s. They were always on the lookout for
the farmers near their forest lairs. They watched for any unwary man who
went too near the woods, pounced upon him, and went off in triumph with
his head in a bag.

The young traveler's eyes brightened, "I'll visit them some day!" he
cried, looking off toward the mountainside. Mr. Ritchie glanced quickly
at the flashing eyes and the quick, alert figure of the young man as
he strode along, and some hint came to him of the dauntless young heart
which beat beneath that coat of Canadian gray.

Two days more over hill and dale, through rice and tea and
tobacco-fields, and then, in the middle of a hot afternoon, Mr. Ritchie
began to shiver and shake as though half frozen. Dr. Dickson understood,
and at the next stopping-place he ordered a sedan-chair and four coolies
to carry it. It was the old dreaded disease that hangs like a black
cloud over lovely Formosa, the malarial fever. Mr. Ritchie had been a
missionary only four years in the island, but already the scourge had
come upon him, and his system was weakened. For, once seized by malaria
in Formosa, one seldom makes his escape. They put the sick man into the
chair, now in a raging fever, and he was carried by the four coolies.

They were nearing the end of their journey and were now among a people
not Chinese. They belonged to the original Malayan race of the island.
They had been conquered by the Chinese, who in the early days came over
from China under a pirate named Koxinga. As the Chinese name every one
but themselves "barbarians," they gave this name to all the natives of
the island. They had conquered all but the dreaded head-hunters, who,
free in their mountain fastnesses, took a terrible toll of heads
from their would-be conquerors, or even from their own half-civilized
brethren.

The native Malayans who had been subdued by the Chinese were given
different names. Those who lived on the great level rice-plain
over which the missionaries were traveling, were called Pe-po-hoan,
"Barbarians of the plain." Mackay could see little difference between
them and the Chinese, except in the cast of their features, and their
long-shaped heads. They wore Chinese dress, even to the cue, worshiped
the Chinese gods, and spoke with a peculiar Malayan twang.

The travelers were journeying rather wearily over a low muddy stretch
of ground, picking their way along the narrow paths between the
rice-fields, when they saw a group of men come hu