y, Lieutenant Dick Prescott.

Without venturing to order the removal of the find, Lieutenant Prescott
sent a member of the guard to awaken Captain Cortland.

After the post commander had seen it, the guard removed the ghastly find
to the guard house, where it still remained.

What had upset Private Miggs's mental balance was the sight of two
severed heads lying on the ground in his path along post. They were the
heads of white men.

To each had been tied a piece of coarse paper, and on each paper was
rudely traced the likeness of a crab. This crab, as Captain Cortland
already knew, was the sign manual of that arch scoundrel of brown skin,
the Datto Hakkut. The crab was meant to signify that, while the datto
could move forward, he could also crawl sideways or backward--that he
was strategist enough to crawl out of any trap that the soldiers might
set for him.

As soon as the light came Captain Cortland despatched an armed guard
party to bring over to the fort the German physician and three other
white residents of Bantoc, to see whether they could identify the
severed heads.

The heads proved to be those of two young American doctors of
philosophy, Hertford and Sanderson, who had come to Mindanao months
before, one for the purpose of securing specimens representing the
geological formation of the island, and the other in pursuit of
specimens of the plants and flowers.

Despite strong advice to the contrary, as given by the former military
commandant at Bantoc, Drs. Hertford and Sanderson, attended only by a
small party of natives, had gone into the mountains to gather their
specimens. Since then nothing had been heard of the two enthusiastic
young scientists--until Sentry Miggs had stumbled upon his gruesome
find.

The soldiers discussed little else that morning.

"Of course it was the old brown rascal, Hakkut, who had the young
scientific gentlemen killed. Didn't Hakkut have his card tied to each
head?" demanded Private Kelly, who was the centre of a group of enlisted
men.

The group of officers over in Captain Cortland's office had come to the
same conclusion.

"It is the old brown scoundrel's way of showing us his defiance,"
declared Captain Cortland in a shocked voice. "Why couldn't that pair of
enthusiastic boys take good advice and keep out of the mountains? Would
their collections of stones and plants be worth as much to any college
as the young men's lives would have been worth to themselves?"

"