At the sudden question Terry turned to him.
"Yes," he said. "I hope to be—useful."
They had reached the entrance to the government building: the Major paused at the foot of the mahogany staircase to conclude earnestly: "It is fashionable just now in Manila to decry this effort to institute civil government among the Moros—but I know you are not of the type to be influenced. Governor Mason is making good: you will see that after you have been here a month. He is a wonder, Terry,—probably the only man who could handle this situation with a few Constabulary. Study, patience, and square-dealing, backed by occasional use of troops, prepared the Moros for this experiment, and Governor Mason is carrying it forward almost alone—opposing the backward tendencies of Sululand with little else save personality, inspiration and a wonderful knowledge of Malay character.
"You're going to like it down here," he wound up suddenly, confused by his own unaccustomed oratory.
Mounting the polished stairway, they passed down the tall concrete corridors and into the Major's office. He drew up a chair for Terry and seated himself behind a desk whose orderly array of accessories bespoke his methodical bachelor habits. The walls were covered with large-scale maps of Moroland showing location of various tribes, scattered settlements and district boundaries, with great blank areas eloquent of the unknown character of unexplored fastnesses. The crosses which indicated the distribution of Constabulary forces controlled from his office dotted every sizable island: pins bearing the names of government agents showed into what remote regions our trail-breakers had penetrated. One purple-flagged pin showed a veterinarian warring against a cattle plague in Jolo: a blue flag thrust into one of the blank spaces of Mindanao indicated the whereabouts of a fearless ethnologist from the Field Museum: a red sticker bore the name of an engineer who had been out of touch for six weeks, running the line of a new trail across the great bulk of Mindanao. The map was symbolic of the Constabulary, whose duty it is to know all, to protect all.
Leaving Terry to his study of the maps the Major spent an unapologetic fifteen minutes clearing the mass of papers that had accumulated during the lunch hour, then turned to him. For an hour he outlined the salient problems which would confront the young officer in his new assignment. He was all business, curt, concise, definite. He touched upon the ordinary service activities of drill, patrol, secret service, supply and report, then took up those phases which required delicate and original handling.
"Now, Lieutenant, we did not pull you down here to handle an ordinary job—you know it means something these days to get a Mindanao assignment."
Terry did know it. Only men who had demonstrated unusual ability in their line had been sent to Moroland under Governor Mason. As the months went by the northern provinces were being stripped of their crack men for assignment to the southern experiment, so that detail there had become a mark of distinction. He had been as surprised as pleased at his summons from Sorsogon, a poor, colorless province where he had spent seven months in uneventful, and as he thought, inconspicuous service.
The Major detected something of what was passing in his mind: "You were selected because of your understanding of native character, your sympathy with them: that, and your faculty for learning dialects. By the way, what is your method of studying these languages—your record of three dialects in half a year is remarkable."
"There was little else to do—and I like to study them."