Terry

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At last the air quieted, and nothing but the roaring in his ears
remained to convince the Major that the vast sound had been reality.
"Jimmy!" he exploded. "What a noise--and what shooting!"

A whisper of awe rustled through the surrounding ranks. Ignorant of
firearms, they thought the young American wielded some uncanny power
with his black weapon. Already distinguished as the first white man to
set his foot upon Apo, he was now regarded with a feeling akin to
worship.

Ohto was silent, lost in a protracted, inscrutable study of Terry's
face. At last the old man turned on his heels to sweep the circle of
his people for confirmation of his surmise. Satisfied, he raised his
hand for silence.

"There has been worry ... doubt ... among you--who should take up
Ohto's burden when he lets it fall ... soon. You are entering new
times, will meet new and strange things. To Ohto it seems best that he
leave his people under the guidance of a young and strong and kind
chief who knows all these strange things ... one who can lead you
safely into the new life. What say you, my people? Who shall sit in
Ohto's chair when he is gone?"

For a moment the multitude was silent as the significance of Ohto's
query sank into their slow minds, then a murmur of approval rose among
them, swelled into a deafening shout of acclamation.

"The pale white man! The pale white man!"

Terry understood. Uncertain, he turned to the Major, but Ohto
interrupted by addressing him directly.

"You have heard. When Ohto leaves--and it can not be long--he leaves
his people in your hands. You will be patient, kindly, gentle, with
them. That Ohto knows ... it is written in your face."

As Terry slowly bowed his head slightly in acceptance of the trust,
the delighted Hillmen stirred, whispered to each other. The hum of
voices grew louder but was instantly hushed by the dramatic gesture
with which Ohto extended his arm toward a low cotton tree that stood
at the edge of the woods. The thousand eager heads turned almost as
one.

Upon a slender leafless branch which extended at right angles from the
trunk of a _kapok_ tree two large gray wood pigeons had perched side
by side in the close communion of mated birds, heedless of the host
below them. Unafraid, tired, content with what the day had brought
them in the lowlands, they were happy in safe return together to their
mountain home.

In the hush which followed recognition by the throng, the limocons
moved closer to each other, wing brushed wing, sleepy lids lowered
over soft eyes to shut out the crimson glory of the dying sun. Then
the little throats throbbed as they voiced gratitude to their Creator
in gentle, low pitched notes, lilting with the joy of life, plaintive
with the brevity of its span.

The sweet song died with the day, and as dusk reached down in brief
embrace of tropic earth, the birds winged side by side into the
darkening forest.

Peace settled upon the face of the old man who had made decision
vitally affecting the welfare of the people over whom he had ruled for
two generations. The limocons had sung in the East. His fathers were
pleased with him.

A shout of fierce joy burst from the Hillmen. Then the women
surrounded the dainty white girl and bore her off to prepare for the
long ceremony with which the Hill People give in marriage. And the two
friends walked through the woods, arm in arm, silent, profoundly
humble.

CHAPTER XVII

"SUS-MARIE-HOSEP!"

Terry was happily engaged in remaking the Major's old pack for his own
use when the Major entered the torchlit shack. It lacked an hour till
dawn. Outside, the main clearing was dark, but the big fires which
illuminated the surrounding trees revealed the excited natives still
celebrating Ahma's nuptials in the clearing around Ohto's house.

Terry straightened up from his task and studied the face of his
friend: fatigue and happiness had softened the serious lines that had
given the Major an appearance of age beyond his years.

"Major, isn't the ceremony finished yet?"

"No, it takes forty-eight hours to get married up here--and only two
hours to get buried! But a month ago I would have said that it was
about the correct ratio, at that."

Terry grinned as he finished the pack and threw it on the floor near
the door, then sat beside the Major on the cot.

"Major, I want to send up a gift for Ahma by the first runner the
postoffice people send through. It's hard to decide what to give her,
because she is entirely different from other girls, and the usual
bridal gifts would hardly do. Can't you help me out?"

For a minute the Major pondered heavily: "How about a mirror? She is
twenty years old and has never seen her own reflection."

"Just the thing! Enter the civilizing influence of vanity in the Hill
Country!"

Terry drew a notebook from his shirt pocket. "Major, I have jotted
down a list of things we are going to need for this work up here. I
thought it would be better if I had a definite program to submit to
the Governor, with estimate of appropriations necessary, and so on.
First I listed those things you will need in order to build and
furnish your house: cook stoves, lamps, dishes, window glass, and so
on. I think I have included everything, so just run over those things
you will need to begin this work."

