,/» '** OF- THE LAST rmmv JOHM'M-DEAN. CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY Cornell University Library PS 3507.E13 Rainier of the last frontier. 3 1924 023 420 924 Cornell University Library The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924023420924 RAINIER OF THE LAST FRONTIER RAINIER OF THE LAST FRONTIER BY JOHN MARVIN DEAN NEW YORK THOMAS Y. CROWELL COMPANY PUBLISHERS Copyright, 1911, By THOMAS Y. CROWELL COMPANY. Published September, 1911 TO MY MOTHER CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. Out on the Old Red Dock ... 1 II. Q. M. D 17 III. At the Cross-roads of the Pacific 29 IV. The Hero is sentenced on Calle Real 55 V. Grilled 87 VI. Mac cuts in on General Princi- ples 105 VII. Back to the Realms of Respecta- bility 115 VIII. A Reluctant Captain . . . . 131 IX. McBuRNEY AS A FINANCIER . . . 145 X. To Tea or not to Tea .... 169 XI. A New Task 183 XII. Rod Garrison of the Gray Sox . 205 XIII. An Old Soak soaks the Ball . . 223 XIV. A Thousand-dollar Tool . . . 255 XV. Fagan proves himself Fagan . . 275 XVI. On Fagan's Trail 293 XVII. Benicia makes the Turn . . . 315 XVIII. A Long Day with Fagan . . . 333 XIX. He will come for this, Some Day . 349 XX. There is but One Rainier . . . 359 vii OUT ON THE OLD RED DOCK CHAPTER I OUT ON THE OLD RED DOCK " There is a pleasure sure in being mad! Which none but madmen know." It was out on the old red Arlington dock that Clarke Rainier slipped back into vaga- bondage. His own fault absolutely. To- morrow was to have begun his new career as city editor of The Seattle Spirit in the office of that great nerve-center of the Northwest. To-day, he reasoned, he would turn from the pleased but repugnant face of the uncle who had bombarded him with arguments prosaic, the man who had led him into a solemn vow to abandon the shift- less habits of a " war special " and settle down to as steady a career as Seattle would 3 4 RAINIER OF THE permit. To-day he would slip down the Madison Street cable line, bask in the sun- shine of the bustling water-front, and try to forget that he had, up on " the first hill," a steamer-trunk scratched and dented, and filled with precious, useless things from five campaigns and three continents. You can understand how it was with him as he crossed the network of tracks with which the Wizard of St. Paul, even back in '99, had pre-empted the city-front. Dodg- ing amongst interminable lines of brown cars, he at length came out to the lap- lapping of the tide-water against the docks. The mere smell of the old Arlington as he stood in its hospitable entrance and looked down the long columns of whitewashed fir, nearly won him away from his vows. And the name-roll of the Northwest, written on near-by bows and sterns and pilot houses, LAST FRONTIER 5 aided in his disintegration of character. Anacortes, Seward, Victoria, Port Towns- end, Whatcom, Vancouver, Gray's Har- bor, Tacoma, Portland, Skagway, Sitka, Port Gamble, Dutch Harbor, Yokohama, Nagasaki, Shanghai! Awkward words for Eastern tongues, but cabalistic syllables to the men of the last frontier. But the resolutions of a conscientious man are robust things, and neither the crowded, nestling craft in the slips, nor the keen whip of the sun-shot November air, nor the mingled odors of the mighty, shape- less piles of fragrant freight, were able en- tirely to overcome the effects of yesterday's seance with Uncle Jimmy. It was reserved for the homely bulk of the old transport Hyson to give the vital stab to his better nature and make him as false as Iago. One sight of her was enough. 6 RAINIER OF THE She was lying in the slip just south of the Arlington, and the red-white-blue of her funnel mark and the " U. S. C. T. " on her high, white stern, broke the hold of righteous Uncle Jimmy with most terrible ease. Add to these allurements the heav- enly rattle of her donkey-engines and the sight of big yellow cases going up over and into her, and the re-creation of the war- correspondent became complete. Rainier went over beside her and passed a brown hand along her rough plates with a genuine caress. The last time he had seen her she was carrying Shafter and his staff back in triumph from the Cuban War. " When does she clear? " he asked a blocky mate who stood awaiting the back- swing of the forward loading boom. " She ought to steam out near mid- night." LAST FRONTIER 7 "Oregon horses and quartermaster's supplies for Manila?" The man nodded and turned, scowling and shouting, to his tackle. Instinctively aware that he had lost his battle for decency, Rainier passed shame- facedly along the dock to the Great North- ern tracks, dodged a presumptuous little switch engine, and found himself five min- utes later at the Postal Telegraph office wir- ing to his warm friend, General Silas Burt, Chief Quartermaster, Washington, D.C. " That should get me transportation," he said cheerfully to himself as, gathering the momentum of his wicked resolution, he hurried over to the home of The Seattle Spirit. The place was still and dead with the peaceful aftermath following the daily bat- tle with the great edition. Only a clerk or 8 RAINIER OF THE two, a leisurely reporter, and the business manager decorated the littered offices. " One day ahead of schedule, old war- horse," said the business manager, with curiosity in his eyes. "All off," laughed the sinner. " I go to Manila to-night with my old friend the Hyson. Tell the chief, will you, Givens? I can't face him. If he wants any of my stuff from the Islands, tell him to write me at Manila. Or better, wire me at Naga- saki. Stop staring and wish me good luck, old chap. I've got to deal with Uncle Jimmy." Givens had pulled out his corn-cob and held it out at a dramatic angle as this speech smote him. And with his mouth still open, he contributed a convulsive hand- grip at the invitation of Rainier's out- stretched palm. Before he could properly LAST FRONTIER 9 phrase his surprise, the backslider had slammed the glass door, waved a general adieu to the clerks and the reporter, and disappeared from view. The business man- ager sank back in bis seat and sagely re- marked to the reporter, " It's in his blood. You can't anchor him. But he's passing up a mighty good job, and what Uncle James Alexander Denny will say to his brilliant nephew will not be proper reading for the younger social set." But two blocks from the office of The Spirit the brilliant nephew proved his brilliancy by suddenly determining not to task his rigorous kinsman's powers as an " adjectivist." He cast an almost appre- hensive glance from the tail of his eye at the second-story gold lettering of that promi- nent Seattleite's spacious real-estate office and caught with relief a cable car that shot 10 RAINIER OF THE him up over one of the most spectacular grades in the city to his quarters at the Lincoln. Here he locked himself in his room, sang out into that good old Sword Song of Ferrara, and rummaged to his own music amongst the afore-mentioned pre- cious things, selecting therefrom most ju- diciously his compact Cuhan campaign kit, squeezed it with savage joy into a suit case, stuffed certain identifying papers into an inner pocket, and then composed, not with- out the grace of a blush, a humble but firm note for the enlightenment of Uncle Jimmy. This all carried him past three o'clock, and the banks were closed. But he had fortunately received a liberal draft from a New York paper in payment for a special assignment some weeks before, and he hastily folded it into a vest pocket. LAST FRONTIER II At half -past five he swung out of the side entrance of the Lincoln, dressed in his comfortable old suit of gray street clothes, and pulled his hat well down to avoid casual recognitions. But at the Postal Telegraph he found no answer awaiting him from General Burt, and he thoughtfully wended his way to a near-by quiet cafe for dinner. He worried a little as he ate, and at seven o'clock was vacillating between the telegraph office and the dock, where he could hear the steady thrumming of the Hyson's steam in the gathering darkness. At seven-thirty he was informed that his telegram to General Burt had not been de- livered, as the difference between Washing- ton time and Seattle time had brought it to Washington after the Q. M. D. had closed for the night. 12 RAINIER OF THE For a moment he stood gloomily re- proaching himself for his singular dullness in not taking this into account, and then, knowing the necessity of getting Burt's order for transportation on the Hyson, he began desperately to summon the Gen- eral's residence number from out the depths of his subconscious self. Alas! the coveted item remained obdurately elusive, and with a growing anxiety he hurried back to the waterfront. Enough light still lin- gered in the sky to show the ragged line of the Olympic mountains against the west, but the waters of the great Sound interven- ing were as black as ink, and at another time he would have admired the many bead-like strings of cabin lights showing against its density. He now went directly to the ghostly bulk of the Hyson, and his keen eye could see LAST FRONTIER 13 that the loading was at an end and that the big horse-transport would leave her berth long before midnight. An ominous quiet was regnant on the wharf, and the steady hum of the warning steam emphasized his present dilemma. Somewhere on the deck high above him he knew a watchful guard was quietly eyeing all approaching figures, ready to discourage stowaways with vio- lence, if necessary. He knew that bluffs are of little service when dealing with Uncle Sam, and that but two ways of going to the Orient on the Hyson were open to him — either an order from Burt or a sneak past the guard. To succeed in the latter plan might mean unpleasant experiences on the morrow; to fail might mean either rough handling or, not unlikely, a bullet. And such an alternative was the necessary spice of attraction to a young fellow who 14 RAINIER OF THE had already followed Edhem Pasha across Thessaly in '97, fellowshipped with the great Steevens in the Soudan; and under his own flag, on the clumsy old Texas, writ- ten the breeziest of all descriptions of the battle of Santiago while said battle sang its wicked song over the face of the waters for miles on either side of his scratching pencil. There is a proverb that runs, " If thou wouldst hear others, be a son of silence thy- self." Standing, suit-case in hand, well under the curve of the warehouse roof, Rainier awaited some evidence of the posi- tion of the guard. From time to time a light passed along the Hyson's deck, casual sentences came through the night air to him, and, finally, at the head of the pas- senger gangway still leading from the dock to the waist of the steamer, he caught the outline of the guard. He could be no LAST FRONTIER IS other than a soldier, for a moment later he began a little song of the day, humming it for a line or so, and even breaking out into the cheerful sentences of the chorus. " Oh ! ain't you coming along with me To chase them Filipeenos? Go get your gun An' join the fun As for reasons, why, God He knows! He knows, He knows." The song betrayed the fact that th6 soldier was swinging back and forth on a) short beat. Running a guard who has a loaded gun is a feat necessitating so much ginger that nothing short of a camera can catch it. It's either done or undone in the blink of a second. Slipping off his shoes, Rainier flashed across the gangplank and was carelessly contemplating the dock be- tween the time that the soldier swung past the head of the gangway and his return. To be reasonably exact, to swing the beat 16 RAINIER took four seconds longer than for Clarke to make his change of base. A squeak of the gangway, a slip, a backward glance of the sentry, would have undone him, and even now, as the man turned back and saw the figure of the correspondent dimly showing at his very side, the song died abruptly and Rainier felt suspicious eyes boring intg his back. But he was apparently unwilling to ad- mit that any man could skim into the Hyson under his very nose, and he asked no embarrassing questions. A moment later he went back to his song: " Oh, ain't you coming along with me? " IWith a grin Rainier slipped down the nearest hatch. Q. M. D. CHAPTER II Q, M. D. " From the C. O. to the rooky They will jaw the Q. M. D. But when they're upon against it, We're the boys they want to see." — Army Song. Rainteb, had slipped rather than climbed down the abrupt ladder leading below. He found himself between two long rows of canvas hammocks supported in tiers of three by steel frames. Lonely incandes- cents along the deck beams above showed at a glance that he was in the sleeping quar- ters of either soldiers or Q. M. D. civilian employees. But every berth was empty and the only sign of life was a man seated on a locker 19 20 (RAINIER OF THE close under an electric a half-dozen berth lengths forward. It was no time to hesitate, and Rainier made directly toward him, noticing, as he did so, that the man was looking up from a piece of sewing and was holding his needle awkwardly free from the cloth. The upturned face was the weather-carved Rocky Mountain type, gaunt, leathery, nonchalant. There was the hospitable kindliness of the frontier in the eyes. " One of us? " came a voice high pitched and strong. " Wish I were," answered Rainier heart- ily. The homely face turned up to him with its faded light mustache tinged with gray, and its kindly blue eyes — so blue that even the incandescents could not make their color uncertain — had won his confidence. He had planned to cast himself on the LAST FRONTIER 21 mercy of the captain, but it was risky busi- ness. Here, however, was