d Sears steadily,
unafraid, and not unfriendly.

Cochran coughed loudly, and again. Casey nervously undid a shoelace,
retieing it with meticulous care. Lindsey rose with studied
leisureliness and stood at the rail near Sears, ready.

But the ship's bell rang out the dinner hour, a waiting Visayan
steward stepped out on the deck hammering a Chinese dinner gong, and
in the strident din the crisis passed. Lindsey lingered to speak with
Terry after the others had passed below.

"I'm very sorry, Lieutenant. Sears is a rough fellow, but he is
half-crazed with worry. He's really not a bad _hombre_."

Terry nodded: "I can see that he is worried about something."

"It's his plantation. He has invested what little money he had in it,
has worked hard for three years, and now that he has his first big
crop he can't harvest it--the Bogobos won't work for him. He is pretty
rough with them, I guess--but if he doesn't harvest this crop he's
ruined. He's in debt--and pretty desperate."

He paused, a deeper concern crept into his face: "Lieutenant," he said
earnestly, "can't you stay away from his place--a while--till he gets
his hemp cut and stripped? He is really desperate--and always packs a
gun."

Terry smiled his gratitude. "Lindsey, I am much obliged to you. You
need not worry about it."

* * * * *

Neither Sears nor Lindsey were of the group which assembled on deck
after dinner to enjoy the brilliancy of the swift sunset. The ship had
swung through Sarangani Channel and was paralleling the west coast due
north toward Davao. The red glory of the dying sun tinted the waters
of the Gulf to the line of palm-fringed beach which edged the distant
shoreline. From the shore the land sloped gently to the west and
north, mile after mile of primeval jungle broken here and there where
brush and thorn and creeper had yielded to man's demand for more and
more hemp. Far inland the steady rise persisted, grew more abrupt and
more heavily timbered, terminating in the far interior in a dim and
mighty mountain whose dark-wooded slopes and misted crest dominated
the Gulf: the red orb of the sun had dropped behind this towering
summit.

Cochran pointed up at the distant mountain: "Mount Apo."

Terry nodded: "Where the Hill People live?"

"Yes,--where they are supposed to live: no one really knows ... you
will hear all sorts of stories."

The shadows which lurked upon Mount Apo descended over the lower
s