For an hour earnestly they discussed the problems the Major would
confront pending Terry's return to take up the work. They listed a
wide variety of needs--pigs, chickens, medicines, books, tools, seeds:
contingent upon the Governor's approval, they outlined several months
of planting, trail making, establishment of regular communication with
the lowlands, selection of school teachers, of a health officer--all
of the varied instruments needed for the initial work of elevating the
tribesmen out of their barbarism.

Dawn had dimmed their torches when they finished. For a while they sat
silent, Terry happy in the outcome of this strange adventure in the
Hills, the Major thrilling with the joy that had come to him.

The Major broke the silence: "Terry, I AM a chump! All this time I've
forgotten to tell you that a captain's commission is waiting your
acceptance in Zamboanga!"

He went on, slowly: "Are you sure that you can come back here for a
year--after your honeymoon? Maybe she--your wife--won't wish to come."

"Yes, she will." Terry was confident. "It will be for only one year,
and then--"

"And then what?" the Major demanded after a while.

"Then--back home, among my own people. I left home foolishly, Major. I
was restless--looking for a dragon to slay. But I have had a year in
which to think--and I see things differently. During the time I was
sick up here I--I ... well, I know now that a man need not cross the
world to find service: he can be just as useful in preventing bunions
as in--as in such lucky ventures as this."

"Preventing bunions?" The Major was puzzled.

But Terry did not answer. He had risen to finish his preparations for
the journey down.

"Just one more thing, Terry. You promised to tell me how you started
that little avalanche--the 'sign.'"

Something of the serenity faded from Terry's face as he turned to
explain: "I had been up there several times, and had noticed a deep
crevice that split the platform from the parent rock. It would have
fallen within a few months. I carried up some softwood wedges, drove
them into the fault, poured in a lot of water and expansion did the
rest."

The Major visualized the toil and peril of lugging heavy logs up the
spiral trail at night. "Why didn't you let me help?" he demanded.

"Well, Ahma kept guard for me, and that was enough. If I had been
caught I could probably have talked myself out of the scrape, but it
might have gone harder with you. Luckily the timbers I used for wedges
were buried in the slide."

The Major's face clouded swiftly: "Say, Terry! That scoundrel Pud-Pud
said that he saw you that night--he can ruin the thing yet if he
talks!"

Terry shook his head, a little sorrowfully: "No, Pud-Pud will never
talk to anybody about anything again. I got to Ohto too late: they had
already executed sentence."

"What did they do with him?"

"Shot him full of darts and turned him loose in the Dark Forest. So I
confessed to Ohto that I contrived the 'sign.' Of course I made him
understand that you had nothing to do with the--trickery."

"What did he say--what is he going to do about it?" The Major was
anxious.

"He had known about it all the time--his men have trailed every step
we have taken, watched everything we have done."

A slow blush mounted the Major's rugged features as he thought of the
possibility that secret onlookers had witnessed his meeting with Ahma
just before the wedding ceremony when he had sought to teach her the
White Man's customs of caress. The flush persisted as he turned to
Terry.

"There's one thing I forgot to ask you to buy for me. I want a good
talking machine, with plenty of records." He paused, then continued
abstractedly: "She can keep it in her house."

Terry looked up in astonishment. "In _her_ house? Aren't you both
going to live in the same house?"

"No. Not till you send a missionary up here to marry us. I don't
figure that two days of savage rites constitutes a marriage--but I'm
going to have a deuce of a time trying to explain it to Ahma!"

Terry nodded sympathetically and walked the springy floor a dozen
times, nonplussed by the Major's dilemma. Pausing in his preoccupation
before the open window he noted vaguely that the nuptial fires were
yellowing before the approach of dawn: a moment and he started
violently as the solution struck him and he whirled upon the dejected
groom with beaming countenance.

"Say!" he shouted, "I'm certainly not going down with you two only
half-married--she a bride and you not a groom! You forget that as
Senior Inspector of Constabulary I am an ex-officio Justice of the
Peace! Come on!"

He lifted the Major by the arm and shot him through the doorway with
an exuberant shove that left him no alternative save a jarring leap to
the ground. Terry landed beside him as light as a cat, and catching
him by the elbow he hurried him on through the woods and into the
fading light of the big fires that burned before Ohto's house.