a man who had felt the free air of the range. A cowman has more imagination than a bucko mate or the captain of a chartered " lime-juicer." Therefore he explained his presence frankly, while the listening cowman re- sumed work on his patched trousers. Feet were tramping busily on the deck above their heads as he finished. Evidently the Hyson was spending its last five minutes in Seattle. " I'm afraid that they will put in at Port Townsend on the way down the San Juan de Fuca Strait and land me there unless you can stow me away for a brace of days. And we're not clear of Seattle as yet." As if in answer to his fears, a pair of official legs began to come down out of the 22 RAINIER OF THE dark night at the hatchway behind him. A second more disclosed a bearded and ath- letic ship's officer, who came along the deck unhesitatingly and tapped Rainier on the shoulder. " I bean watching you from the bridge, me lad. You cawn run a guard, but you cawn't beat a sailor's heye. Now climb out on the dock. This 'ere hisn't no moonlight hexcursion for a shoal o' bloody dudes. Get a move honto you." For an instant Rainier searched the face of the newcomer. But the type was hope- less. No argument would avail and the man was too stolid for money to talk effec- tively, for in this case it must also talk quickly. Even under so brief a scrutiny the face of the officer had grown grim and his heavy hand tightened on Rainier's shoulder. LAST FRONTIER 23 Only a bluff would answer, and it would have to be a good one. " I'm with the packers' outfit," he said, outwardly calm but fearfully conscious that his clean shave, his neat suit, and his natty suit-case damned his pretension. The officer laughed with unpleasant shortness. " Climb out hon the dock or we'll 'ave to hoffer you a 'and," he said briefly. As he spoke, the noise overhead in- creased. Even in his desperation Rainier recognized a scraping sound with a leap of hope. The gangway was being pulled in. The seated man had continued his sew- ing, but here he suspended his work and calmly interposed a surprising sentence. " Han's off, King Edward," he said, as gently as the noise overhead would permit. " This feller is my best man. He sure 24 RAINIER OF THE looks the dude part, but he's the best hoss handler on this ship. Sabe? " The officer's hand fell from Rainier's shoulder. But he stood his ground. " Hi saw 'im run the guard with me own hize," he said, but the threat had left his voice. Here the new-found advocate arose, the neglected trousers slapping on the floor. Lowering his head slightly and pointing an accusing fore-finger at the ship's officer, he said with much more feeling than the occa- sion seemed to warrant: "Run the guard? Why not? If you had a girl to kiss over in the town an' felt all busted up an' broken out over leaving her for some other fellow to cop while you was gone fur away, an' yore eyes was filled with tears, would you hev wanted some cheap little soger boy to hold you up and LAST FRONTIER 25 find out yore condishun an' make a joke of you fer the hull trip? He hid his feelings. He's got delicacy. A blanked lot more than some of these thick-headed, walrus- hided, gin-fizzlin', tea-and-toast Britishers who would bust right into his tenderest feelings! Why, here's one of my best hands leaving a real American dazzler be- hind him, not to see her fer months " At this point even English devotion to duty was insufficient to hold the officer further under fire. Feeling that in some way he was being bunkoed, he nevertheless turned on his heel and cursed his way up the hatch and out of sight. Behind him he left a mirthful pair of Americans warmly clasping each other's hands. Rainier tried to get rid of some of his thankfulness. 26 RAINIER OF THE " No thanks due," said the packer smil- ingly. " We got a lot of bronks an' ' shave- tails ' down below. I reckon you'll hev to lend a hand with 'em ef you caint make it up with the captain after we pass Flat- tery." " I'm yours. I've done almost every- thing except work on a horse transport, but I can learn if you will go easy with me for a day or so." The huge whistle of the Hyson here gave a vast preliminary splutter, cleared its throat, and broke into a bray that made the boat tremble and rose hoarse over the water front in final warning. Both men waited for it to die away. "What's yore handle, friend?" queried the older man. "Rainier. Clarke Rainier." " Same as The Mountain? " LAST FRONTIER 27 "Yes. Same family," laughed Rainier. "And your name, sir?" "Benson. Alaska Benson is what the outfit calls me," returned the packer. " We air both shorely ambitious in the name line." Once more their hands met; two strong men of the last frontier. A moment later Rainier was directed to an unoccupied bunk and dumped out the contents of his suit- case in preparation for his first night of the long journey. In five minutes he was fixed for slumber and knew the wild gladness of the born ad- venturer as he felt the vibration of the starting engines and realized the die to be cast for good Or evil. His last conscious moment brought the knowledge that other men of the packer's " outfit " were tumbling into bunks all 28 RAINIER about him with muttered jokes and sotto voce oaths, and that Alaska had thrown a second heavy horse-blanket over him and snapped out the bulb over his head. And so with the sturdy thud-thud of the engines rocking him to sleep, our hero went out over the swell of Juan de Fuca into the vast mystery; of the sovereign Pacific* AT THE CROSS-ROADS OF THE PACIFIC CHAPTER III AT THE CROSS-KOADS OF THE PACIFIC " Oh, that little coat of blue Will make lots of friends for you When you're traveling round the world with Uncle Sam." — Army Song. True to her reputation for steadiness, even in the lashing winds of November, the old Hyson sturdily cut the arc of The Great Circle and, shaking off the last cling- ing, shrieking head-wind under the bluffs of Kiushiu, shoved her blunt nose into the Nagasaki narrows twelve hours in front of schedule time. She rattled out her anchor and swung around with the tide, while her whole human 31 32 RAINIER OF THE cargo gathered to her rail to watch what to Rainier at least was a novel sight. Back in '99 Nagasaki was a world's cross-roads and Rainier, who had remained true to the packers and fed stock for fifteen days with scarce a glance at the bridge, now noted with exuberant appreciation the food awaiting his alert, disciplined pencil in the crowded scene of the harbor. The green moulding of the swelling hills ter- raced to their tops, the nestling gray of the low-roofed city, the busy Bund at the water's edge, and the harbor itself, with French war-ships from Saigon, a Russian cruiser from Vladivostok, a whole Jap- anese squadron in gray paint with mystic red stripes on funnels, " tramps " flapping Norwegian, English, German, and a dozen other national trade emblems, and every otherwise unoccupied acre in the scintillat- LAST FRONTIER 33 ing blue water decorated with jaunty little sampans zigzagging across the view. Alaska, in a blue flannel shirt and som- brero, was puffing a pipe at Rainier's elbow, both leaning lazily over the side. "Ever here before?" queried Rainier. Alaska nodded a jerky assent. " Pretty little city in a fine setting," com- mented Rainier generously. " Outside's all right. Slimy on the under- side," grunted the packer and proceeded to retail some social facts well known to Ori- ental travelers. "Last time we came through here i% broke my work up for a solid three months. I had about the same gang with me then that I got with me now. Pretty fair sort of hands. But they got tangled up in the happy streets back of the Bund yonder an' I was shawt four men when the last whistle 34 RAINIER OF THE blew. An' the men I did collect in time hed all been rolled an' gin'rally used up. I worked the sin out of 'em, though, long afore they seen Corregidor. We'll hev to go through the same barbecue agin to- night." "Why not keep the boys aboard? I overheard the first mate say we leave to- morrow early. Got orders to make Ho-Ilo on first stop." Alaska had resumed his pipe but pulled it out and gravely shook his head. " No, I ain't running a Baptist Sunday- school. They'll git their shore leave alright, alright. An' they ought to git it after watching their little ol' land-lubber stumicks do the bronco habit fer a fortnit. But it'll take a mighty strenuous an* en- thusiastic coy-no-sewer to collect 'em up." Alaska stalked away and left Rainier LAST FRONTIER 35 watching the approaching tugs as they towed alongside several barges heaped high with sacked Japanese bituminous. As they swung into position below him he saw that the laborers swarming upon them were not men but women, who, under the direc- tion of male foremen, speedily built them- selves into a living ladder, over whose human rungs an endless chain of burlap coal sacks soon flowed over the high sides of the transport. It was an interesting sight, but Rainier was not the man to feel no disgust at the sight of a couple of hun- dred potential mothers and sweethearts grunting, perspiring, straining, like cattle. He went below shortly and fell upon a pile of fresh newspapers, relieved to read that Aguinaldo was still causing the hike habit to flourish amongst General Otis' men in the Islands. It would never do to 36 RAINIER OF THE arrive at Ilo-Ilo too late to get a" taste at least of that mushy little war. In the afternoon he went ashore in a sam- pan loaded with an uproarious group of his Q. M. D. comrades, eager all to taste the doubtful pleasures of the port. He watched them with misgiving. Alaska had given them strict orders that they were to return by midnight, as the Hyson might steam out at any hour after that. They had all gravely promised, but Rainier had himself too large an experi- ence in the foreign ports of Europe to be other than apprehensive. A dozen glasses of cheap sailor's whisky would render void and valueless the consecration of an apostle. But they were an infernally cheerful lot, mainly happy-go-luckies recruited in the Rocky Mountain Belt, with a " Cockney " LAST FRONTIER 37 and ai " Greaser " thrown in. Rainier parted with them on the wharf, being anx- ious to go to the Consulate for news from his paper and Uncle Jimmy. It was not easy to part with them, for several had taken a warm liking to the young corre- spondent, whose story had gradually per- colated through the miscellaneous society of the horse-transport. " Stay with the bunch," urged a lanky, mild-eyed Kansan known as Kistler. " Help us make the little brown folks sit up and take notice," grinned a cheerful, stocky little Oregonian who answered to the name of " Squeeze." " A whole lot of acceleration has got to instigate this lan'- scape afore morning." But he thanked them heartily and, directed by them in parting, speedily found himself at the Consulate. The consul him- 38 RAINIER OF THE self was out. But the clerk handed over two cablegrams and invited him to make himself at home. Accepting a chair, he read his messages with same trepidation. The first was reassuring: "Rainier, American Consulate, Naga- saki: Seattle Spirit claims exclusive right your stuff. Have written full Manila. Hartman." Rainier sighed with pleasure. Doubtless his salary check was already in an envelope and churning across the Pacific toward his pocket. But as to the other cable, alas! 'twas a thorn in his adventurous flesh. As he read the words he could see the very face, form, and gesture of the wrathful writer: "Rainier, American Consulate, Naga- saki: Through with you. Vagabond blood makes you impossible. Denny, Seattle." LAST FRONTIER 39 Rainier had conscience enough to glow at the ears. He remembered quite vividly his violent arguments with excitable Uncle Jimmy. He recalled the fat smile of triumph on that pudgy relative's face when at last he had formally surrendered his chosen career. How pathetically kind his uncle had been to him. And now to rob Uncle Jimmy of the holy joy of saving him from the accursed " wanderlust " that had possessed him ever since he had reached free twenty-one — what a deuced shame! " If only some fair damsel would cast the golden chain of Cupid's spell around me ! " he mused. " How can they expect me to become a trolley-dodger, a solid citi- zen, an ornament of the Chamber of Com- merce, when I have nothing to ballast me but bachelor's quarters and endless miles of meal-tickets? Uncle Jimmy thinks that 40 RAINIER OF THE that strain of Indian blood in me three gen- erations diluted predestines me to Bohe- mia. Well, I'd worship by the solid decade at the right shrine. I know that that's in me. So, after all, heaven is responsible that I gather no moss, not I. Amen and Amen." Pleased with his philosophy, he cashed his draft through the kindness of the clerk and the magic of a liberal discount, and cabled back the single word " Thanks " to Hart- man and the single word " Sorry " to Uncle Jimmy. Then, to prove the cunning of his pencil, he pumped the clerk, wandered out into the streets, threaded the bazaar, rode for the first time in a rickshaw, and then mailed his warm impressions of the Cross Roads of the Pacific to his paper. This done he mingled again with the LAST FRONTIER 41 people on the streets, finding them; increas- ingly fascinating. The women, clap-clap- ping on their wooden clogs, carrying bun- dled-up babies, looked as though they had streamed down off the bric-a-brac at home, and so toy-like were the people as a whole that he felt a strong impulse to look in their backs for the place where they were wound up. Jinrikisha men in white mushroom hats, with their pedigree and occupation stamped in immense characters upon their blue-clad backs, shared the little twisting thoroughfares with amusing native; ponies wearing straw hats. Students, with their native costume crowned by the Occidental " derby " and incongruous behind eye- glasses, hurried by in striking contrast to the consistent costumes of the rosy-cheeked women and the swaggering cut p| the everywhere present foreign sailor. 