and when champagne glasses appeared at each plate in indication of some diner's birthday or other happy occasion, the planters searched each others' faces to identify the celebrant. As the Chino withdrew after filling the glasses Lindsey rose, glass in hand, speaking with his characteristic sincerity and with an easy grace that belied his rough planter's garb.

"Gentlemen, I propose an absent friend ... a friend of all of us. One who has meant much to all of us, has done much for many of us, has harmed none by careless deed or word or thought: one who knows the high places but realizes that life is lived on level planes. Gentlemen"—he lifted his glass high—"to the—health—of Lieutenant Richard Terry, P. C."

A swift scraping of feet and of chairs pushed back and they all stood in mute acclaim of Lindsey's sentiments, subscribed with him to the Major's refusal to believe that ill had befallen him whom they had assembled to avenge. Seated again they watched Lindsey, who remained standing while the Chino refilled the glasses. Lindsey spoke again.

"I ask you now to pledge the only man I know whose bravery, sincerity and friendship are of a quality to fit him to be the chief of him to whom it was just now our honor to do honor.

"Gentlemen ... Major John Bronner, P. C.!"

The response was a thrilling tribute to the flushed officer who remained seated until the clamor had subsided, then bowed his embarrassed gratitude.

They crowded around him as he rose to go, each offering advice and warnings, wringing his big hand. Boynton drew him a little aside.

"Major," he said earnestly, "I hope you find him—all right—not—not hurt. He was fine to me—I came near making an awful mistake—about a native woman. But he came to me and talked me out of it—spent the night with me, talking about his mother ... she died when he was a little shaver ... and he talked about clean living, and the duty of carrying on your white blood unpolluted. He didn't preach—just talked sense, and was awfully—friendly. I quit the dame cold!"

Gripping Bronner's hand, Boynton left the room. Lindsey accompanied the Major to the door and into the reading room, pointing to the placard tacked up under the skin of the python.

"You remember the wording of the first sign? 'Major Bronner owes his life to the wonderful pistol marksmanship of his friend, Lieut. Richard Terry, P. C.' He was here the night that Malabanan broke loose—you will hear about that night of his in the Club—and the next day we found that he had changed the placard. Look."

He pulled the Major over and they read:

This python, the largest but one measured since American occupation, was killed on the plantation of Mr. Eric Lindsey.

Length...................24 ft., 9 inches
Diameter, thickest..............14 inches

"We didn't see him do it, but we knew he must have been the one who changed it. As that's the way he wanted it, we can't change it—now."

Grief shadowed his earnest countenance again as he faced the Major: "Don't you think that in view of my friendship for him—and for you—that I am entitled to go up with you?"

"No, that's all settled, Lindsey."

The Major passed out, but pausing on the dark walk in front of the building to relight his cigar, he heard Lindsey outlining plans for the campaign the planters would undertake if the Major had not returned at the end of two weeks.

In the early morning he made a light pack of rations and the beads, matches and red calico he had secured to use as presents in case he won through to the Hill People. He dressed for the field in khaki, filled an extra canteen and after breakfast mounted Terry's big gray pony and rode off with Mercado, whom he took to guide him to the spot where Terry was last seen. The Macabebe took the lead and pressed by the urgent white man lathered his pony in the rapid pace he set through the winding trail. They dismounted at the ford shortly before sunset.

While the Major was transferring his pack from saddle to shoulders the Macabebe explored the pool with distrustful eyes. But Sears had done his work thoroughly: two cases of dynamite had blown in the banks and created a new channel through which the water flowed swiftly. The pool had been narrowed by half and shallowed to a depth of ten feet in the series of explosions Sears had detonated until the river gave up the rent carcass of the monstrous reptile.

The Major adjusted the pack to his liking, waved farewell to the Macabebe and moved toward the fringe of woods with a swinging stride. The soldier watched the receding figure with mingled admiration and awe. The Malay stood irresolute as the white man's head and shoulders passed from view under the low hanging branches, watched the pendulous khaki legs swing rhythmically into the shadows of the forest and out of vision, then cast one long look up over the dense roof of the forest which swept far up to end at Apo's summit, and atremble with the appalling memories of the lonely spot he mounted the gray and led his own exhausted pony along the edge of the pool. Once he glanced back apprehensively as a small Bogobo agong sounded somewhere to the north and filled the woods with its deep and mournful tones, then hurried on homewards.

The Major had headed due west, straight toward the summit of the mountain. He walked on through the last hour of the afternoon and as the woods became denser and darker he used the slope of the forest floor as his point, always facing in the direction of the rising ascent. He made good time, as here the going was little obstructed by creepers or thorned "wait-a-minute." Alert, he studied every sound of the forest life, for though he had placed his life on the knees of the gods he valued it too highly to neglect any slightest precaution. Inside his shirt there bulged a heavy 45 slung from a leather breast-holster. This lone attempt of the Hills was no sudden inspiration; he had planned it logically. There was no other way. Up there, somewhere, lay or lived his friend. Friendship was the call, friendship and ... The Service.

