ping midway in his
vehement outburst to cock his head at the absurd angle in which men
think their ears function best. As he heard the ominous drone of the
insects his experience had taught him to fear more than wild beasts,
he scrambled to his feet with amazing celerity.

A light sleeper, Terry awakened and lay regarding him quizzically,
enthusiastically dissecting the stream of invective the doctor poured
upon him for sleeping without his net. Suddenly sensing the
responsibility the doctor felt in having summoned him to the village,
Terry explained his lack of a net.

"Doctor, I gave my net to the chief's wife: she--she is about to
become a mother, and she had none."

"Hell's bells! What Bogobo woman isn't about to become a mother?" he
stormed, refusing to concede the justice of the act. "'She had
none'--and probably didn't use yours!"

He was facing the window, past which the chief, arrayed in all his
half-naked splendor of beads and brass, sauntered with an air of
confidence quite different from his terror of the past week.

"There goes the chief, Terry, all fancied up like a bathroom on a
German liner! But he has no pants--why don't you give him yours? He
'has none'! You make me--"

He stormed on and on. Terry, still wrapped in his blanket, sat before
him looking up with an absurdly rapt air as of a student at his
master's feet. Merchant stopped to swab the thick perspiration from
his face, laughed at Terry's humbugging pose, and desisted. Terry
slipped on his shoes, buckled on the leather leggings he had used as a
pillow and picking up his saddlebags went out to clean up at the
river.

Finding on his return that the doctor was again genuinely disturbed
over his exposure to the disease, he sought to divert him. He sneezed
violently, and as the doctor listened with professional interest he
followed it with a series which mounted in volume and vigor. Merchant
eyed him solicitously.

"You've caught a bad cold, Lieutenant."

"Yes." Terry snuffled and drew his handkerchief. "It was awfully damp
in here last night."

"Damp? How could it be damp in an open shack this time of year?"

"Well, it was. A regular mist!" He sneezed explosively, then took a
few short turns about the little hut in search of the cause of his
malady.

The doctor watched him, interested. Bending suddenly, Terry held aloft
the perspiration-soaked nightshirt which the doctor affected.

"Eureka!" he exclaimed, dramatically, then dodged