42 RAINIER OF THE As evening settled down, the charm of the shops with their quaint displays was height- ened by the lighting of vast stretches of paper lanterns. It was fully eleven-thirty before he found himself willing to leave the allure- ments of the city and at least twelve before the sampan manned by its single sculler had brought him alongside the Hyson. He was clambering sleepily up the ship's ladder when the dry voice of Alaska came down from above: " Stay down, son. Hold that Jap boat." Almost instantly Alaska came down the ladder. He looked through the darkness significantly at the correspondent. "Two of mine, three sogers, and the ship's doctor missin'. An' she sails in an hour and a half." As Alaska spoke he threw some cords LAST FRONTIER 43 into the bottom of the sampan and mo- tioned to the owner to row to the docks. Halfway to the Bund he said quietly: " Git the sleep out of you, son. It's up to you an' me to do most of this job to- night. Them Jap police air so light-weight that enough of 'em cain't git a hold on a white man to lift him." "But the doctor?" suggested Rainier. " You surely don't include him in the round-up ! " The doctor, be it said, was an Acting As- sistant Surgeon on his way back to the Islands for a tour of duty. Rainier had caught glimpses of him from time to time on the bridge during the voyage across. A compellingly handsome fellow, with sharp and restless eyes, regular features, and a jaw of adamant partly disguised by a " Van Dyke." 44 RAINIER OF THE Rainier's question drew a characteristic grunt from the packer. " Wait'll you see him. Doc kin drink my outfit under the table easy. I knew him up in Dawson three years ago. He wasn't in the Army then, but say, he was as thirsty as a volunteer regiment from a prohibition state. Ugly, too, when he felt like it." In ten minutes more the two were in rick- shaws and threading the now dark streets toward a bad portion of the port, the un- speakable depravities of the red-light dis- trict. At length they came upon the plague spot, crowded even past midnight with the scum of the planet, its paper lanterns illu- minating the evasive faces of row upon row of professional beauties stolidly gazing from their balconies at the eddying current of lust below. LAST FRONTIER 45 Alaska with unswerving instinct halted the two rickshaws before a gaudily illumi- nated front, across which a sign staggered with the compelling assertion: " Uncle Sam Boys Welcome Here." No doubt the sign was of the truth, for the two rescuers alighted to the music of a happy chorus that rattled out of the place through the paper glazing of the flimsy front: " O we've busted bronks in th' PanhandeZ, In Montana we bust more, We've busted eggs on Greasers' heads, And — we'll bust this on yore floor ! " The storm of jingling glass that marked the close of this effort witnessed to the utter sincerity of the singers, and it was just as the glasses had crashed in effective unison to the floor of the brothel that Alaskal stalked nonchalantly into the place, closely followed by Rainier. 46 RAINIER OF THE In the middle of a low room fitted in European style with chairs and tables stood Kistler and a soldier, shoeless and coatless. Both were gurgling happily as they drunk- enly considered the scattered fragments on the floor at their feet. Two Japanese bar- tenders were also in the room, one setting out another round of drinks on a table at the end and one stolidly beginning to clear up the shattered glasses. A second soldier was seated in a chair, his legs thrust out stiffly before him, his campaign hat with its dirty white cord dragged down over his eyes and his arms hanging helplessly at his sides. A Japanese girl was hovering deftly about him pretending to arouse him. " Squeeze " showed dimly in a corner, grin- ning cheerfully through a blue haze of to- bacco smoke at Kistler and the " rooky." He too was attended by a painted beauty, LAST FRONTIER 47 while a third girl was laughingly resisting the attentions of the doctor, whose flushed face showed above a table to the right of the entrance. The physician's face riveted the attention of the correspondent. Men are mask wearers for the most part, but now and then the mask slips and the soul shows itself in the face. In the hell-light of the officer's eyes Rainier read a revelation that made him start. Alaska had caught the attention of " Squeeze," motioned him to his side, and then raised his voice: " Time's up, men. Git yer duds an' pike outen this." The high, harsh voice with its vibration of confidence and command brought every eye towards him, and the summons was about to be obeyed. Kistler and his drinking com- panion both looked sheepishly for their 48 RAINIER OF THE coats. " Squeeze " came down the room obediently enough and began to rouse the stupefied soldier. Alaska sent out one of the Japanese to summon extra rickshaws, and Rainier was admiring the hold that the chief packer had on the situation. But resistance came from the corner. The expression in the doctor's face had sud- denly changed to one of livid rage. " Get out yourself, you — you — blanked horse-thief!" he roared, rising behind the table. Ilj was the final epithet on the fron- tier. " Squeeze " flashed, at the words from the drunken soldier, to the side of Alaska and closed his fingers on the packer's right wrist. His face was the face of fear. But Alaska made no motion to avenge the insult. Without moving his body he LAST FRONTIER 49 twisted his arm free and held his eyes on the physician, his gaunt features impassive as the Sphinx for a moment and then relaxing into a grim smile. Every sober man in the room felt his pulse quicken and his breath come hard. There was an instant of chill silence. Then — "You cheap leetle quack." The words came with a drawl of contempt. "I knowed you was the hull trouble. Papa will hev to sparik." The doctor's response was instant. Screaming a curse, he pushed the table aside with his left hand and fumbled at his breast with his shaking right. Rainier was the first to read the death-threat of the last movement and literally fell upon the man, crushing him back over his chair. There was a quick whirlpool of arms and legs and a rush of the spectators to interfere. But 50 RAINIER OF THE the saki-soaked debauchee was no match for his lithe, clean-living assailant and in less than a half-minute he crumpled upon the grass matting, his eyes starting from their sockets. Rainier's hand was on his throat. As he fell, a glistening blue Smith & Wes- son dropped from his grip and slid across the room. The triumph had come so quickly that even Alaska had not found an opportunity to lend a hand in the fight. But he was now bending over, ready with his cord, and with the aid of the fairly sobered Kistler the doc- tor was trussed up and carried out to the street, storming and wriggling, to the grim satisfaction of the packer. Five rickshaws were lined up outside. " Tie him in an' put a gag in his mouth," directed Alaska briefly. "He sings too much." LAST FRONTIER 51 The order was gingerly executed by Rainier, Kistler, and a soldier, the first hav- ing the privilege of jamming a by-no- means-new bandanna into the handsome blasphemer's face. " Now ef any one else wants speshul at- tention? " suggested Alaska, eyeing his re- spectful assortment. But no one seemed eager. With obsequious alacrity soldiers and packers stumbled into their rigs and, though in one or two cases swaying dan- gerously, were padded safely out into the night and finally huddled into a sampan at the Bund. As the last man wobbled along to his seat and the sampan scullers swung away from the Bund, a vibrating roar broke from out the shipping in the moonlit har- bor. It was the last warning whistle of the old Hyson. The quartermaster captain was hanging 52 RAINIER OF THE anxiously over the rail as Alaska sent his band up the ladder one by one. The doctor was the last in the boat save Rainier. " Cut him loose," ordered Alaska. " An' pull his cork." Rainier obeyed and started to steady the man as he reached for the ladder. The ac- tion brought them face to face. " Wait 'til I get this drink out of me, you jskunk, and I'll show you the time of your life," said the older man hoarsely. "When you get the drink out of you, you'll know your friends when you see them," returned Rainier coldly. The two went up to the deck, the doctor disappearing into the cabin. Alaska had waited below to pay off the boatmen, but with the Hyson already mov- ing out toward the Narrows he came up over the side and joined Rainier as he pre- LAST FRONTIER 53 pared to descend into the packers' quar- ters. " I heerd what you said," he observed, " but yore givin' yourself a bum steer. I've knowed that man f er years. I never had to break with him afore to-night, an' I'm sorry I hed to do it. The boys '11 tell you that I hev some reppitation from Dawson City to Reno. I've met gun-fighters an' knife- slingers of both sexes an' severeal com- plexions. My nerve is steady, son. But the man we crost to-night is as bad as I've seen. .We done him a favor, fer ef he'd lost the boat I know what ol' General Sternberg at Manila would ha' done to him. But he hain't the grateful kind. Look out fer him sharp. He's a strong hater an' he's got it in fer ye." THE HERO IS SENTENCED ON CALLE REAL CHAPTER IV THE HERO IS SENTENCED ON CAIXE EEAIi "When those insurrectos fired the town They made it awful hot, An' since that time there's been no snow To help to cool the spot — Oh, it's hot, hot, awful, awful hot," etc. — Army Song. Like all men worth while, Rainier was a man of imagination and had pictured him- self arriving in Ilo-Ilo in a rather definite mental sketch. He had seen himself first viewing the town from the bulwarks of the Hyson, then saying a warm farewell to Alaska and going ashore with his papers and reporting to the military commander — thereafter becoming a rather conspicuous 57 58 RAINIER OF THE citizen of the community as upon past oc- casions in other war zones. Truth altered this somewhat. Six days after leaving Nagasaki he had crawled out on the beach of Ilo-Ilo Strait with the last energy of a terrible battle with the night-darkened waters, and was dragged up beyond the reach of the malig- nant undertow by the scurviest-looking in- dividual that he had ever seen. However, that didn't trouble him, for he went into nothingness for something less than a mil- lennium and then awoke to as evil a situa- tion as a recently puffed and petted jour- nalist could desire. When his senses re- turned the scurvy individual also seemed to return, and it was as Rainier looked up into his haggard but good-humored coun- tenance that he delivered himself of the in- evitable question. LAST FRONTIER 59 "What's happened?" he asked, finding only half of his voice present. " Search me," grinned his keeper. " Somebody slugged yo' an' floated yo' off fo' daid, Ah reckon." The prostrate man's eyes noted that he was lying in a bamboo shack. The air was torrid. Outside, the surf was gently snor- ing. The sun was glimmering at a thou- sand crevices in the nipa wall. He raised his arm with infinite labor and found his head big with a clumsy bandage. Then his eye rested with more care upon the unwashed Samaritan above him. " We had just made the Ilo-Ilo lights; I was leaning over the rail. I think I fell overboard, for I remember a swim that seemed interminable. How long have I lain here? All night?" " Two days, seh." 60 RAINIER OF THE "Heavens! What a bore to you! I'm a newspaper man — Rainier. I'm under obligation to you. Your name?" The slouching figure at the cot's side half straightened. The red-rimmed eyes in the unshaven, greasy face betokened hesitation. Then the sensual lips spoke and Rainier caught the words: "Back home they call me Rod — Rod Garrison. Out heah it's shawtened to ' Bino.' " Rainier's gaze fastened on a blue flannel shirt. " In the Service? " he asked. " Not now, seh. Ahm a beach-combeh. How's yo' haid feel? Ah reckon th' fellah who gave yo' that blow had reinfoced fin- gehs." Rainier lay quiet a moment, closing his eyes to the meanness of his surroundings. LAST FRONTIER 61 iWeak, and conscious of a dully aching head, he was endeavoring to recall the circum- stances surrounding his mysterious fall over the side of the Hyson. But his weary mind refused to aid him. Garrison had turned from him to bend over an evil-odored kitchen-mess. " My papers were buttoned in an inner pocket of my blouse," suggested Rainier. "Nothing in yo' does when yo' came paddlin' in." "No gold in my belt? " " Yo' belt was gone, seh." Rainier's philosophy began to form. "Tough outfit on boad th' transport?" queried the beach-comber. " No, a good class of men." " Yo' must have made an enemy aw two, then. They come up behin' yo', knocked yo' senseless, robbed yo', an' threw yo' oveh." m RAINIER OF THE Rainier looked up sharply at his host. His mind had fastened on the angry words of the doctor on the ship's ladder in Naga- saki. But he shook himself loose from his suspicion. Surely no man would attempt murder to revenge an indignity practiced upon him for his own good. No, some sea-criminal of the forecastle had evidently caught the gleam of the correspondent's money and risked a halter to get it. To sum up, then, a broken head, an empty pocket, and the necessity of intro- ducing