Terry, his eyes dancing joyously, broke up the dance with which a
hundred Hill People were keeping the ceremonial pot boiling, and
despatched two women to fetch the bride, who had sought a brief
respite from the interminable ritual. Shortly Ahma appeared before
them, her dark eyes shadowed with fatigue, but radiant with
exaltation.

Understanding from Terry's few words that the Major desired that they
be united also in accordance with the rites of his own people, she
stepped quietly before Terry and took the Major's outstretched hand.
The crowd of natives, who had crowded about them, waited the alien
ritual curiously.

Ahma was clad in the white costume in which the Major had first seen
her. A scarlet hibiscus blossom, the Hillmen's nuptial flower, was
thrust in her black hair, but there was no other addition to her scant
covering.

Possessed of a sudden spirit of banter Terry turned to the Major:
"Before I begin, Major, I wish to congratulate you upon having won to
the bliss of matrimony without violating that bachelor formula which
you so often boasted."

"What formula?"

Terry's voice deepened in mimicry: "'No petticoats for mine!'"

A moment he enjoyed the Major's embarrassment, then composed himself
to the business in hand, happy, confident.

But--the competent Terry fumbled. Swept away in the exuberance of
having found a way out for the Major, he had forgotten that, never
having exercised his legal privilege of joining in marriage in a
province where all of the natives were either Catholic or Mohammedan,
he was wanting in the phraseology the ceremony demanded.

Vainly he sought inspiration in a sky chill with the pale lights of
daybreak. He shuffled his feet nervously, scowled at the ring of
brown-skinned spectators, looked at his watch. As the sweat of worry
appeared upon his white forehead he drew his handkerchief and wiped
his face vigorously, then blew his nose resoundingly. This last device
seemed to serve.

He turned to the serene couple who waited patiently: "Do you, John
Bronner, take this woman, Ahma--Ahma of the Hills, to be your lawful
wedded wife, to love and cherish and to--er--provide for?"

"I do," said the Major. He was proud of Terry--trust the Constabulary
to see a thing through!

Terry was triumphant in his success. He unconsciously drew up his
slim, muscular figure as he turned to the bride, focussing his gaze
upon the blossom in the waves of jet locks that tumbled smoothly about
the downcast head.

"And do you, Ahma of the Hills, take this man, John Bronner, to be
your wedded lawful husband, to love and to--er--care for when
he--er--is sick?"

She caught the groom's whispered instructions and grasped the
wonderful import of the unknown words that Terry had spoken. Twice her
silent lips formed the two words of response in soundless practice,
then she looked up squarely into Terry's eyes and pronounced them.

"I do."

Either the clear voice was too rich with gladness, or else she should
not have turned the starry eyes so suddenly upon him. Lost for a long
moment in the splendor of the vision opened up to him, he forced
himself back to the duty of the minute. But he was off the track
again.

He floundered for an opening. Bits of biblical and legal phrases
raced through his tortured brain, but none seemed appropriate to this
situation. The haunt of the dark eyes obscured his vision, the limpid
"I do," filled his ears. "I do." The significance of the words brought
him back to the point of interruption, and he turned to them,
desperate, vague.

"You do? You do, eh--you both do ... well, ... join hands! I do say
and declare this twenty-third day of January that you are man and wife
in accord with the law of this land, and now--"

He glared at the grinning beneficiary of the service, and finished:
"And now--and now what I--what God and I have joined let no man put
asunder ... till death do us part ... so help me God, Amen!"

In an agony of torment he ripped through the crowd and raced to the
shack, where the Major joined him after taking Ahma into Ohto's house.
It was now broad daylight, and the huts were emptying of the crowd
waking to take up the burden of fiesta.

Terry buckled up his pack, joining in the Major's mirth.

"But you are married all right. I will send you up a certificate as
soon as I reach Zamboanga, all signed and sealed and everything."

They became serious in thought of imminent separation. Now that the
time had come Terry dreaded leaving his friend alone in the Hills.

"I will relieve you in three months, Major," he said.

"You needn't hurry--don't forget I'm on a honeymoon, too!"

Terry hesitated, then risked the question that had been bothering
him: "After we come--what are you going to do? Will Ahma be ready to
go below?"

"No, she will not. I am figuring on leaving her here a few
months--your wife can teach her to--to dress, and all that. And I
can't take her away so long as Ohto lives. After that, I want to take
her to the States. She learns fast, Terry,--and I want her to see
Europe--she will learn a lot there, too!"

