tum had placed them, then dismissed the profitless
forebodings and went out to the village to study the natives.

The clearing was empty of men. A score of the older women were
fetching wood to the fires, another group were washing camotes and
threshing rice with hand flails. Upward of a hundred naked children,
pot-bellied, straightbacked, stared at the big white stranger as he
passed, then ceased their pathetically futile efforts at play and
trooped along behind him, their eyes as old as Ohto's. He looked in at
the young women weaving kapok thread into cloth for blankets and the
garments the women wore, but recognizing in the third house he entered
three of the girls who had watched him in the creek, he fled in
confusion.

He ate dinner alone, as Terry had not returned. In the afternoon he
continued his study of tribal customs. He had known the Luzon head
hunters intimately, so had a basis of comparison. He went among the
older women freely and sat with them about the fires, practicing his
Bogobo, questioning, enlarging his vocabulary, winning their
friendliness.

As the afternoon waned he left the clearing, feeling in need of
exercise. He strode rapidly about the circumference of the plateau and
as he threaded the fringe of woods that separated the main clearing
from Ohto's reservation, he halted suddenly as he saw Ahma tripping
toward him on her way to Ohto's house.

His first wild impulse was to dodge among the trees and avoid her, but
as she had seen him he stood still until she should pass. But she
swerved toward him and approaching with light, swift tread of free
limbs she stopped a few feet before him, smiling.

Embarrassed by the creamy curves of shoulder and limbs, he sought
diversion in the treetops. She spoke, and at the sound of the clear
little voice he looked at her, and in looking forgot the eccentricity
of her frank costume. Her dark eyes held him: he knew that he was
gazing at the only wholly ingenuous being he had ever seen. He
swallowed convulsively.

"Hello," he said.

Bronner was subtle to a fault!

Puzzled at the word, she wrinkled her nose in delicious groping for
understanding, then laughed up at him. And with the laugh something
popped within his sturdy chest.

He hastily substituted the Hillmen's word of greeting, which he had
learned during the morning, and joined loudly in her merriment. Elated
with this success, he marshalled his resources of dialect to further
impress her but