The sun, glinting fitfully through openings in the thatching of sparkling green leaves, dropped lower and sank from sight, and before the brief twilight faded he selected a spot beneath a great mango tree as his first camping place. Gathering some dry twigs and dead boughs he built a fire at the edge of a little stream and ate sparingly of his store of beans, chocolate and tinned sausages. In his collapsible pan he heated water and dissolved his coffee crystals, and the coffee finished, he boiled more water with which he filled his canteens and hung them on a branch after dipping the woolen jackets into the creek to secure the coolness of evaporation.

Night fell black in the forest. He threw more brush on the fire to enlarge the circle of light, and made himself a comfortable couch by patiently stripping the small branches of their most leafy twigs, and wrapped himself in his blanket, vainly hoping that sleep would come.

From time to time he rose to add fuel to the fire, as he wanted the light to be visible from the Gulf, where troubled friends would be searching the night hills with worried eyes. And he wished the flame to be seen in the Hills by those who lurked in the dark shadows so that they might know that no element of stealth entered into the approach of this white man who invaded a territory forbidden to strangers since the earliest dawn of Philippine history. This idea—the thorough advertisement of fearless confidence—was the basis of his plan. He knew wild men.

Desperately he fought off the forebodings which assailed him in the deep silence of the forest night, for hours he tossed in the distress of apprehension over the friend of whom he came in search. Toward dawn he fell asleep puzzling over the problem of Terry's reason for closing the door of his bedroom before going to bed and then opening it for ventilation. He waked from a dream in which he had slyly peered into the room in time to see Terry withdrawing a hypodermic needle from his arm, and lay worrying about the vivid nightmare until he noticed that the fire was dimming before the coming of dawn.

He breakfasted, drowned the embers of his fire with water from the stream, then reslung his pack and started up the slope. The way grew steeper with the hours, the forest thicker. The green roof of foliage was now so thick that the sun seldom penetrated and where it did strike through the sunlit spots were dazzling in contrast with the somber shadow of the forest. The undergrowth grew denser, so that he climbed with greater toil through the maze of thorned bush and snaky creepers that twined in enormous lengths across the forest floor.

The never-ending gloom of the weird twilight grew on his nerves. He tried to whistle to cheer himself but forebore when the uncanny echoes rocketed in the dismal cathedral of towering trunks.

It was rough and cheerless going. There were no trails. Once, toward noon, while he was munching chocolate to appease his empty stomach, he suddenly came upon a sort of runway, a beaten trail. He stepped into this easier path but had taken but a few steps when he was startled by the vicious rush of a swift object that whizzed up through the air and tore through a fold of his loose riding breeches, then swung back before his eyes to vibrate into stillness. It was a bamboo dagger, sharpened to a keen edge and point, hardened by charring in a slow fire. Fastened to a young sapling, it had been bent down over the trail and secured by a trigger his foot had released in passing. Level with his thigh, it had been designed to pierce the abdomen of the Hillmen's natural foes. He bent to examine the glutinous material with which the dagger was poisoned, and paled as he considered his close escape. Such a death—in such a place....

After assuring himself that his skin had not been broken by the balatak, he stepped gingerly off the trail and made his way upward, carefully avoiding every inch of ground that appeared suspicious. With each mile of ascent the way grew steeper, the forest deeper and darker, the green ceiling reared higher on more massive trunks.

In mid afternoon he noticed that he was passing through a zone of utter forest silence. There were no relieving sounds of voice or wing or padded foot. It was appalling. Nothing in his vivid experiences had approached the menace of these silent trees.

Pausing to rest in an area where an unusual amount of indirect light filtered down through the lofty screen of leaves he looked about him, found no tree he could identify, and felt the hostility that strange growths radiate. His thoughts flew back to the security and friendliness of the elms and maples of his boyhood haunts. As he peered through the endless avenues of trunks that rose from the dark slope, he learned what fear is. But he went on, faster.

An hour later, clambering over the trunk of a huge windfall that blocked his path, he jumped down upon something that half pierced the heel of his heavy shoe. Leaning back upon the big log he tugged till the foot was released. He had landed upon a carpet of leaves which concealed a number of sharpened bamboo stakes bedded deep in the ground, point upward. Raking out the leaves with a stick, he uncovered a nest of sixteen spearheads smeared with the brown venom.

Forced to study his every footfall, he made slower progress. He was far up the great slope when he noticed that the tangled underbrush had given way to a smooth carpet of leaves. Night was near, so he halted when he came to an open spot, a place where volcanic rock precluded vegetable growth. Water, steaming hot, poured from a fissure.