himself under serious disadvantages to Ilo-Ilo society. Rainier had come back to consciousness somewhere in the mid-morning. Closing his eyes again, he dreamily listened to his companion as he went stirring about the shack. Shortly he fell asleep in spite of the in- LAST FRONTIER 63 creasing heat beating through his shaky- shelter. When next he awoke he realized it to be afternoon. As he stirred hopefully and stretched his limbs, Garrison appeared above him with a white bowl, steaming and spiced. Shortly he was feeding himself chicken broth, the huge spoon trembling from the bowl to his mouth and back again, each trip an experiment; An hour later actually found him helped into his clothes by Garrison, who had tried in vain to dis- suade him from dressing. Dressed, he found himself too strengthless to walk, but sat perspiring with weakness on the edge of his cot, collecting additional facts from his host to aid him in getting his bearings. The Hyson, it appeared, was now in the Sulu Archipelago, having steamed south six hours after making Ilo-Ilo, leaving behind a mountain of yellow pine cases, a half hun- 64 RAINIER OF THE dred mules, and a few miscellaneous human units on the Ilo-Ilo wharves. "Did a man calling himself Benson — Alaska Benson, look me up?" " Why, Ah hevn't repo'ted yo' yet to the Provo'," said Garrison, rather slowly. " Ah'm not in very good standing at haid- quahtehs. Ah reckon ah ought to hev tol' about yo', but Ah'm tryin' to he'p the Provo' to forgit me. We ah some distance out the limits, as yo' can see fo' yo'se'f ." Rainier had noted this fact through the windows. With reviving interest in life he had looked along a lonely beach fringed with cocoanut palms, seeing in the distance a helter-skelter of tile and corrugated iron roofing that he surmised must be Ilo-Ilo it- self. He was looking at the rather meager effect as Garrison answered him, and turned back to search more keenly the features of the beach-comber. LAST FRONTIER 65 "I say, you didn't take French leave of your regiment? " he asked sharply, for he had taken a fancy to the shiftless man in his greasy semi-uniform. "A yeah ago you'd hed to fight me fo' that," drawled Garrison. "But Ah kin fo'git easy nowadays. Climate'll change yo' code so yo' cain't recognize hit." " ,Your pardon, Garrison," said Rainier, remorsefully. " I should have — I did read you better. The truth is, I feel knit to you for the best reason on earth and I'm jealous of the records of my friends." Garrison's words had been passionless, but a fire had slumbered in his eyes as he had answered. The gleam quenched in re- turning listlessness as he went on. " No, seh, Ah ain't neveh pulled down my swearin' hand. I've got some papuhs somewhahs in this ole shack. No, seh, the explanation of what yo' read in my face is 66 RAINIER OF THE mighty simple. ' Bino ' is the magic word. It conveys nothin' to yo' as yet, Misteh Rainier, but af teh yo' hev campaigned oveh this Gawd-depahted dump heap for a yeah aw so yo'll undehstan' the profound mean- in' of my revelation. ' Bino,' seh, is a lyin' promise of heaven sandwiched into a double-barreled hell. * Bino ' is a suicide's accelerator, a cause fo' divo'ce, a stomach rot, an' a brain stew. Compa'ed to hit, whisky is face-wash, an' absinthe is soothin' sirup." " Throw it over! " said the correspondent sternly. The beach-comber's only response was a shrug, a movement half of indifference, half of despair. Rainier started in with an impatient re- monstrance, but stopped in the middle of his sentence. A suddenly audible murmur LAST FRONTIER 67 of voices outside had floated in to him. Almost instantly the shack door was pushed in with a careless crash and a boy-faced American sprang into the little room. He was clad in natty khaki and was closely fol- lowed by two blue-bloused soldiers with rifles. " You're under arrest, my man," said the officer in a tone that he evidently held down to snappy professionalism with an effort. He addressed Garrison, whose face did not change from the look of careless cynicism brought out by his conversation with Rainier. " He'p yo'se'f, Provo, he'p yo'se'f," he said with ironic hospitality, languidly aris- ing. The officer was now eyeing Rainier with some surprise. Rainier felt no necessity of arising and remained seated on the cot, gaz- 68 RAINIER OF THE ing calmly up into the Provost-Marshal's face. There was something of a contrast between the red-faced boy officer, fresh from " The Point," fairly creaking in his starched khaki case, and the pale young man of the world in his soiled and shrunken suit of gray. Garrison became momentarily alert. " Lieutenant Lately, my friend Misteh Rainier of Seattle." The lieutenant did not acknowledge the introduction. " Have you a sedula? " he said abruptly. "'No," answered the correspondent. "What is it?" "A pass — a certificate of registration." There was a touch of impatience in the explanation. Here Garrison broke in with, "Allow me to explain Misteh Rainier's presence, seh." LAST FRONTIER 69 " I am capable of examining the man," said the officer. "A beach-comber's word don't go far with my office. No, not a word. Corporal, remove the prisoner." Garrison, still endeavoring to explain, was roughly shoved through his own door and was received with a cheerful sound of laughter outside, where, Rainier judged by the noisy reception, a strong detachment was gathered. He heard their good-na- tured jeers at his host. " The cat came back! " " Bino Bill, th' Bottle Buster." Apparently the Provost-Guard had met Garrison before. "Now explain yourself/' directed the Provost-Marshal curtly. Disregarding the note in the officer's voice that betrayed delight in a little brief authority, Rainier gave the barest possible 70 RAINIER OF THE outline of the facts explanatory of his presence on Ilo-Ilo beach. Every sentence hardened the look .of suspicion on the lieu- tenant's face. At the rather lame finish he said abruptly: " No papers to identify you? '* " Naturally, none. Garrison will sub- stantiate the latter part of what I have told you. My mail will arrive shortly and sat- isfy you fully." " I'm satisfied now," said the officer coldly. " I have orders to clean up this beach and I'm not going to let a pipe-dream like that fool me. Sorry, my man, you'll have to come with us. Corporal," he raised his voice, "line up this beach-comber with the rest." More amused than indignant, Rainier went, weak but smiling, out into the sun- light, to be baptized in the curiosity of a LAST FRONTIER 71 dozen soldiers and a group of dejected natives. For an instant he felt the possi- bility of a dramatic deliverance. There were at least four regiments in the Amer- ican army somewhere in the Philippines with whom he had campaigned in Cuba and Porto Rico. But the Provost-Guard were all labeled with the insignia of the Sixty- First, a regiment utterly strange to him. Had it not been for his exasperating weak- ness, he would have felt even more cheerful. But his uncovered head, dizzy with his long illness, felt the glare of the terrible sun with his first overwhelming reminder that he was under a tropic sky. The nearest soldier noticed his uncertain step and the hand involuntarily raised to his head. He stepped up to Rainier. " .Where's your cover, old man? " "Lost it." 72 RAINIER OF THE Hardly had he spoken the words when the soldier had swept a tattered straw hat from the nearest Filipino head and clapped it on his own. As he thanked the man he heard Garrison's voice at his elbow: "Lieutenant, haven't yo' any sense? Listen heah, that man has been sick, seh, critically ill." The lieutenant, to do him justice, hardly caught the last sentence. That Garrison was still obstreperous was enough. His face flushed a rawer red. " Gag the tramp," he cried. Two of the guard apologetically obeyed. In a moment Garrison was speechless. But his eyes were colored with a terrible venom. " Now, corporal, take these men up to the Fort and turn them over to Sergeant Killane." On a first occasion, it's an interesting LAST FRONTIER 73 walk to follow the Ilo-Ilo beach down under the cocoanut palms on into the little city. At the beginning, the cobalt waters flash their intense light far up the pounded sand and break beneath the heavy green of the trees. Later come the quaint little streets rimmed with squatty houses, rough with ruinous pavements and either burning desolately in midday aspect or crowded with an Oriental-Occidental hodgepodge after the siesta hour. Lastly comes the rigid little plaza, with its funny pretentious- ness sadly discounted by the black and gap- ing ruins of war. But Rainier was too exhausted to do more than stagger side by side with Gar- rison down the appointed route, and had it not been for an incident of most unusual in- terest he would probably have reached the town and traversed it to its hot little heart 74 RAINIER OF THE without noting a single feature of the jour- ney. " Heavens," he was ejaculating to him- self as he yielded to the assisting arm of a guard, " I'm weak as a cat. I'll have to even up on this Provo before I leave town." Having ordered his detachment to pro- ceed, the lieutenant had mounted a horse and disappeared until the group of soldiers with their prisoners were about to debouch from Calle Real on to the plaza. Then he came trotting past, erect, haughty. Garrison, his mouth fitted with a gag, and his hands tied behind him to keep the gag undisturbed, still managed to give so expressive a gesture at the back of the officer that a general grin lit up the dusty faces of the guard. "Like to hit him a kick, Bino?" re- marked the corporal, sotto voce. "We'd LAST FRONTIER 75 like to help you do it, the confounded little prig." Glancing after the officer, Rainier noticed dully that the narrow street a hun- dred yards ahead was suddenly filled with the glisten of a wheeling Spanish victoria, a suggestion of white dresses and parasols showing behind its Visayan coachman. The Provost-Marshal was pulling in his horse, rising in his' saddle, and pulling his hat from his head in stiff elaborateness. Now, however much the American woman may be petted at home, she is never so desired and worshiped by men of her breed as when in an alien land and under a seductive equatorial sky. Even the non- chalant guard put on a jaunty air and swung self-consciously up to the equipage, halting there with precision at a motion of the lieutenant's hand, for he was too 76 RAINIER OF THE eagerly conversing to spare time for a verbal order. To a recently arrived New Yorker the general flavor of decay about the old loung- ing victoria, with its added disadvantage of scrawny ponies and bunched-up Visayan driver, might have been the predominating impression of the quaint little scene. But to a gallant and unconventional Westerner like Rainier the shabby dignity of the gob- ernadorcillo's carriage but made more fas- cinating the radiant freshness of the two white-clad women reclining gracefully within. For, halting amid the jingle of the grounded arms of the squad, he had quietly leaned back for the grateful support of an iron awning post in front of the nearest store and then had carefully raised his eyes and begun an inventory of them that left him suddenly conscious of his scarecrow LAST FRONTIER 77 appearance, his growth of beard, his " bor- rowed " native headgear, his soiled and shrunken clothes. The nearer of the two women listening with inclined head to the animated con- versation of her companion with the Pro- vost-Marshal was of striking appearance. She was dressed entirely in white, with the exception of a touch of color in the pinai pugaree about her Pampangan straw hat, from under which her hair hung in dark gathered masses, flowing low over a broad forehead. As she raised her hand deftly to toss a straying bit of it into place, she turned her head for an instant directly to- ward him and he received the impression of a rather deep-set pair of gray eyes in- definably kind and mothering, a nose slightly broader than the romantic allow- ance, and a mouth large enough to denote firmness but with the curve of sensitive ten- 78 RAINIER OF THE derness. All of this might have accom- panied two-and-twenty years, but a second turn of her head and a shift of her parasol revealed to him the slight but tell-tale draw of the facial muscles and drain of the cheeks that tokened not less than thirty-odd sea- sons. But the impression was one of youth and strength. "The ideal Sister of the .World," he said, noting the gleam of her silver Maltese cross, the insignia of the Army Nurses' Corps. The second woman puzzled him. She was evidently hardly out of her girlhood. Hardly more than her profile was visible to Rainier, but it was a tantalizing one. He had flattered himself that he had the seven types of womanhood at command, but here was a face that baffled classification. She was a little shorter, apparently, than her friend, and her face, tilted up toward the LAST FRONTIER 79 officer, became, as she listened and re- sponded to him, both eager and haughty by turns. Her eyes were, it seemed to Rainier, as changeable as her expression, blue-black, blue, and the intensest of black in quick succession. The mouth firm, with a sug- gestive twist of obstinacy at the corners, and the whole was glorified with a com- plexion of ivory and rose marvelously un- touched by the leathering of the Filipino sun. Framing these attractions was a veri- table wave of black hair, banded down closely over the forehead and dressed in the severe simplicity demanded by the fad of the hour. The tout ensemble was a fascinating puz- zle. The tired correspondent, who almost forgot his weariness in the dainty vision of her, could scarcely determine