THE FOX SKIN
Terry pushed the hardy Hillman to his limit, so that when night fell
they were far down among the foothills, the Dark Forest behind them.
At daylight the Hillman was proudly mounting homeward, Terry's belt
tightly buckled about his naked trunk. The white man's last
dispensable possession had gone as a reward for the service.
Terry's joyous urge carried him swiftly, so that in an hour he dropped
out of the foothills and into the heat of the jungled lowlands. At
noon he climbed Sears' steps and dropped into a porch chair, his
clothes wet with perspiration and torn by contact with brush and
thorn, for he had cut straight through the woods.
He had nearly emptied Sears' water bottle when he saw the big planter
coming out of a wonderful growth of hemp. Sears advanced slowly, deep
in thought, not looking up till he had mounted the last step. At sight
of Terry's grinning features he recoiled violently, then as the lad
rose, he jumped forward to wring his hand furiously. Incapable of
coherent speech for several minutes, he at last mastered his vocal
cords.
"Man! I thought you were a ghost!" he cried.
Terry sketched his journey into the Hills, and added a brief account
of the experiences he and the Major had undergone. Learning that the
Major was also safe, Sears called a Bogobo boy and issued instructions
that sent him scurrying into one of the Bogobo huts. In a few minutes
he returned bearing a small agong and striker.
Under Sears' directions he hung it upon a pole in front of the house
and struck it sharply, again and again. As the deep notes carried out
through the still, hot woods Sears motioned to him to desist and
turned to Terry.
"Listen!" he exclaimed, intent, his hand on Terry's shoulder.
In a moment another agong, somewhere close to the south, sounded
several times, then another further away, then another, another. Soon
the noon stillness of the brush pulsed with the mystic multi-tones of
scores of far agongs rung from plantations. Slowly the murmur grew as
hundreds of agongs rung by Bogobos in the foothills took up the
signal, flooding the hemplands with a glad, bronze chorus.
Sears gripped Terry's shoulder hard, his eyes brimming.
"That's the signal we fixed up," he said. "Welcome home!"
He hovered over Terry, questioning, commenting, incredulous over the
Major's marriage, overjoyed that the quinine he had given Terry had
been a factor in his recovery. After lunch Terry borrowed Sears' best
pony and rode away with the planter's profane benedictions in his
ears.
He rode hard, but each familiar landmark, each twist in trail, each
sight of river, each expanse of glistening hemp plants, thrilled him
with a sense of homecoming. Once, drawing up to cool and water his
pony, he caught the sparkle of the sunny Gulf, his nostrils sensed its
tang, and with the surge of thanksgiving for the wonderful good
fortune that had attended him, he first realized the strain of the
past weeks.
Great as was his hurry to reach Davao--an hour's tardiness might mean
the loss of the weekly steamer--he spent a half-hour with Lindsey, who
had ridden out to the trail in the hope of intercepting him. From
Lindsey he learned more of the suspense that had hung over the Gulf
since his disappearance, the deep anxiety that had spread among the
Bogobos and silenced every agong in the foothills.
"And Terry--the night the Giant Agong rang up there--we most went
crazy!"
"We wondered if you heard it, Lindsey."
"Heard it! Heard it? It reached clear over on the East Coast. Boynton
heard it over there."
Terry pressed on. Three miles below he found Casey was out to meet
him, and further on, Burns. At four o'clock he dismounted to greet
some Bogobos whom he overtook on the trail. Pushing Sears' little
brown hard, he rode into Davao at five o'clock.
The plaza was crowded. Warned of his coming by the agong chorus, the
whole town had turned out, Americans, Filipinos, Chinese, several
Spaniards and Moros. The sleepy, dusty square waked to their noisy
welcome.
"_El Solitario!! El Conquistador del Malabanan!_"
Laughing, misty eyed with the warmth of their greeting, he stood in
the center of the jostling crowd, shaking hands, calling each white,
native and Mongolian by name. Then the Macabebes claimed him and swept
him into the privacy of the cuartel.
The jealous Matak had waited till Terry entered the house that his
welcome might be unshared.
"Master, I know you come back. All time I know," he assured him
gravely, then looked him over and sent out for the barber. Solemn and
efficient as ever, he hustled his master under the shower, helped him
into the first starched clothes he had known in five weeks, then went
into the kitchen to frighten the cook into greater haste in
preparation of dinner.
