As their confidence increased, they unsealed their tight lips in relation of strange tales of the Hill People, unbelievable stories of the wild tribe who lived in the forbidden mountain beyond the Dark Forest: stories told usually by old men and old women, who shivered as they whispered their legends to the white man by the campfire. They told him the dread stories because they liked his quietness, his slightly twisted, friendly smile, and because, as they told each other, he listened as one who sees not with the eyes alone.
When he saw that the fear of Malabanan had spread among these widely scattered, defenseless wildmen, Terry grew grimmer. But as the weeks passed peacefully by, hope grew within him that Malabanan's presence in the lovely, fertile Gulf boded no ill.
Major Bronner, arriving unexpectedly, found that Terry had been away all day on a mission among the Bogobos. Learning from Matak that his master would return within a few hours the Major left his bag and crossed over to the Davao Club for dinner. Entering the club, a roomy house furnished by the planters to provide a comfortable place in which to put up when forced to town by business or the monotony of their isolation, he passed straight to the dining room, discovering Lindsey, Cochran and a dozen others he knew. As he paused in the doorway Lindsey spied him and called him to the table he shared with Cochran and two others. After the Major had responded to the greeting called from all four tables, Lindsey took up the thread of a story the Major's entrance had interrupted.
"Major, I was just telling of my experiences with the hemp machine I brought down three months ago. As I was saying, I set the machine up in my biggest field and tried it out in private—and Man! How she did strip hemp! Convinced that I had the world by the tail I sent word out to all the Bogobos in the neighborhood to come in next day to see the machine work, and sent a special bid to the old chief who lords it over that section.
"Well, they came all right—ready to see the crazy Americans' newest devilment—and all set for the feast they knew I'd give! The chief came, with the bunch who act as a staff for him, and I lined them up right in front of the machine in the center of a crowd of two hundred wild men—all about as scared by the machine's appearance as they could be. I was pretty proud, and pretty happy: I gave them a good spiel through my interpreter, telling them that from now on all who worked for me would be free from the hard toil of stripping—nothing to do but field work—and all that. I thought that they would admire this new evidence of the American genius, would pile over each other in their desire to work for me.
"I nodded to the mechanic: he cranked the engine and it got off to a fine start and before throwing in the clutch that hooked it up with the stripper I looked out over the silent, brown-faced crowd. I had to grin at their expectant, half-scared attitude: the old chief stood right in front of the big machine—he was uncertain about it all, but game. I threw her in and waved to the feeders, who tossed in the great stalks as the big iron arms started to revolve in the air. It did make an infernal racket—but it did strip hemp. The fiber came out of one end, the juice ran into a trough—oh, it worked great.
"I spent a minute or two seeing that everything worked right, then I turned triumphantly to the crowd. But, Lord—there wasn't any crowd—I saw the last of their brown backs disappearing into the brush!
"All but the old chief. He stood right there; stiff with fright, I guess! I stopped the machine and went over to him to ask him to tell his young men to work for me as he could see how easy it would be for them, now that I had this machine."
He paused, laughing ruefully. "But I didn't get a chance to say a word. He took one last look at the now quiet iron monster, clucked that peculiar 'Tuk!' in which they express the maximum of emotion, uttered two words—'Americano devils!'—then stalked away as rapidly as his bent old legs would carry him. He disappeared into the woods—and hasn't been seen since!