"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.