Barber shears, soap and clean linens restored Terry to his usual
nattiness, and he delighted the cook with the zest with which he
approached a good dinner after the weeks of the crude and
undiversified fare of the Hillmen. Halfway through dinner he beckoned
to Matak who stood with folded arms near the kitchen door as matter of
fact as though the routine of the household had never been disturbed.
"Matak, when is the mail boat due?"
"She come this morning, go noontime."
And this was the twenty-fourth. Terry's keen disappointment was
apparent to the watchful Moro.
"Master, you want go to Zamboanga?" he said.
"Yes. I must go as soon as possible, Matak."
"Take little boat Major come in. She still here."
Terry jumped up from the dinner table and hurried to the dock and
found the speedboat tied up alongside. After a hurried conference with
Adams he raced back to the house, where the forehanded Matak was
already packing his bags. Terry added a steamer trunk which held his
civilian clothes, and as dusk fell master and man stepped aboard the
frail craft. Adams was ready. A sharp thrust of foot quickened the
engine into life, and they swung in a short circle. Straightening,
motors roaring, the stern sucked deep as they sped in swift flight
into the south.
From his seat in the stern Terry watched the light fade out of the
western sky. The stars invaded the deserted field and dimly outlined
the rim of the mountains, a smooth line save where Apo reared high in
the west. For a moment the dark peak seemed lonely to him, but he knew
that the Major was happy on the pine clad height.... After Ohto's
passing, his own responsibility, the guidance of a child-tribe, would
be a heavy one ... a year of that, perhaps, and then--but first ...
his heart throbbed in vivid realization of all that awaited him in
Zamboanga.
Adams hovered about his engines, happy in Terry's return and in this
opportunity to render him service. Matak stretched out on a cross
seat, unhappy in the deafening roar of the motors and the rhythmic
rise and fall of the speeding craft in the smooth landswells.
As they rounded Sarangani in the middle of the calm moonlit night
Adams left the cockpit long enough to cover Terry with a thick
blanket, for he had succumbed to the monotonous chorus of the motors
and the lull of the bewitching night at sea.
As the calm weather held, Adams steered straight for Zamboanga,
putting out to sea in the little motorboat. When Terry woke Basilan
was in sight, and at five o'clock they rushed down the tidal current
of the Straits and eased into the slip alongside the dock.
Adams, grimy, worn with his long vigil, grinned contentedly under
Terry's warm thanks. Leaving Matak to secure a bullcart to transport
his luggage to the Major's house Terry hurried down the dock and
entered the Government Building. The clerks had left for the day but
at Terry's knock the Governor himself threw wide the door.
Profound thankfulness lit Mason's intellectual face. Grasping Terry's
hand he led him into the office.
"And the Major?" he questioned.
"Well--and very happy, sir!"
Keen-eyed, observant, in the moment of welcome the Governor had sensed
the new Terry, read the new contentment and confidence manifest in his
face and bearing.
In a few minutes Terry had sketched his experiences to his eager
auditor. The Governor contented himself with a bare outline, though
his eyes glistened. The Hills opened!
"Captain Terry," he said, "come in to-morrow and tell me the
details--I will give you the entire morning. To-morrow I will try to
tell you how happy I am in your safe return, and in the service you
have rendered this Government."
He rose, beaming with the news it was his privilege to impart.
"You had best run along now, Captain. You will find three
anxious--friends--awaiting you at the Major's house. They expected to
arrive to-morrow but caught the transport and docked yesterday. They
will be relieved to see you, for I had to tell them something of the
uncertainty we felt regarding your--whereabouts. Take my car, and run
along!"
And Terry ran along! He flew down the steps and into the automobile
and in three minutes was leaping up the stairway into the Major's
house.
Ellis, fatter, somehow absurd in tropic whites, met him at the
entrance. Meeting halfway around the world from where they had parted,
choking with the end of the dread suspense into which the Governor's
guarded references to Terry's disappearance had plunged him, Ellis'
big heart thumped in glad relief, but true to the traditions of his
lifetime environment he strove to repress it, to appear as casual as
though they had been in daily association. Pumping Terry's hand
spasmodically, he measured the ecstatic lad with extravagant care,
studied him from crown to heel.
"Dick, how do you do it?" he asked.
"Do what, Ellis?" Terry's voice was unsteady, too.
"Keep so fit in this oven of a country--you're as hard as nails!"
Terry's unsteady laugh rang through the big bungalow: "Go on, you
fakir--you're crying right now!"
Ellis was. He turned away as Susan rushed out of an adjoining room.
