snow-white breast.

To get these I settled myself in a native village a few miles inland
from the town of Dinagao, on the west shore of the Gulf of Davao. Mount
Apo towered just above this place, and I meant to climb its sides
before I left the valley.

After the Bagabos in whose village I was living found that all their
tales of the terrible dangers on Apo did not dissuade me from tempting
them, three of the men agreed to pilot me as far up the mountain
side as they ever went, and to carry there for me a sufficient supply
of food to last me, as they evidently believed, as long as I should
need food. One of them, the best guide and carrier I had found on the
whole island, had screwed his courage up to where he had promised
to go farther with me; but the morning of our start a "quago" bird
flew across our path and hooted; and that settled the matter. Such
an ominous portent as that no intelligent Bagabo could be expected
to disregard. The men hardly could be got to carry my luggage as
far as they had agreed, and as soon as they had put the things down,
they bade me a hasty farewell and scuttled down the mountain as fast
as their legs could carry them.

I slept that night where the men had left me, and set out early the
next morning, hoping to get to the top of the mountain and back to
the same place before night overtook me. The climb was more than hard
for the first mile--harder than I had even feared. The forest grew
so dense as to be practically impassable, and I finally took to the
bed of a rocky stream, up which the travelling, although dangerous,
was not so hard.

In time, though, by scrambling up this water course, I passed
beyond the tree line, and then, where there was only shrubbery,
it was fairly easy to get along. I could see above the vegetation,
now, and the view even from here would have repaid me for all my
effort. The side of the mountain swept down in a majestic curve from
my feet to the sea. At its base was Dinagao, and farther up the coast,
Davao. Beyond them lay the blue waters of the Gulf of Davao, and far
across this, showing only as a line of deeper blue upon the water,
the mountain ranges of the eastern peninsula.

The bushes through which I waded were bent down with the ripe berries
which grew on them. A herd of small, dark brown deer feeding among
the bushes hardly moved out of my way. I wondered at their tameness,
but thought it must be because no man had ever come within their
sight b