whether the beautiful face was an index of impulsive 80 RAINIER OF THE innocent girlishness or tokened a matured and calculating flirt. It seemed either by turns. But of one thing there could be no doubt. She was the perfect expression of abounding, vigorous, healthy life. Every feature in the face and every fair, full curve of the well-rounded body spoke of the freshness of an unworn, unharassed life, a life, too, that seemed to suggest an eager- ness to spend itself in tasting the sweets of knowledge and of love. And in that set- ting of curious, colorless Chinese, stolid, mahogany-skinned Visayans, and dusty, sweaty soldiers, she gazed out from under her cool, sweeping straw in vivid reminder of the healthy God's country of rosy- cheeked and springily stepping women far over the glinting treachery of the separat- ing sea. Rainier noticed with something of sur- LAST FRONTIER 81 prise a duplicate upon her bosom of her companion's cross. Remembering the de- voted but elderly young women of the Army Nurses' Corps in his Cuban cam- paign, he could not refrain from murmur- ing, " What an infant to handle D. T.'s, typhoids, and surgery cases ! " His eyes entranced, Rainier found it easy to lend his ears also, and followed an ex- change of a dozen sentences without catch- ing the meaning of one of them, being ab- sorbed in the music of a rich contralto that winged in and out between the high-pitched masculine of the lieutenant's voice like a nightingale fluttering among the daws. At length he came down to mere words. " Yes," said the contralto, " such duty must be disagreeable to you. No doubt you would prefer fighting the insurgents. But 82 RAINIER OF THE then, you might be killed and Ilo-Ilo society would be dreadfully flat without your cour- tesies." The young officer was evidently both pained and pleased at this. " But, Miss Royce, the Provost flatters himself that his duties are rather more than merely formal. We have at least the enmity of desperate men to fear." The ladies turned toward the guard and their prisoners, the older with an instant softening of the eyes as she noticed the gagged and trussed Garrison. Her voice, even deeper than her companion's, came out in a quiet, even query. "Was it quite necessary to use the gag? " Quite so, believe me, Miss Carroll. A filthy fellow and an old-time offender. A typical beach-comber." LAST FRONTIER 83 The beautiful face of Miss Royce showed more fearful curiosity than real interest. " They are dreadful men. I presume that these are some of the rowdy element of which you spoke to us last evening. There's an order out against them, is there not?' ? She had lowered her voice, but not enough to spare the alert Rainier. "Yes, Miss Royce. It's in effect to- day. All ' bino-fiends ' and other undesir- ables are to have their choice of the chain- gang or deportation." At this cheering remark from the com- placent Provost, Rainier felt the eyes of the ladies searching him. In a moment he would read a verdict in their faces and he was, strangely enough for a man so experienced, more concerned with the verdict than he cared to admit. He had felt an insatiable desire to pull the young 84 RAINIER OF THE "shave-tail" from his saddle and slap his face, but restrained himself with the thought of a coming day. Choking back his anger and forcing himself to be quiet, he re- turned the gaze of those glorious eyes with a level fire from his own fine gray ones. But it was a supreme effort to do so, for his rapidly beating heart revealed to him his real anxiety for a favorable sentence. It was a most damning one. " you deserve our thanks as American women," she said, her voice cold with loath- ing. " I've never seen so brutal a man as that one in gray. Had we not better drive on, dear Miss Carroll? [We're on duty at six, you know." With a grinding rattle the victoria gath- ered momentum and went whisking down the sun-baked street, leaving the guard still agape with admiration, the Provost-Mar- LAST FRONTIER 85 shal bowing elaborately, and the young cor- respondent nursing a wound that would have received no balm even had he been able to overhear the response of Miss Carroll as she settled back into her spacious cushions. " Benicia, that young man in gray has been ill. His face was dreadfully drawn. I wish I might nurse him a little. I'm sure he's not so villainous as the Provost has led us to believe." GRILLED CHAPTER y, GRILLED " A rooky never knows where he's going to end up When he lifts his swearing hand, For there's a lot more to sogering than you see on the poster Or can hear in the playing of the hand." — Army Song. There are only three cool spots in Ho- llo in the late afternoon. One of these is the high, spacious veranda of the shabby old Nurses' Home next the Brigade Hospital. Foiled by the narrow street and a cunning trick of architecture, the sun here jealously surrendered a few square yards to cool shadows, through which passed from time to time a whiff of air stirring from out the sultry Strait. 89 00 RAINIER OF THE As a consequence, the " hoi polloi " of the town, passing drearily over the hot pave- ments below the veranda, would often glimpse above them the draperies of such nurses as were off duty and more often than not a showing of officers' uniforms as well. One of the most acute tortures of Rainier's career became associated with that social oasis in the Ilo-Ilo desert. He had been marched ignominiously on from the incident of the victoria through the clotted houses of the lower town. And what a dance these same houses seemed to be doing in the fevered mind of the prisoner! He was relieved to pass them all at last and come out over the sand-pit to the casemates of the old Spanish fort. A man in good health may stand the exasperating slant of the five o'clock sun searching his neck, with some equanimity, but to Rainier it was an LAST FRONTIER 91 ordeal never to be forgotten as he halted at the challenge of a soldier at the gate. He and Garrison inherited a cell in com- mon. But he was hardly aware of it. Dazed and near to unconsciousness, he felt the coolness of the shadowed room and crumpled to the floor before he could guide his shaking limbs to the nearest cot. The corporal had followed him in and caught him as he went down. Another soldier had unharnessed Garrison, and he bent over the prostrate, gasping correspondent cursing solicitously. " Heat," grunted the corporal with con- cern. "Heat an' brutality," responded Gar- rison with an oath. " He's finished, too. Ice f o' his head an' soup f o' his stomach, an' if yo' boys ain't the same breed as yo' officer yo'll git it heah pronto." 92 RAINIER OF THE Rainier's last conscious moment told him that he was being lifted tenderly and placed carefully upon a creaking canvas cot. Then the keen zigzagging pains in his head became a maddening whirl of delirium and he lost all touch of rational circumstance, becoming simply a frenzied mentality spin- ning through space horribly afraid, travel- ing on and on, interminably twisting and rising, until, after apparent hours of horrid dark dizziness, of acutest mind-torture, a blessed nothingness came and he slept. The sun went down outside in the Jolo Sea, the night breeze drew in, cool and steady, across the Point, the stars solemnly swung their holy lamps until the dawn ex- tinguished them, and only the strident call of the morning bugle stirred him back to consciousness. His first morning fact was a hot drink of LAST FRONTIER 93 the Gods of Health. He opened his eyes, to a room dark still, but a streak of the dawn gray at the grating gave him his bearings and betrayed the looming of an indistinct figure bending over him. Presently there came a voice. It was not Garrison's: "You're feeling better, sir." There was an assuring quiet comfort in that voice in the gray dawn. " I think I am," said Rainier gratefully. " Thanks for that hot stuff. .You are from the Hospital Corps, I presume? " " Not quite. Army Y. M. C. A. I'm the sole professional religionist on the Island of Panay." " Y. M. C. A. down here in this musty corner of the earth!" Rainier's voice, though weak, showed no slight astonish- ment. " Surely," said the quiet attendant. 94 RAINIER OF THE " Government forgot to supply these new regiments with chaplains, so some of us amateurs had to take hold. Are you in- terested in that sort of thing? " Rainier was for an instant suspicious that he was being tricked into a religious con- versation. But the voice of the Y. M. C. A. fellow was so matter of fact that he seemed to deserve a straight answer. " Do you mean in religion, church, — that sort of thing? " " Well, not exactly." The voice was dep- recatory, almost confidential. "You see my work is hardly preaching. I write let- ters for the sick fellows, handle the money of the tempted fellows on pay-day, stock up the garrisons with games and books, and give a straight talk when it's needed. Some- times it's minstrel shows, sometimes it's a ' gospel sing ' to pull the boys away from the 'bino- joints.' General moral roust- LAST FRONTIER £5 about for the whole brigade. Catch the idea?" " That sounds good to me," said Rainier with emphasis, trying to get an idea of his companion's face, but failing. " What's the time?" The Y. M. C. A. man lit a match over his watch, its momentary gleam showing a sin- gularly boyish face. " Five-thirty," he decided, snapping the case. " You came in here yesterday after- noon, you know. It will be light soon now. Feel feverish? " "Five-thirty," repeated Rainier slowly. "What are you staying up all night with me for? " " Why, you're one of my crowd now, you know — one of my flock. That's the word, isn't it?" The Y. M. C. A. man spoke lightly enough. "Much obliged, friend. You are a 96 RAINIER OF THE Christian," said Rainier, with a stir in his heart. A sudden thought occurred to his clear- ing mind. " Isn't Garrison here near me somewhere? " " Rod is asleep over in the corner* Can't you hear him? Listen." Garrison was evidently sleeping heavily, for his regular breathing came so loudly to Rainier's ear that a suspicion formed. " Drinking? " he queried in a whisper. "Drunk," echoed the visitor gently. " One of the guard passed him in a bottle last night. He got paralyzed about mid- night. That's why they sent over for me." "Too bad," growled Rainier. " L Yes, but he's got the makings of a king left in him yet. When you get around we — you and I — will have to combine on Rod. I think, together, we can land him. By the way, you're a Methodist? " LAST FRONTIER 97 Rainier was not too weak to chuckle. " Not a Methodist — not much of any- thing. Away back in America among the church spires I used to be a sort of honorary Baptist." "iWell, that relieves me. So long as you're lined up with Him,, you know. He's the one to get close to in this country. The man who is sheepish about his religion down in this country is the worst sort of fool. He needs his Master down here. Well, I must be going. I'll see you shortly. My name is McBurney. Good-by, Rainier. I'll have you out of this hole by night. I want you up with me. Don't worry about yourself or Rod. Adios." Rainier heard the clang of the door be- hind McBurney, listened to the distant sound of his dying steps, and reminded him- self philosophically that he was still in prison and laying up for himself splendid 98 RAINIER OF THE material for future copy. His head was clearing up and he felt like a very weak but much improved man. Best of all he was hungry. After all, the worst fact of the present moment was the plight of his fallen friend Garrison, whose latest lapse was evi- denced not only by his stertorous breathing but by a sickening odor of " bino " that filled the gloomy casemate. In a half -hour more Rainier found him- self willing to rise, and was much relieved to find his arms and legs tolerably obedient to him. A soldier came to the grating of the now fairly illuminated cell and gazed stolidly at him while he worked himself into his clothes. Starting to fasten his shoes gave him a taste of dizziness, but otherwise he felt much better, and was soon fully dressed and sitting soberly in his cot listening to Garrison's breathing and looking out into LAST FRONTIER 99 the courtyard of the old prison, where figures of soldiers and natives were begin- ning to stir around preparatory for break- fast. He felt pleasantly exhilarated by ai whiff of boiling coffee that came to him. Presently a soldier was at the door rat- tling a key, and an instant later a Filipino, impassive and diminutive, was bringing in a bucket of water and a basin. " Wash up," said the soldier. "And git your side partner ready for breakfast." A bugle rang out the call as he spoke. With mingled tenderness and disgust in his heart, Rainier turned to Garrison and began the necessary wrestle with his sodden soul to prepare him for the day. Cold water, hot coffee, bacon, and bis- cuits are not the most delicate of medicines for either the drink-stupefied or the con- valescent, but when Killane lined up his 100 RAINIER OF THE [prisoners in the courtyard at seven o'clock both Garrison and Rainier were there, the latter astonished at the evident preparations made to work them in a " stone-gang." It seemed incredible that Americans should be marched out on the streets of Ho- llo to break stone for the roads, but he real- ized that it would be useless to remonstrate with the sergeant. His pride forbade him pleading his sickness, and indeed he felt so much better as to be almost cheerful. As to the rank injustice of working a ship- wrecked journalist in a stone gang of " bob- tailed" soldiers and dissolute beach- combers, the thought was abhorrent and alluring by turns. No man not a journalist by