It was the first time he had sighted the sky since morning, and here he saw the only sign of life the day had afforded. Two gray pigeons flew side by side across the opening in the trees, winging toward the crest of the mountain.

Sleep did not come to him. All through the night he sat by the fire, staring out into the ruddy circle of vision illumined by the blaze, peering into the shadows cast by the great trunks. Once a dead limb fell from a towering tree that stood just at the edge of the circle of light: he started violently, his hand darting into his shirt front to his gun. He relaxed, slowly. Big drops of moisture dripped from the invisible treetops. Thinking it nearly dawn he consulted his watch. It was eleven o'clock.

Suddenly he sensed that he was no longer alone, felt the presence of stealthy forms in the surrounding darkness, heard a twig snap in the still forest behind him. He waited, tense, the hair at the back of his neck stiffening as he thought of blowpipes and of darts poisoned by steeping in the putrid entrails of wild hogs.

He felt the scrutiny of hostile eyes. Certain that he detected the movement of an indistinct figure on the rim of the firelight, he threw on a handful of dry twigs hoping to uncover the prowlers, but the flareup revealed only an enlarged circle of great trees and emphasized their shadows. He sat motionless, his eyes focussed sharply upon the spot, and as the fire died down he saw the flicker of a dark form as it darted from the shadow of the tree and dissolved into the bordering gloom.

He gritted his teeth in an agony of suspense and enforced inaction. As the long minutes crawled by he writhed inwardly in the horror of waiting for the stinging impact of the feathered messengers of death, marshalled every resource of his will in his effort to appear casual, unafraid, confident of friendly reception.

Suddenly the silence of the night hills was broken by a weird sound that rolled down from the heights. He listened, rigid, and realized that some one was striking a small agong. It came from the crest. Three times the faint resonance was carried down, the last note humming long in the tunnel of forest and fading out in slow-dying vibrations.

Listening, he noted a change in the forest about him. Minutes passed, and at last he realized that he was alone, the lurking figures had been recalled. In the reaction fatigue came, and he wrapped himself in the blanket and fell asleep.

At sunrise he was off again, climbing the mountain side, confident that the recall of his midnight visitors had ended all dangers. The night would see him at the summit.... APO!

But with the sense of personal security there came a deep apprehension of what he would find at the end of his strange quest. His worry over the fate of the friend for whom he had made this venture increased with every hour. As the day wore on he fell into a panic of foreboding, scarce noting that the forest had lost its sinister aspects, had opened into a lovely wood of sun-splashed vistas broken here and there by great rugs of thick grass which tempered the beat of the afternoon sun striking through the openings above the frequent clearings.

Suddenly he stopped, sniffing to identify the odor that had rapped at his heedless nostrils for an hour. Disbelieving the testimony of his sense of smell he scanned the woods for visual evidence, for the first time taking in the quiet beauty of the scene. Finding the objects for which he searched he exclaimed aloud in his wonder.

"Pines! Pines! Sus-marie-hosep!"

He drank in the bracing spice of the rare atmosphere, glorying in the clear coolness of the altitude after the months of oppressive heat in the lowlands.

"Real, honest-to-heaven pines—that puts me a clean mile above sea level!"

Worry came again, and he turned to continue his ascent, but halted in midstride as he discovered a form that stood, motionless, upon a grassy plot a few rods above him. A Hillman confronted him!

Evidently a young fighting man, of small stature but wonderfully developed of shoulder and limb, full chested and round of barrel, his brown skin covered only with a red G-string, spear in hand, he returned the Major's stare with a steady gaze of appraisal. For a long minute he remained poised, then beckoned to the Major to follow him and whirling with a flirt of his long black hair he led the way up the acclivity, bearing to the right of the course the Major had taken.

The Major turned his back to the savage while he reached into his shirt to put his pistol at full cock and safe, then followed him. The ascent stiffened abruptly, then ended, so that they came out on a wooded plateau a half-mile square in the center of which the crest of the mountain reared in a last upheave of perfect cone several hundred feet high. Skirting the edge of the cone they emerged from the woods and came to the border of a village.

The Major paused at the edge of the clearing, congratulating himself upon the wonderful good fortune that had brought him safely among the Hill People, and studying the village. A large number of crude thatched huts had been erected scatteringly at the bases of the trees surrounding the level clearing. Not a soul was in sight except the young warrior who had acted as his guide, who stood in front of a shack somewhat larger and better built than its neighbors.

As the Major stepped into the clearing he saw a figure appear at the door, and his sturdy heart lodged in his throat as he leaped forward.

It was Terry.

They met in the center of the clearing near the smoldering cooking fire, their hands gripping hard. Their eyes were moist with the relief each found in the other's safety. Both struggled for apt expression of their pentup emotions.

The Major found his tongue first.

"Well, it's fine air up here," he offered.

"Ayeh." Terry's grin was uncertain. "And there's so much of it!"

And they shook hands on it, complacently.