Laughing, sobbing, she threw herself upon her brother, held him away
to study his appearance, hugged him tighter, pouring out a volume of
questions she offered him no opportunity to answer.
Five minutes, and she recovered sufficient reason to catch the
significance of Ellis' vehement gestures toward the second of the row
of four bedrooms that opened off the sala. Understanding, she left
Terry and followed Ellis into their room, closing the door with a bang
intended as a signal to another who listened.
Terry waited, idly stroking the long frond of an air plant that hung
in the wide window near where he stood. He wondered, vaguely, that he
should be so collected, almost unconcerned, in the face of what
awaited him. He saw the door open slowly, wider, then arrest as if the
hand on the knob had faltered, and in the instant his self-possession
deserted him.
His heart skipped a beat, then accelerated into a heavy thumping that
seemed to fill the room with pulsing muffled roar. He moistened his
lips as the door moved again, opened wide.
Deane stepped into the room, pale, her wide blue eyes fixed upon him.
Slender, rounded, white of arm and throat, she had fulfilled
gloriously all of the fair promise of her youth. The rich heritage of
womanhood had stamped the softly curved form and the sweetly pensive
face. Virginal, she was a mother of men.
He faced her from the window, powerless to move, to speak, but there
was that in his eyes that made words unnecessary. Scarce breathing,
atremble, she saw the steady gray eyes blaze with a light no other had
ever seen, ever would see.
To him she suddenly became unreal, and his mind reverted to another
hour when they had stood facing each other. Again she stood before
him in the dimlit hall, sobbing, and with the memory came a surging
realization of what he might have lost. Unconsciously his last words
to her, spoken that Christmas night, sprang brokenly to his lips as he
held out his arms:
"Don't wait, Deane-girl, don't wait."
With the sudden deepening of the wistful lines of his mouth she felt a
burning rush of tears, and at his words she crossed to him, starry
eyed, full red lips aquiver.
There never was a merrier party of four than theirs that night. The
questions flew back and forth, answers clipped short by new and more
pressing queries. Ellis and Susan were full of the newcomers' interest
in the country, its peoples and customs. Deane, quieter, was
interested most in Terry's work, in Davao, in the story of the Hills.
Terry learned of the home friends. Father Jennings, Doctor Mather, Mr.
Hunter, a score of others, had sent messages to him. Deane had brought
special greetings from his friends on the Southside, and a garish
picture of little Richard Terry Ricorro. Half of her larger trunk was
filled with silver and linens which had poured in when news of the
purpose of her journey had sifted through Crampville.
They were seated on the cool veranda at coffee when the Governor's car
drew up outside the gate, and the chauffeur entered with a note.
Dear Captain Terry:
This car is yours throughout the stay of your--will not the
word "family" soon properly cover all three of them?
Please use it freely. I have another entirely suited for my
present needs.
I am very happy to-night, happy in your safe return and in
the achievement you have wrought in the name of the
Government it is my unmerited privilege to head. And this
happiness will be the greater for knowing that you are
driving through this glorious evening by the side of her who
came so far to join her life with yours.
MASON.
After Terry had read the note aloud Deane added her pleas to his that
Susan and Ellis should share the car with them. But they would have
none of it. When Susan wavered, Ellis became emphatic.
So the two rode through the tropic night alone, that night and during
the glorious evenings that followed for a week. They came to know
every village along the ribboned roads, each grove of tall palms, each
stretch of beach where smooth highways ran along the coast. She loved
the island empire.
They talked as such do talk. The third night, as they rolled through
the moonlight down the San Ramon road, he found courage to broach the
one subject he had hesitated to mention.
"The Governor wants me to stay a year," he faltered. "A year up in the
Hills."
She had expected it, was ready. She looked full up at him, and in the
soft light her lovely face shone with a strange beauty that humbled
him.
"Dick, 'and thy people shall be my people.'"
* * * * *
They planned their house in the Hills, bought and stored picturesque
odds and ends of furniture and fittings; brasses, embroideries,
carved teak: and he outlined their honeymoon, which was to be a
three-months' ramble through Japan, the magic lover's land. They
arranged no exact itinerary, just a wandering through Miajima, Kyoto,
Nikko,--a score of out of the way places.
The mornings he spent with the enthusiastic Governor, planning,
discussing. Two tons of supplies went out to the Major the fourth day.
"I put in an assortment of presents for him to give to the Hillmen,"
the Governor told him. "And plenty of matches--you say they went wild
over those he packed up. They will be rich!"