The old woman brought them their breakfast. The Major hurried through
the meal and left to secure a guide to take Terry down, explaining
that he would join him in the woods. Terry ate under the sorrowing
eyes of the faithful woman, and when he finished he presented her with
the only gaud that remained to him, the gold medallion from his fob.
She scurried out to display it, the proudest woman, save one, in all
the Hills.

Slinging the pack across his shoulders he turned for a last look at
the little hut that had sheltered him. Within its cramped walls he had
suffered, had known grave peril, and great joy. A hint of the old
wistfulness flickered about the corner of his mouth, then he left the
hut and strode through the clearing into the woods, halting to wave
cheerfully at the Hillmen who somberly watched the departure of their
future chief.

He dipped over the edge of the plateau and found the Major awaiting
him with Ahma and the young warrior who was to guide him down. From
where they stood at the edge of a wide glade they could see far down
over the tops of the trees that matted the slope. In the clear morning
air the mists which gleamed over the distant Gulf shone white as
billowed snow. There lay Davao! Davao, then Zamboanga, then--! A
fiercely glad light blazed in Terry's gray eyes, then darkened in
anticipation of leaving the Major alone and with that melancholy with
which all men face the knowledge that even as Life turns the pages of
existence into its happiest chapter, she closes each finished page
forever.

The Major spoke first. "This guide knows the shortest route. He will
take you safe past all the man traps--you should sleep but one night
on the trail. Give my regards to Lindsey, Sears,--everybody."

Ahma looked from one to the other, not quite understanding what they
said, but understanding fully what they did not say. That showed in
the face of each.

"Major, I have never said anything about your--how I feel about your
risking the Hills to search for me, when it meant almost certain
death."

Death!... For an instant the Major again stood helpless in the dark
woods behind Lindsey's plantation embraced in coils of steel that
quivered, and heard the crash of delivering shots.... He searched the
white face, in which the lines of suffering from a chivalrously
contracted fever still lingered. An extraordinary warm cataract
suddenly obscured his vision.

"Sus-marie-hosep!" he spluttered. "Good-by."

Their hands gripped hard in an abiding friendship, then Terry turned
to Ahma doubtfully, at a loss as to how to bid adieu to this creature
of the Hills who knew so few of the white man's words or usages. He
found, too, a source of embarrassment in her new capacity of wife. As
she gazed up at him he looked away in boyish confusion.

The Major grasped the situation and addressed her very slowly in
English: "Ahma, say good-by to him."

As she nodded brightly, understanding, the Major turned to Terry as
proud as Punch: "You see--she is learning fast! Can't you imagine her,
all dressed up and everything, in Europe?"

Terry focussed his eyes safely upon the white line that marked the
part in her hair, and carefully pronounced each English word.

"Ahma, I am leaving for a while. Understand?"

She bobbed the dark head: "I do," she said.

The memories wrought by the limpid "I do" were a bit unsettling. He
addressed the jet locks again: "Good-by."

She looked at the capable hand he extended toward her, puzzled at the
gesture, then looked at the Major. He said a single word in dialect
and her small white teeth glistened in a smile of comprehension. She
approached close to Terry.

"I know. You say--good-night. I know how--to good-night."

Her concentration upon the unaccustomed pronunciations was bewitching.
To relieve the strain of embarrassment he felt in her closeness to
him, he turned to the grinning Major.

"As you say--she _does_ learn quickly," he offered, rather vaguely.

She came closer still. "Yes, I know--how to--good-night!" she trilled:
"Good-night is kiss!"

She called it "Keez" but Terry understood. If he did not then he did
an instant later when he felt the clasp of warm round arms, the
molding pressure of a soft form and the swift impress of full
sensitive lips.

Loosed, he straightened up. His blush was explosive. Bewildered, he
shrugged the light pack higher on his shoulders and gestured his
readiness to the warrior who had stood watching the inexplicable ways
of these strange white folk.

Following the Hillman, Terry set off across the glade. Midway down the
green sward he wheeled.

"I should say she DOES learn fast!" he called. "You won't need to take
HER to Europe!"

The two stood watching him as he followed the powerful little savage.
As the forest swallowed up the slim form the Major blinked rapidly,
and gripped the little hand he held.

"Sus-marie-hosep!" he exclaimed huskily. "But won't they be glad to
see him in Davao! And in Zamboanga!"

