The white-smocked servants moved noiselessly about the cool veranda, serving the score of Americans with that perfect impersonal care found nowhere except among Oriental servitors: the subdued clatter of silver against dish and the tinkle of iced drinks was often drowned in outbursts of merriment from one or other of the little tables. Most of the Americans were mere youths, though two were evidently in their forties. Bronner noted Terry's study of a group of three who sat nearby, heavily tanned men evidently not quite at home in the club. "Davao planters," he explained. "Hemp planters: you will know them. Three good men: they're going down on your boat." Lunch finished, coffee and cigars furnished excuse for the white-clad crowd to linger on the darkened porch: scraps of shop talk reached Terry's ears, a jargon of strangely twisted English and Spanish words. Bridges, appropriations, rinderpest, lack of labor, artesian wells, cholera--such was their table talk, as such was their life. The breeze freshened, gently stirring the potted plants which flanked each row of tables; the hot stillness of the noon gave way to the sibilant murmur of the cocoanut palms whose bases were lapped by the quickening ripples. The breaking of the withering calm was the signal for departure to office and field. The veranda cleared rapidly. Bronner, watching the three planters, interrupted their departure. "Lindsey--just a minute." He took Terry to their table and introduced him. "Lieutenant Terry, gentlemen: Mr. Lindsey, Mr. Cochran, Mr. Casey. Lieutenant Terry goes to Davao to-morrow as Senior Inspector. You will be able to help him, till he learns his way down there--and later he may be able to help you." Terry shook hands with the three in turn. All were out-doors men, bronzed, diffident with the social shyness of men who live their lives alone or among none but alien people. Lindsey and Cochran were square-set, serious young men: Casey, older, but of eager, enthusiastic mien. The Major discussed them as he and Terry left the club. "They're three of the best planters in the Gulf. You'll have no trouble with them. But you may with some others, those who have a fancied grievance against the government just now. I had better start at the beginning. "You know the best hemp in the world grows down there--soil, climate, rainfall all combine wonderfully to make it the one ideal spot for hemp production. In another twenty years it will probably rate as the richest single agricultural area on the globe--that's why those little fellows over there"--he indicated a pair of Japanese passing on the opposite side of the street--"are piling into Davao so fast these days.