"Governor, the Hillmen are the richest people I have ever seen."
The Governor was puzzled: "How?"
"They have everything they want. Land for the clearing, a spear,
cotton growing wild on trees for such clothes as they wear, meat in
the forest, bamboo to cut for shelter against wind and rain, upland
rice springing up from barely scratched soils. No social striving, no
politics, no taxes. All their wants are satisfied--was Croesus as
rich?"
"Then you do not believe in civilizing them--it means introducing new
wants--some of which they never will satisfy!"
"Yes, I do, Governor. Civilization means doctors, less suffering,
longer life: schools and books: agriculture and better diet: commerce
and clothes: churches, and morality--and soap!"
The day came when Terry and Deane drove down the San Ramon road where
the Governor had preceded them, with Ellis and Susan and a score of
the new friends they had made in Zamboanga. Wade had insisted that his
spacious bungalow be the scene of their wedding.
Even before he had wrought the house into a fairy-land of palm and
cadena and hibiscus the great flowered sweeps of lawn and grove set by
the sea had been an ideal setting. Ellis, given his choice of
functions, had elected to officiate as best man, so the Governor was
happy in giving the bride away. Susan cried, as matrons of honor
always do, as she stood with them in the fret-work of shadows under
the palms which stirred gently in the off-sea breeze.
None of those most concerned remembered many of the details of the
evening, excepting Matak, who met there a young Moro maid and found
her fair.
They returned to Zamboanga under enchanting stars, and at nine o'clock
they saw Ellis and Susan leave, for they were returning home at once
through the Suez, taking steamer first for Borneo and Java. Their own
boat left an hour later for Manila, Hong Kong and Nagasaki.
Bidding Ellis good-by, Terry woke from the dream in which he had moved
through the afternoon.
"Ellis, do not sell the shoe store. We may be home in a year, and I'll
want to pitch into something."
"But you'd never fool with that after--after all this over here!"
Terry laughed happily: "You never can tell, Ellis. I am learning
lessons every day!"
Later, Ellis sought to dry Susan's tears. "Dick, you're a fine lover!
After all these years of search for things for Deane you failed to
give her a wedding gift!"
Terry flushed miserably, for it was true. But Deane thrilled the more
happily for the utter absorption in her that had expelled all other
things from his mind: she knew that Susan had prompted him to both
engagement and wedding rings.
From the pier they watched Ellis and Susan at the rail till the
altering course of the brilliantly lighted steamer swept them from
sight.
An hour later their own liner carried them northward through the dark
Straits.
The deck was deserted, dark. They sat close, in long steamer chairs,
watching the mysterious coastline of Mindanao, the shadowy masses of
distant mountains that seemed less substance than opaque obstruction
of the warm, starry sky. Neither spoke. It was the hour of fullest
gratitude, of mutual dedication. The night about them was filled with
that humming heard only on a big ship plowing through a calm sea after
sundown, the drone of light winds through lofty rigging, the heavy
slipping of displaced water, the muffled roar of great engines
throbbing in the deep hold.
Eight bells rang the midnight hour. Deane rose, whispering that she
had a few things to unpack, bidding him come in ten minutes. Leaning
over him, she smoothed his hair lightly with her two hands, curling
about her fingers the obstinate scalp lock that always would stand
forth from his crown. Reaching up, he took her cool hands and held
them tightly against his cheeks. Releasing her, he watched the
progress of the buoyant form down the long deck, his soul lit with the
flame that warms all mankind.
The moon, in its last quarter, peered over the dark rim of the
mountains. When its lower tip cleared, he rose.
When he joined her in their stateroom, her eyes filled happily as she
watched the fine, white face.
The fox skin lay on the cabin floor before her berth.
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
* * * * *
[Transcriber's Notes:
Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully as
possible, including obsolete and variant spellings and other
inconsistencies. The transcriber made the following changes to the
text to correct obvious errors:
1. p. 70, "Sear interrupted" changed to "Sears interrupted"
2. p. 81, "wierd-shaped" changed to "weird-shaped"
3. p. 96, "guaged" changed to "gauged"
4. p. 189, "move toward the fringe" changed to "moved toward the fringe"
5. p. 200, "spit into two factions" changed to "split into two factions"
6. p. 207, "beneath their eerie" changed to "beneath their aerie"
7. p. 219, "the swind swept crag" changed to "the wind swept crag"
End of Transcriber's Notes]