CHAPTER XVIII

THE FOX SKIN

Terry pushed the hardy Hillman to his limit, so that when night fell
they were far down among the foothills, the Dark Forest behind them.
At daylight the Hillman was proudly mounting homeward, Terry's belt
tightly buckled about his naked trunk. The white man's last
dispensable possession had gone as a reward for the service.

Terry's joyous urge carried him swiftly, so that in an hour he dropped
out of the foothills and into the heat of the jungled lowlands. At
noon he climbed Sears' steps and dropped into a porch chair, his
clothes wet with perspiration and torn by contact with brush and
thorn, for he had cut straight through the woods.

He had nearly emptied Sears' water bottle when he saw the big planter
coming out of a wonderful growth of hemp. Sears advanced slowly, deep
in thought, not looking up till he had mounted the last step. At sight
of Terry's grinning features he recoiled violently, then as the lad
rose, he jumped forward to wring his hand furiously. Incapable of
coherent speech for several minutes, he at last mastered his vocal
cords.

"Man! I thought you were a ghost!" he cried.

Terry sketched his journey into the Hills, and added a brief account
of the experiences he and the Major had undergone. Learning that the
Major was also safe, Sears called a Bogobo boy and issued instructions
that sent him scurrying into one of the Bogobo huts. In a few minutes
he returned bearing a small agong and striker.

Under Sears' directions he hung it upon a pole in front of the house
and struck it sharply, again and again. As the deep notes carried out
through the still, hot woods Sears motioned to him to desist and
turned to Terry.

"Listen!" he exclaimed, intent, his hand on Terry's shoulder.

In a moment another agong, somewhere close to the south, sounded
several times, then another further away, then another, another. Soon
the noon stillness of the brush pulsed with the mystic multi-tones of
scores of far agongs rung from plantations. Slowly the murmur grew as
hundreds of agongs rung by Bogobos in the foothills took up the
signal, flooding the hemplands with a glad, bronze chorus.

Sears gripped Terry's shoulder hard, his eyes brimming.

"That's the signal we fixed up," he said. "Welcome home!"

He hovered over Terry, questioning, commenting, incredulous over the
Major's marriage, overjoyed that the quinine he had given Terry had
been a factor in his recovery. After lunch Terry borrowed Sears' best
pony and rode away with the planter's profane benedictions in his
ears.

He rode hard, but each familiar landmark, each twist in trail, each
sight of river, each expanse of glistening hemp plants, thrilled him
with a sense of homecoming. Once, drawing up to cool and water his
pony, he caught the sparkle of the sunny Gulf, his nostrils sensed its
tang, and with the surge of thanksgiving for the wonderful good
fortune that had attended him, he first realized the strain of the
past weeks.

Great as was his hurry to reach Davao--an hour's tardiness might mean
the loss of the weekly steamer--he spent a half-hour with Lindsey, who
had ridden out to the trail in the hope of intercepting him. From
Lindsey he learned more of the suspense that had hung over the Gulf
since his disappearance, the deep anxiety that had spread among the
Bogobos and silenced every agong in the foothills.

"And Terry--the night the Giant Agong rang up there--we most went
crazy!"

"We wondered if you heard it, Lindsey."

"Heard it! Heard it? It reached clear over on the East Coast. Boynton
heard it over there."

Terry pressed on. Three miles below he found Casey was out to meet
him, and further on, Burns. At four o'clock he dismounted to greet
some Bogobos whom he overtook on the trail. Pushing Sears' little
brown hard, he rode into Davao at five o'clock.

The plaza was crowded. Warned of his coming by the agong chorus, the
whole town had turned out, Americans, Filipinos, Chinese, several
Spaniards and Moros. The sleepy, dusty square waked to their noisy
welcome.

"_El Solitario!! El Conquistador del Malabanan!_"

Laughing, misty eyed with the warmth of their greeting, he stood in
the center of the jostling crowd, shaking hands, calling each white,
native and Mongolian by name. Then the Macabebes claimed him and swept
him into the privacy of the cuartel.

The jealous Matak had waited till Terry entered the house that his
welcome might be unshared.

"Master, I know you come back. All time I know," he assured him
gravely, then looked him over and sent out for the barber. Solemn and
efficient as ever, he hustled his master under the shower, helped him
into the first starched clothes he had known in five weeks, then went
into the kitchen to frighten the cook into greater haste in
preparation of dinner.

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