transfer. You are assigned to the most interesting of the Moro provinces,—Davao. You go there to command a Macabebe company. Your baggage still aboard?"

"Yes, sir."

"Forget the 'sir'! Leave your stuff on board—the Francesca sails at daylight to-morrow, and you go on to Davao with her. Had breakfast? I thought not. Pack a bag with what you will need for a day ashore—put on a white uniform for to-night. My[Pg 37] orderly will take you to my quarters where you can get a shower and some breakfast. Join me at the Service Club for lunch."

[Pg 37]

Throughout the abrupt discourse Terry had endured the frank appraisal of the shrewd black eyes. He experienced a pleasant reaction when the Major again extended his broad hand.

"Lieutenant, I said a minute ago that I was glad to know you. Let me repeat it—I mean it. Adios, till lunch time."

He pushed his way good-naturedly through the throng of Moros who were handling the bales and boxes unloaded from the roach-ridden hull and walked off the pier, disappearing into the government building. Terry boarded the vessel, warmed by the friendliness of his new chief, and by the time the orderly arrived had thrown a few things into his bag and was ready to go ashore.

He followed the soldier down the main street, a dusty thoroughfare lined with the usual assortment of structures which adorn Philippine provincial towns: adobe, tile-roofed business houses honeycombed with little box-like shops in which the Chinese merchants displayed their wares: square wooden houses set high on stone understructures: scores of bamboo shacks stilted on crooked timbers, unkempt, wry, powdered with the dust risen since the last rains.

Though it was not yet nine o'clock, they sought the shaded side of the street with the habit which becomes instinctive near the equator, and welcomed the coolness of Bronner's low house.

The cook and the houseboy looked after him with[Pg 38] the unobtrusive perfection of service found only in the East. A good breakfast cheered a stomach outraged by the greasy mess perpetrated upon native boats in the name of Spanish cookery, and a cool shower bath eliminated the stench of stale copra which had clung to his nostrils if not to his clothing. An hour before noon he left the house and strolled about the scorching town, regardless of where he went so long as he found shaded walks on which to tread.

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