instinct would have suffered the injustice without protest, but he allowed a sledge to be handed him by a matter-of-fact guard, and walked out into the sunlight of the CAST FRONTIER 101 town in company with twenty other men. These he shortly found to be either dis- honestly discharged soldiers being held until transported to the Federal prison in "the States," nondescripts who had been living on native women in filthy shacks, or else pit- iable wrecks of the " bino " habit, such as Garrison. He was surprised that Garrison, so indignant yesterday, made no trouble whatever for the sergeant or the guards. He avoided Rainier's eye, answered his re- marks with gloomy monosyllables, and seemed in a semi-stupor from his smuggled bottle. MAC CUTS IN ON GENERAL PRINCIPLES CHAPTER VI MAC CUTS IN ON GENERAL PRINCIPLES "When you first join the Army, It feels pretty tough, But there's always a good man around." • — Army Song. The squad worked within a hundred yards of the Fort for not more than three hours, breaking stone for the causeway, and were then marched back into the Fort for dinner and a long " siesta." Rainier had had his fill of experience by noon and was glad of the chance to rest. His story had gradually worked out among his fellows and they had in consequence kept well to themselves. At half-past three came a second fiery los 106 RAINIER OF THE test. This time the languid squad was led down into the town, and had it not been that the sun was as molten lead on his cranium Rainier would have noticed that their first halt was amongst a mass of broken stone lying directly beneath the spacious over- hanging veranda of a building of impor- tance, proclaimed such by the flag extending out into the street above its arched entrance and the sentry sweltering beneath its folds. The street was quite deserted. Looking up from his feeble attempt to crack a limestone slab into fragments, he could see a good three blocks in either direc- tion. There was no prospect but the closely built houses steaming in the humid heat. Not even a slouching native relieved the desolation, and the only sound was the chink-chink of the lazy sledges and an oc- casional imprecation from a convict. LAST FRONTIER 107 With molten metal flowing over his skull, with copious salty sweat streaming into his eyes, and with a deathly weakness stagger- ing him, Rainier worked listlessly on, col- lapsing finally into a sitting position on a block of stone and at last letting his sledge slide from his fingers. The guards them- selves were scarcely moving, in such a fur- nace. Thus it was that the afore-mentioned veranda above them filled with cheerful noises at four o'clock and the casual eyes of nurses and officers looked down with com- fortable criticism upon an almost somnolent work-party. A penetrating masculine sentence even made itself articulate to Rainier's dizzy mind. " Looks as though they had the sleeping sickness, Miss Royce." There was a contralto response that the 108 RAINIER OF THE mentally quickened journalist could not catch. But he lifted up his eyes to the bal- cony above him, and the narrowness of Calle Real gave him in clear relief, against the cool shadows behind them, the light dresses of several ladies. yes, and one of them was the figure of the beauty of yesterday, Miss Royce. Be- side her stood an officer in white uniform, not a square- jawed typical soldier of the clean-cut kind, but one of those slender little desk hunters that diminish the efficiency of every army — a dapper little military dude, a squire of ladies, an aversion to men. Back beyond these two distinct faces were jother male figures in cool white duck. At the sound of the voices above them the corporal of the guard with his two privates had sprung stiffly to their feet, the prisoners began a steady chink-chink with their ham- LAST FRONTIER 109 mers, but Rainier sat quietly on his stone, a sudden warm anger giving him a lease of vitality. The slim officer was bending over the ve- randa rail. As he did so the large form of a strikingly handsome fellow stepped to the side of Miss Royce. There was no mistaking the man. As by instinct Rainier rose to his feet. The man above him was the man with whom he had wrestled in the foul Nagasaki dive. The slim officer was speaking to the cor- poral who was standing in the hot street at an elaborate " attention." " Corporal, take that scarecrow collec- tion out of sight and hearing of these ladies." "Yes, sir." The corporal's voice was suspiciously obsequious. 110 RAINIER OE THE "And give that lazy; fellow; in gray; § lit- tle extra exercise." Before the corporal could respond, Rainier was responding, himself. He looked squarely up into the face of Miss Royce, for the words were in reality for her. " Let me inform you that I have deter- mined to strike," he began. But he was instantly interrupted. The nearest private had jumped to his side and faced him sharply away from the veranda. There was a, stir on the veranda, a chorus of ejaculations. Rainier wrenched himself loose from the clutch of the guard and turned, struggling, about. The doctor was watching him intently. " I appeal," he cried. " I appeal to you, doctor. You remember me, on the Hyson." He tore the hand of the guard from his mouth. LAST FRONTIER 111 A second soldier started toward him. " Shut your head," commanded the cor- poral. "Just one sentence. I'm not trying to insult these ladies; I am being unjustly treated and I demand a hearing. That physician in the veranda knows who I am. I appeal to him for justice. We came over in the same transport. You remember me, sir!" As he finished Rainier stood quietly, while the guards, as if against their own wills, stood on either side of him, with their faces turned upward to the doctor, who was now bent over the rail with his face marked by something akin to horror. His raised eyebrows, his relaxed mouth, his hands gripping nervously the rail of the balcony, and his sudden lividness were all apparent to the group below. 112 RAINIER OF THE At his side appeared the faces of the en- tire yeranda party, and among these the clearest marked of all to the prisoner below was the face of Miss Royce, a face of eager interest. The whole scene was one of absolute still- ness for the passing of a dozen seconds, the doctor's face slowly gathering composure, his jaw at last snapping shut and his figure straightening away from the rail. His eyes were still held on Rainier. Rainier heard his voice saying evenly: "To the best of my knowledge, Major Kelley, I have never seen the fellow before. He was certainly not on the Hyson. I knew every man on board intimately. He was not one of them." " You are a finished liar." It seemed to Rainier as though the words were spoken without his own volition, they had leaped from his lips unbidden. LAST FRONTIER 113 Suddenly made alert, he had as suddenly become dull and wrathful. He felt himself jerked down the street and heard the clatter of the stone gang marching sullenly about him. He stumbled on for perhaps half a dozen blocks, tears of mortification welling up over his hot eyes, when he became conscious of a jingle of hoofs coming up from the rear. It became louder and still louder, and then a courier leaning from a pony's back circled to the head of the detachment and raised his hand. The nondescripts halted in the heat expectantly. ,The courier was no other than the youth- ful McBurney. " I've got a man here, corporal," he was saying. "The general's orders to Provo. I'm to take him right over to my quarters now. 114 RAINIER The dusty corporal was reading a slip of creased paper. He nodded his head toward the prisoner. " That's him," he said almost genially. " Take him along, Pilot, and good luck to you." A moment later McBurney and Rainier were alone on the sultry road. McBurney, having dismounted, had slipped his slender arm around the correspondent, and his face was a mingling of anger and concern. As for Rainier, he was only conscious of two things. He knew that he was burning with a double fire, a pitiless sun above his head, a blazing fever within him. And he knew that he had found a friend and was free. Suddenly he lurched against McBurney. BACK TO THE REALMS OF RESPECTABILITY CHAPTER VII BACK TO THE REALMS OF RESPECTABILITY " I've chased the wild Apache Through his God-forsaken land, I've tracked the slimy horse-thief Where his foot-prints marked the sand, I've summered with the robbers Down at Coney-by-the-sea, But the gentle Filipino, say, He beats them all for me," etc., etc. — Army Song. McBurney "bached it" in a native house, split bamboo floors, woven bamboo sides, corrugated iron roofing probably filched by its former owner from the de- stroyed warehouses of the city, and stagger- ing high upon stilts in a vagabondish fashion at the edge of strong-smelling tide flats. It had two rooms. One sheltered a 117 118 RAINIER OF THE protege of his, a Visayan with wife, crazy sister, and two children. McBurney occu- pied the other side of the thin partition, and a pony lived beneath the floor, plainly visible through its cracks. Not only was Hike, the pony, visible, but he could frequently be heard chewing his " palay " and snorting his criticisms upon life. Into this happy situation came Rainier, pale and fevered. Two weeks of McBur- ney's Christianity put the confidence back both into Ranier's legs and head. On the fifteenth day he graduated from the shack to McBurney's big Y. M. C. A. tent, pitched on the "plaza" and fitted up as headquarters for the soldiers during their leisure hours. He sat down in a bamboo chair, and Mc- Burney went over to his dry-goods box desk to prepare some reports. The tent, usually LAST FRONTIER 119 filled with men playing games, was at the moment empty. " Mac, I love you " Rainier said it quite simply and without a blush. By the time a man has been fed by another man for two weeks, has been brought back to health by him, and has listened to his prayers each night before the candle has been blown out, he is ready to speak out of his heart to that man. " Mac, I love you." The boyish face of the Y. M. C. A. sec- retary flushed with pleasure. He glanced over approvingly at the clean-cut appear- ance of his friend, who was fitted out in a suit of cool, becoming white duck, " It won't last," he said cheerfully. " I am going to put up a straight prop- osition to you within a few days, Rainier, and I'm afraid that your love for me will 120 RAINIER OF THE hardly stand the strain of it. Meanwhile I've got a job for you. Ever handle natives?" " Tried my hand on the Soudanese on one occasion. The British transport was in need of a little amateur help when I was with Kitchener." " Good. [You know I went down to the cable office, hoping to get word from Seat- tle that would put you on Easy Street financially. But there was no mail at the office and no cable from your paper. Some- thing's twisted. But don't worry. While you are waiting for your check, which is probably wrecked on the Island of Guam or cheerfully chugging up the Hoang-Ho, there is a job looking for a man and paying three hundred pesos a month. Will you take it?" " Will I take it? " Rainier got up to ex- LAST FRONTIER 121 press his enthusiasm, swelled out his chest, and thumped himself with much energy. He came and stood over little McBurney. " Where did you get hold of such a life- saver? " " Don't crow. It's a job that has hunted a man ever since I got here in the Visayas a year ago. Listen a moment. The harbor is shallow, as you have noticed. All the transports have to unload into lighters, and these are towed into the docks along the river. The lazy Visayan is the only laborer at hand. The depot quartermaster has been trying out a string of bosses for this work. The last one he hired — a big Scandinavian — is just being kicked out for inefficiency. He couldn't work the natives. So it is up to you if you'll take it on. The depot quar- termaster is a friend of mine." Mac was giving a correct outline of the 122 RAINIER 0F ; THE situation. Many men of many minds had been tried out by the harassed depot quar- termaster. Their biography was as mo- notonous as a pile of bricks and ran in- variably like unto this. Five thousand partially equipped and en- tirely hungry soldiers on shore; countless cases of all things needful in the deep hold of a steamer two miles offshore. On one side of said steamer a big fiat boat, on the other side native " cascos " and " lorchas." In, out, and over both transports and lighters a hundred or more Visayans act- ing like little silly-pated ants. In supposed command of this most vital link in the pro- gram of expansion a typical deck-hand driver of the tramp steamer variety. Then a quick succession of one thousand irritating things, orders misunderstood, cases misplaced or dropped smashing from LAST FRONTIER 123 the hoists; wrong consignments unloaded, slow responses from the donkey engine and the rope men at critical moments, hawsers cast off when the order was to make fast, Visayans two deep when not wanted and out of sight or hearing when wanted; also the tropical sun drawing the yery sap through the deck boards and making the shore line dance a maddening jig- Then an explosion of the mental parts of the boss. Narrowed eyes in a blazing face, filthy oaths snapping through to- bacco-stained teeth, passionate gestures, bawled orders in an unknown tongue, a staggering fist blow in the face of a native, smashing him limp upon the deck; then sulky Visayans muttering and shirking, a costly transport delayed for days, com- pany officers on shore saying bitter things 124 RAINIER OF THE about unhonored requisitions, angry pri- vates swearing at the monotonous company mess all over the face of Panay, the