For a while they sat
silent, Terry happy in the outcome of this strange adventure in the
Hills, the Major thrilling with the joy that had come to him.

The Major broke the silence: "Terry, I AM a chump! All this time I've
forgotten to tell you that a captain's commission is waiting your
acceptance in Zamboanga!"

He went on, slowly: "Are you sure that you can come back here for a
year--after your honeymoon? Maybe she--your wife--won't wish to come."

"Yes, she will." Terry was confident. "It will be for only one year,
and then--"

"And then what?" the Major demanded after a while.

"Then--back home, among my own people. I left home foolishly, Major. I
was restless--looking for a dragon to slay. But I have had a year in
which to think--and I see things differently. During the time I was
sick up here I--I ... well, I know now that a man need not cross the
world to find service: he can be just as useful in preventing bunions
as in--as in such lucky ventures as this."

"Preventing bunions?" The Major was puzzled.

But Terry did not answer. He had risen to finish his preparations for
the journey down.

"Just one more thing, Terry. You promised to tell me how you started
that little avalanche--the 'sign.'"

Something of the serenity faded from Terry's face as he turned to
explain: "I had been up there several times, and had noticed a deep
crevice that split the platform from the parent rock. It would have
fallen within a few months. I carried up some softwood wedges, drove
them into the fault, poured in a lot of water and expansion did the
rest."

The Major visualized the toil and peril of lugging heavy logs up the
spiral trail at night. "Why didn't you let me help?" he demanded.

"Well, Ahma kept guard for me, and that was enough. If I had been
caught I could probably have talked myself out of the scrape, but it
might have gone harder with you. Luckily the timbers I used for wedges
were buried in the slide."

The Major's face clouded swiftly: "Say, Terry! That scoundrel Pud-Pud
said that he saw you that night--he can ruin the thing yet if he
talks!"

Terry shook his head, a little sorrowfully: "No, Pud-Pud will never
talk to anybody about anything again. I got to Ohto too late: they had
already executed sentence."

"What did they do with him?"

"Shot him full of darts and turned him loose in the Dark Forest. So I
confessed to Ohto that I contrived the 'sign.' Of course I made him
understand that you had