They met in the center of the clearing near the smoldering cooking fire, their hands gripping hard. Their eyes were moist with the relief each found in the other's safety. Both struggled for apt expression of their pentup emotions. The Major found his tongue first. "Well, it's fine air up here," he offered. "Ayeh." Terry's grin was uncertain. "And there's so much of it!" And they shook hands on it, complacently. CHAPTER XIII THE HILL PEOPLE Occasionally one passes a stranger on the street whose face bears the unmistakable imprint of recent pain, a patient line of mouth and haunting glow of eyes that have looked close into the eternal shadows. Terry bore this look. He unbuckled the Major's pack straps and relieving him of the load led him into the shack he occupied. It was a small hut, roofed and sided with grass woven into a bamboo lattice work; stilted six feet above the ground it trembled under the Major's heavy tread. A woven bamboo partition divided it into two small halves, and each room was bare save for a slatted cot that served as chair by day and couch by night. The breeze blew up through the strips of bamboo flooring. Exhausted the Major sank down upon the hard cot but rose to sitting posture to study Terry with bloodshot eyes. "Terry," he said, "you're looking a little--what the folks back home call 'peaked'." Terry's face was a little haggard, his body a little slimmer, the steady gray eyes were deeper set. "Oh, I'm all right." He seated himself on the ledge of the window near the Major. "You had a tight go of it last night. Did you hear the little agong ring?" "Yes." "The young Hillmen wanted to wipe you out. I had to work pretty hard with Ohto--the old chief--to persuade him to let you come in unharmed." His face clouded. "I have been worried ever since you started into the Hills." "How did you know that I was coming?" "Major, that's why I have been so worried about not being able to start back--I knew that you would come as soon as you heard." The Major flushed in quick pleasure at the unconscious tribute to his friendship and his courage. He filled his pipe and smoked contentedly. It was the biggest hour that he had ever known. Terry unharmed, well; his own hazards surmounted; and the Hill Country penetrated at last--the impossible again achieved by the Constabulary. He settled back comfortably, using his pack as a pillow. "Tell me all about it," he said. "There is not much to tell, Major. You must already know all about the way in which the Macabebes finished what Malabanan started, and of Sakay's leap into the pool--did Sears dynamite that pool?" Horror shadowed the steady eyes till the Major assured him that the pool and its dweller were of the past. "Major, that Sakay affair was pretty--bad: I keep wondering if I missed him--I would hate to think that.... Well, I had not felt well all day. I must have been exposed to that fever at Dalag and--" "Yes, I guess you had! Merchant told me about that!"