com- manding general inquiring in stiff phrases of the Q. M. D., and the Q. M. D. out hunt- ing for a new stevedore. Rainier was in a state of blissful igno- rance as he followed up McBurney's brief statement with an impatient — " I'm on, McBurney. Lead me to that distressed quartermaster man." And so Rainier entered into one more new experience with the instinct of a true son of the ink-pot, and became chief steve- dore for the newly made port of Ilo-Ilo until he should get back into solvency again. Already he considered himself too deeply in debt both to Garrison and McBurney, so under the suspicious eye of quarter- master Captain Wyse, he took hold of the LAST FRONTIER 125 freight problem of Ilo-Ilo Strait with some- thing of his old-time ardor. And he found that the mastery of his work left him little time to brood over the unsquared account of the stone gang or the bitter memories of Miss Royce. ** I'll see the doctor later," he said to him- self quietly one day as he started from the shack he still shared with McBurney to go down to the rickety old steam launch with [which he was towing his flatboats and ft lorchas " out into the Strait to lay along- iside of a newly arrived meaij boat from Australia. ^I'll see the doctor later and also Miss Royce. He will never have his way there if I can help it. He has the inside track, but we shall get to the turn pretty soon and my chance will come. Sevier has not won the race yet." Ten days after the new job had been at- 126 RAINIER OF THE tacked, McBurney was able to send the fol- lowing graphic note to his friend, Milton Rigsby, general secretary of the Army and Navy t Y. M. C. A. in the city of Manila! "Deab Rigsby: Things are going fairly well here. The news item for this month's report is about Clarke Rainier, you may remember my having written about him a few weeks ago. He's not only recovered, but is making a mighty successful govern- ment employee (got him a chance at steve- doring and he takes to it like a puppy to a root) . The Q. M. D. have salaried him in a manner promising matrimony within a year. I wish you could see him on the job. Behold him standing over an open hatch, in a dirty uniform of trousers, shirt, and shoes only, with his strong hand ready for a lever, a rope, or a case corner and ordering rapidly in Spanish. See a miraculous quickening LAST FRONTIER 127 among the brown men at his 'Avante.' Hear him sputter out fragments even of [Visayan dialect. Copra and Carabao, what an Americano! Note, too, the absence of oaths, of passions and threatening attitudes. This fellow Rainier has won my heart. He is proving that an American can get work out of these native * cargadores ' without a triphammer accompaniment of damn-damn-damn. " Not that he never becomes excited. One day while standing over the forward hatch on the upper deck, word was passed up from below that one of the steamer's officers had struck a Filipino down in the hold. He fairly tore down into the depths and seizing that astonished white man, slammed him against the bulkhead. Pin- ning him helplessly there, he scowled into his frightened face and said, ' If you touch 128 RAINIER OF THE another of these men with a finger weight, you reckon with me. I'm in command here and I don't allow my men to be abused by beach-combers and lime- juicers, under- stand? ' "Well, Rigsby, you can see that I am quite excited about Rainier. The natives here fairly worship him. He's a Christian fellow in principle, and he is doing Christ's work in treating the natives justly. It would convert even the Anti-Imperialists in old Boston to 'Benevolent Assimila- tion' to get a glimpse of Rainier on the dock, after a hard day's work, handing out the Spanish pesos to each eager Visayan individually and thus insuring strict jus- tice. They eddy about him in a cheerful mob, Patricios, Domingos, Gregorios, Aguinaldos. They all look alike to me, but he seems to know the whole lot. LAST FRONTIER 129 " Well, more later. "Remember us down here in your prayers. I get discouraged with the work sometimes. I've got some pretty tough cases on hand. But it does my soul good to help a man once in a while who 'makes good ' as Rainier is doing. I've got a little dream singing away in my head about get- ting him into the Y. M. C. A. work. " He's just the type for Christian work among the soldiers. Pray that I may land him. I don't even known what bait to use. " Fraternally and eternally, " Mac." A RELUCTANT CAPTAIN CHAPTER jVIII A RELUCTANT CAPTAIN " The palms are mighty pretty In that far-off lazy land, And the blue sea taps so softly on the sand; But the gray haze of the Mausers Is drifting on the wind, So never wander far from your command." — rArmy Song. Toward the end of Rainier's first month as stevedore he found himself hurrying as usual from his shack to the dock one morn- ing and as usual resolutely crowding the whole subject of army nurses out of his mind as a preparation for the day's work. His heart did double duty as he reached the wharves and his eyes rested upon a cheerful group of Americans. It was evidently a pic- 133 134 RAINIER OF THE nic party of officers and nurses. The ladies, four in number, were in purest white; the officers, also four in number, were in khaki and armed only with lunch baskets andl parasols. Both Miss Royce and Miss Carroll were in the group, and to the jealous eyes of Rainier the party seemed terribly sufficient unto itself. Rainier turned to the edge of the dock, not without noticing that one of the officers was his pet aversion, the doctor. Here he found in addition to his native pilot and engineer, Captain Wyse himself. The captain was purely a man of affairs, a routine worker of middle life, stumpy in figure, snappy in speech, careless in dress, and a useful servant of Uncle Sam. " That hospital crowd," he indicated them with a careless hand, "want to kill LAST FRONTIER 135 time over in Guimaras. As soon as you can get ready, tow the tank boat over to that limestone cliff across the strait. You'll find the best spring water in the country coming out close to the beach line. They'll go over with you in the launch. While you are filling up the tank boat, they can land and get in their picnic. But don't wait for them when you're ready to come back. Herd 'em on and get in here by five o'clock. The El Cano will take General Hughes to Cebu to-morrow and we'll need that fresh water for her to-night. Understand? " " I think so, Captain. How do I make connection with the spring? " "There are some extra lengths of pipe over on that flatboat. Monte will go over with you and connect up." The quartermaster hurried off, lifted his hat to the waiting picnickers, motioned 136 RAINIER OF THE them toward the launch, and disappeared in his office. Rainier debated within himself, as the party approached the launch, as to whether he should assist them into the vessel, for the tide was going out and the hull of the launch lay several feet below the dock. But his eye fell upon the physician, and he turned away with aversion to the native wheelman and waved him to the task in- stead. With his face toward the river he felt the boat rock as the party came out of the sunlight of the dock and ducked, with much laughter and small talk, in under th0 dirty canvas top. As they settled in the stern seats, a sentence or two came to him at the wheel: "What a charming adventure. How splendid of you to plan it, Doctor Se- vier." LAST FRONTIER 137 "Pure selfishness, I assure you, Miss Royce." "Hope we 'don't suffer from mal-de- mer." " Sevier will be glad to attend you in the event unless all signs fail," chimed in a sec- ond masculine voice rather peevishly. Rainier was in a chaos of rebellious thought. To act as a sort of hired man and tow a woman of beauty and charm over to a leafy tete-a-tete with a man whom he was now convinced was dangerous and unclean, was an aggravation both to his pride and conscience. A native was squatting on the dock, awaiting his order to cast off. He gave the signal and was soon chugging down the mouth of the river and entering the blue shimmer of the strait, while behind him splashed the blunt bow of the tank boat, 138 RAINIER OF THE with Monte, the native machinist, seated somnolently against its gasoline pump. It was as hot as Irish anger along the docks, but once past the shipping and headed toward the limestone cliff showing white in the green palms of Guimaras, a 1 cool breeze swept beneath the launch's awning. In half an hour the native wheelman could point out the exact point where the water supply awaited tapping, and Rainier soon after swung his launch up as close to the Guimaras beach as he dared. A bamboo staging ran out into the sea from the spring, carrying an inch pipe, from the end of which flowed a forceful little stream of fresh water losing itself in the salty strait. As he directed his assistants in anchoring the tank boat so as to make a connection possible, he was addressed for LAST FRONTIER 139 the first time by a voice from the passen- gers. It was not the voice of Doctor Sevier, but evidently another physician, for his shoul- der straps said as much as Rainier turned toward him. " Put us ashore first, my man," came a rather impatient sentence. " These ladies can't sit here while you connect up." Rainier removed his sombrero and bowed graciously, his eyes ignoring the physician and resting upon the ladies. " I am sure, ladies," he said, " that you will pardon a minute's delay. We will land you before we make our connection with the spring, but we must anchor the scow first. The tide will cause us a good deal of trouble if we are careless now." His voice was the first intimation appar- ently that the party had as to his identity. 140 RAINIER OF THE The group stared in silence as he turned his attention back to the flat. He had caught the tribute of a look from Miss Royce, and with a strange elation he swung his little flotilla about, anchored the flat properly, and then moved his launch slowly within twenty feet of the picturesque beach. He smiled as he directed his pilot and engineer to transport the ladies to shore, and in a trice the men were standing in shallow water with their trousers rolled up to mid- thigh, their hands forming a " cat's cradle " for the first shrinking nurse. Amid much shrill expostulation and many basso encour- agements he saw the ladies, the officers, and their alluring impedimenta splashed safely to shore without mishap. He then went wistfully on with his mo- notonous task of filling up the tank boat with spring water. It was good water. Rainier drank it LAST FRONTIER 141 gratefully after his weeks with Ilo-Ilo's mos- quito-breeding rain water. In an hour the scow had been adjusted, the connection made, and the exasperat- ingly slow stream was gurgling into the big zinc tank. Rainier wiped the sweat from his face and straightened up with a sigh, looking shoreward as he did so. As the picknickers disappeared around a little point, he fancied he caught the glimpse of a white frock. But it soon vanished and left only the heat, the drowsy assistants, and the quiet gurgle of the pipe line. An hour more and Monte was fast asleep on the tank boat, the engineer had gone ashore on a quest (so he said) for a drink of "tuba," and the pilot was snoring in the Stern of the launch. The water had made four inches in the tank. Rainier seated himself in the bow of the 142 RAINIER OF THE launch, ostensibly studying the beach, but in reality carrying on a mental debate. Here are a few sample flashes of the erst- while correspondent's " flow of conscious- ness": " When do I counter on the doctor? " " L What makes my head turn a double somersault whenever I think of Miss Royce? Wonder where they have gone to spread that lunch? Could there be any danger of an insurgent ambush on this lit- tle island? Why didn't I think to bring a revolver? " " I can't sit here much longer. I have got to follow up that crowd even if I get into trouble for it. I've half a mind to toot the whistle and break up their tete-a-tete. Miss Royce is certainly a wonderful little woman, if her face is any indication. I'll have to put that doctor where he belongs •LAST FRONTIER 143 for her sake. He has her confoundedly in- terested in him." At noon he gloomily arose, awakened his sleepers, and ate a fruit lunch with them. As they threw the last banana skins back into the shallows, he found himself unable longer to resist the impulse to spy upon his passengers. " Take me ashore," he said. The two men carried him to the beach. "Any insurgents around?" he asked in Spanish, studying their mahogany faces as he put the question. Monte smiled and shook his head. But the pilot spread out his brown hands in a gesture that, combined with his shrug, told Rainier plainly enough that insurrectos were not to be mapped as here or there, but were to be accepted as an ever present pos- sibility. Nevertheless, he motioned the men back 144 RAINIER to the boats and walked carelessly along the shore line to the edge of the cocoanut palms. He had no plan save to pass the little point where he had last caught a flutter of white, in the hope of seeing the charming girl who was beginning to monopolize his interest to the exclusion of all else. He soon crunched his way through the gravel to the little promontory and searched it in vain with eager eyes. But a path came down its side to the beach, and after a mo- ment's hesitation he turned into it and found himself walking directly away from the beach up through a ravine which here parted the bold hills. The little path, twist- ing upward under a glorious green roof of overhanging palms and catalpas, was too inviting to be other than the choice of his passengers of the