Terry / A Tale of the Hill People

lt of equipment, quarters, drill or training escaped comment and correction. The command was in fine shape but it is a service in which there is but one standar

plaint of myriad insect life. An hour out and the Major was nearly unseated as his pony shied violently from a three-foot iguana that scurried across their path in furious haste. Farther into the woods, and they drew rein, list

e middle of his clearing and in a few minutes Lindsey, soaked with perspi

" he smiled. "You can never tell what the n

hen strolled through the streets of the little village Lindsey had built for his laborers and their families, a double row of neat bamboo huts, grass roofed, of which he

hrough the long rows of abaca which drooped listless fronds in the quivering heat, and into the cool woods which surrounded his fields. They went on for a half-hour into deeper jungle, emerging into a strip of natur

en Lindsey heard to his right a dry twig snap and turning saw a big boar slip out from the brush and pause, its ugly tusks foam-flecked. His heavy gun crashed, the boar leaped convulsively across the clearing, falling at a second shot. As it

nd one deer that had fallen to his gun: he had missed one boar and another, which he had wounded

. Approaching him, surprised, Lindsey saw that he was absent-m

o chances-" Lindsey began b

ran up my breeches!" He was as nearly excited as Lindsey had e

me to come-I've seen something w

usy clipping fresh ammunition into his pistol magazines. Five wild pigs lay in f

nk. Five pigs, five shots,-and after each shot he holstered the gun till the ne

sep!" he woun

the big automatic with a deft snap, and turned round t

ky, wasn't

Major, drily, "you

dipping behind the hills as the three started back the trail through the dense woods, Lindsey leading the way an

heavy supports for the wide-spread limbs which towered above the surrounding forest. Terry paused a moment in the twilight of the tree, studying appreciatively the miniature forest of trunks parente

out, M

the heavy trunk, landing at the Major's feet with a slithering thud, writhed a terrible length into massi

il in front of him and rear again in a length which terminated in a massive head poised six feet from the Major

or another blow at the exposed face. The Major, faint with the terror of his helplessness and the crushing weight of the quivering masses of muscle about him, would have fallen but for their dread support. His consciousness fast deserting him, fascinated, he watched the monstrous leer as the head drew farther back, poise

he trunk of the banyan and stamping his feet weakly to restore the still numb legs. Terry helped him hobble over to where the Bogobos, who had come up at the shots, were gro

pale as the Major. "Any other wound, even fatal,-it's d

look he pointed toward Te

tly, striving for appropriate exp

obliged. If I ever-if ev

bearing the carcass of the snake, which had haunted the neighborhood for a generation. The celebration of its passing lasted far int

ngth stretched along the molding on two sides of the library

acked Major Joh

indsey P

.........24 f

eter.........

owes his life

smanship of

ichard T

erry called in the Health Officer, fat Doctor Merchant, who looked him over and pronounced him uninjured,

ope!" he

nd open again after a few minutes. Puzzled as on th

eturn for a short stop at Davao in forty-eight hours, but as they finished their leis

he Major. "He's twelve hou

unch was lowered over the side of the trim white boat which lay anchored a half-mile

and greeted the Major, then turned

ave been recalled. As usual my departure from the

ch, calling each by name, then gathered the officials about him in a brief conference which disc

h that gang of roug

, s

it, an unrelenting determination, a grimness: "Major

m make the first move,

time that this province is as unhealth

lf appreciatively, mounting higher and higher till it rested on Apo's dim crest. A moment and

some day ..

Gove

s of the cutter's whistle restored the Governor's urban manner. In a minute he and th

gulf waters. Three large bancas were approaching the shore, belated fishermen returning with the night's catch: a fleet vinta, bearing Moro traders, bore toward Samal, its little sail glaring white in the actinic sunlig

ed impending combat, and Macabebes thrive on combat. Sergeant Mercado, veteran of seven campaigns in Samar and Cavite, drilled them tirelessly, his eyes afire with the old fighting glint. And that night he donne

Restless, reading failed of its usual absorption. After a while he

r D

o study the map to find out where it is! If it means advancement I am glad-

ad an article written by a cynical woman who has lived in the Islands only a few months. I read part of it to father, the part which says that "the

re just about the same

le over on the South Side last week among the foreigners but Father Jennings smoothed things out. He told me that he has a harder time keeping them contented since yo

lle. He has been called to Albany twice during the month to perform s

re quite the happiest couple we have-

y? Do not let one of them fascinate you. We need you here, Dic

an

ch always stuck out from the crown of his head, he stared vacantly at the lamp shade, oblivious to the entrance of the

ough an open window, fluttered, crazy-winged, thrice about the big room and blundered through anoth

wn to life.... He was walking up Main Street again, with rifle and snowshoes and fox, of

hut the exposed window and returned to his desk.

e-de

boat, buried in a dross of mail in prosy canvas sacks: I open them with the delight one feels wh

dawn, the cool of the evenings; the great tangled stretches of green which clothe the slopes from sea to the edge of the mountains that loom gray in the distance, like the rim of the w

like it all, too, though-s

hills I can almost conceive the vast significance of the word "eternity": but thoughts of these primeval hills sweeps my m

l them-"leem-o-sahns": the word falls limpid from their lips, unaccented. They say the limo?on never was heard to sing in th

e was grandmother to nineteen. I wish you could have been there to watch and to listen: sitting near the fire in front of her hut, surrounded by a circle of almost naked wildmen who moved, uneasy, she told quaveringly of how the booming tones had rumb

, usually happy. Just now I am facing less pleasant duty-but it is, I fear, a wor

you all, as I love you all ... Susan and Ellis

i