morning, and he expected at every turn to hear sounds betokening the presence of the strollers. McBURNEY as a financier CHAPTER IX MCBTTBNEY AS A FINANCIER " Oh, the Battery's guns have a good old growl And a sharp little bark has the ' Krag,' But the stuff that can talk when nothing else can talk Is a good stiff sack of swag." ! — Army Song. He was not disappointed. r A. confused murmur of human sounds reached him as he twisted along the ascending trail. He broke into a run, hardly knowing why. The trees gave way to an open sunlit field filled with a crowd of natives. He received no attention from them as he instinctively halted and surveyed them with apprehension. They were gathered in a great clump in 14T 148 RAINIER OF THE the field's center, and their backs were turned toward him. Evidently some one was speaking, for the single voice reached his ears in unintelligible sentences and the crowd of intent brown men broke in with occasional cries, gesticulating spasmod- ically. Rainier had now been working large par- ties of natives long enough to lose his fear of them. He was conscious of an unusual knack in mingling with them. But as he went on out into the field, his blood was at high pressure. For the men were not un- armed villagers, but held in their hands guns and bolos. Over their heads he suddenly caught a glimpse of a white face, and he pushed boldly into them from the back, scowling hardily to hide his fears. "El Capitan! El Capitan!" cried a LAST FRONTIER 149 dozen voices, as he broke into the center of the mass and found himself face to face with the eight passengers, who were walled about absolutely by the grim faces of the Visayans. Scarcely ten feet in diameter had been the space reserved for the Americans, and in it stood the four American women, their faces white with alarm. Miss Carroll was at his very side as he joined the group, and her face lit with a brave smile of welcome. The four army officers— Sevier, his fellow- physician, and two infantry lieutenants — were standing close to the nurses. A Vis- ayan, half as tall again as his compatriots, had apparently been talking with Sevier or addressing the crowd, but he was silent as Rainier's eyes, traveling for a fleet instant across the face of Miss Royce, came round to him and rested with a searching look. 150 RAINIER OF THE To find oneself with eight unarmed Americans, four of them ladies, entirely at the mercy of as ugly-looking a lot of non- descripts as one can find in the Indies, with spears, huge hutcher knives, and Remington rifles showing like a forest of steel — this is a 1 situation that only a fool views with equanimity. Rainier was no fool. His heart sank. JJnless all signs failed, a band of insurrectos were raiding Guimaras and had captured himself and friends. To act with instant promptness was es- sential. He was enabled to do it by a sud- den familiar face showing over the shoulder of the huge Visayan leader. It was the face of a man who had been unloading cargo only two weeks before. He was now in a tawdry uniform, and his hands were gripped on the muzzle of a grounded rifle. LAST FRONTIER 151 " Pedro," demanded Rainier, surprised to find his voice even and hard, " Pedro, what does this mean? " He had spoken in rude Spanish, and the answer came curtly back in the same tongue: " You are prisoners of war, senor." " Do Filipinos war upon women? " " No, senor. But five of you are men." "Then break ranks and let the women go. ffle who are men will accompany you." " You who are men will accompany us," echoed Pedro, with a sarcasm that brought a chorus of " Buenos " from the circle. " The senoritas will await the pleasure of General Fagan. iWe have sent word to him and he will instruct us as to their disposi- tion." In spite of himself Rainier felt his face sharpening into a look of fear. Fagan's 152 RAINIER OF THE name was one that even he, a newcomer in the Visayas, knew the fearful menace of. A year before Sergeant-Major Fagan of the Sixty-fifth United States Negro Regulars on the Island of Luzon had deserted and joined the insurgents. He had since become the fiercest foe of the flag. The name Fagan spelled cunning, hate, cruelty, lust and mur- der. Aguinaldo had eagerly commissioned him as a colonel and shortly after as a gen- eral. The bravest and most desperate of the insurgents had gathered to him. Of late he had gone from Luzon to Samar and was now reported as harassing outposts and patrols in the mountains of central Panay. Filipinos had never been tested as to their treatment of women prisoners. They had butchered and burned alive male prisoners, but hitherto no American women had fallen into their hands. LAST FRONTIER 153 But Rainier had no doubt as to what dis- position the renegade negro Fagan would make of any American woman who might fall into his power. The stories of his treat- ment of native women had formed a morbid subject of conversation in soldier circles ever isince he had arrived in Ilo-Ilo. " [What are they saying? " demanded One of the officers. " We've been arguing with them to let the ladies go to the launch for a half-hour. They keep us standing here in this hot field. They are waiting for some- thing. I can't make out their lingo. Oh, God, if we had only brought our guns." " Pedro, you know me. Do I treat my men fairly — those who work for me? " " Si, senor," acknowledged the erstwhile stevedore. " Do I keep my promises? " " Si, senor. You have broken none." 154 RAINIER OF THE " [Listen, then. If you will permit these friends of mine to return safely to Ilo-Ilo, I will reward you and your comrades with pesos one thousand." Pedro had listened attentively. He turned to the natives and repeated in a loud voice in Visayan the Spanish phrases: " He bff ers us pesos a thousand as a ran- som, and he is a man of his word." As he called out the offer, he caused a sud- den babel in the hitherto silently listening crowd. There were shakings of the head, nods, (ejaculations, gestures, quick" sentences of argument. As if by magic a dozen groups formed, and the din became formi- dable. Then the dozen centers of argument grew fewer in number and larger in attend- ance, until Rainier's keen eye saw that his bff er had lined up the enemy into two well- marked sides, one for and the other against LAST FRONTIER 155 accepting the bargain. The caucus had re- solved into a yes or no. On the one side Pedro was leading in enthusiastic prop- aganda. In opposition large numbers crowded about the giant Visayan. Knowing the necessity of maintaining his advantage by a cool and indifferent be- havior, Rainier stood impassively in the' midst of the stirring debate, noting that with all their changing of position the little' circle in which the prisoners stood was as jealously closed as ever. The Americans stood in gloomy quiet, only the younger of the lieutenants, Carlisle, cursing unapolo- getically under his breath about his folly in not bringing a gun. His face was the pic- ture, not of fear of which it contained nd trace, but of chagrin and anger. Rainier was conscious too that the four ladies were giving but little sign of their 156 RAINIER OF THE fears. He thanked God in his heart that they were ignorant of the approaching black shadow of terrible Pagan. He stole a glance at Miss Royce and found her look- ing steadily at him with a quizzical expres- sion that he almost dared to interpret as one of gratitude. Dr. Sevier was not merely cool. His whole attitude bespoke the man who is at home in danger. His glance stu- diously avoided Rainier and fell with ap- parent calmness on the ring of visitors near him. " If this only works out right," muttered Rainier to himself, " if this only works out right, what a revenge on mine enemy! If I can save these women now, I shall have earned the right to tell Miss Royce the truth about a finished scoundrel." The natives had ceased their conference and Pedro spoke up : " Senor, we trust you. LAST FRONTIER 157 But we do not wish to act before word comes from our commander. We have sent to him for instructions. We shall hear in a few hours. By sunset, perhaps, for he is nearer than your soldiers are aware. How- ever, we have decided to let the decision rest with others. If you will send a note by me into Ilo-Ilo that will bring the silver to us here — I acting as messenger — and the money arrives before word from the gen- eral, we will accept the ransom and release you. If the instructions from General Fagan arrive before I come back with the money, we shall be obliged to follow our Commander's orders." Without hesitation Rainier bowed and drew out his time book. He hastily scratched off a note to McBurney: " Dear Mac," scratched the racing pencil. " I need 1000 pesos Mexican before sunset. 158 RAINIER OF THE Send them by bearer, Pedro, who will use my launch to Guimaras Springs. Can't give details. Mac, I must have this like lightning. You haven't the amount with you. I don't know where you will get it. But get it. Send no one with the bearer. Pronto, Pronto, Pronto!" The page was ripped from the book and [passed to Pedro. He held it uncertainly, looking with his beady black eyes into Rai- nier's gray eyes. " Senor, I do not understand English. 0Tou assure me that you have given no in- formation of us to the American soldiers? Am I to be arrested and soldiers with rifles Sent out instead of the pesos? " "Pedro, you have my word. Hasten that we may have our chance for liberty." Pedro turned and pushed through the liv- ing wall, followed by the parting instruc- LAST FRONTIER 159 tions of his compatriots. As he crossed the field, starting for the launch, he waved his hand amid a chorus of admonitions. With a sigh Rainier realized that the whole transaction was now reduced to the solution of the hours. The prisoners were led to the shade of a group of pepper trees, and the Visayan sol- diery scattered themselves near and far, some going in the direction of the beach, others squatting with their rifles in the vicin- ity of the Americans. Among these latter was the giant Visa- yan, his dull, impassive face ever turned to- ward his charges. Miss Carroll's hand touched Rainier's arm. " Thank you so much for your diplomacy, Mr. Rainier." Her beautiful face was grave, unsmiling. 160 RAINIER OF. THE Her eyes met his in a steady, unashamed look of gratitude. " I believe that I heard Fagan's name mentioned," she continued in an undertone, turning her face further from her nearest companion, Miss Royce. " Do you care to explain your plan? " He gave her the situation in an under- tone, and Miss Royce shared the informa- tion, pressing up against her companion's side with a sudden decided step. " It will all come out right now. McBur- ney will not attempt a rescue, which would be fatal to us. If I had sent to the com- mander at Ilo-Ilo, a whole company of soldiers would have been sent, they would of course be detected long before crossing the Strait, and we should then be rushed back into the hills and held indefinitely." " Then you have merely offered them LAST FRONTIER 161 money? Strange. The other gentlemen had promised them a much larger sum be- fore you arrived." Miss Royce had chimed in, her eyes upon their now acknowledged leader. " I have worked with the natives in han- dling cargoes. They believe me to be a man of my word. They think that all Ameri- cans are not to be trusted." Rainier spoke with hesitation. "Justly or unjustly the Filipinos hate most of us with a perfect hatred. I suppose that their experience with Spain makes their distrust of us in- evitable. "But let us change the subject; ladies, you will be at home for dinner this evening, God willing. They were too poor to resist my offer." Gradually silence reigned under the pep- per trees. Carlisle fingered his wrist watch 162 RAINIER OF THE nervously. Sevier seated himself at Miss Royce's feet and spoke in monosyllables for her ear alone; the other physician and in- fantryman grouped with the two nurses, whom they had escorted into such fearful danger. Rainier and Miss Carroll were also silent, though leaning back against the same tree trunk, their eyes looking out over the field before them, both with the dread shadow of Fagan in their hearts. Rainier never forgot just how that field looked, especially the wrecked picnic bas- kets scattered out near its center. He was in a mental purgatory. The weight of the party's safety had fallen on him. He had heard the distant chugging of the launch as Monte, quick to understand, had pulled away for Ilo-Ilo with Pedro and his mes- sage. He stared solemnly, with scarce a change of eye-focus for an hour that seemed an aeon, his mind constantly circling the LAST FRONTIER 163 dread facts. Heaven help them if Fagan's dispatch should reach them first! Heaven help them if Mac failed to understand! At the end of an hour and a half a stir was perceptible beyond the field. A pair of natives signaled to their fellows, and a num- ber of the insurgents shouldered their rifles clumsily and disappeared toward the beach. " The launch is returning," whispered Miss Carroll, and received a nod from her companion. A half-hour more of intensest strain fol- lowed. Carlisle's wrist watch showed four o'clock. Then appeared the fluttering figure of a Visayan, running out of the catalpas and waving them toward the beach. Anxious to be at the dividing of the spoil, the native free-booters sprang to their feet, the big Visayan shouted a command that 164 RAINIER OF THE aligned them rudely in the trail, and with bristling knives and rifles before and behind them the Americans passed across the field, down into the winding path, and soon emerged upon the beach below. The launch was just swinging in at the side of the anchored tank boat and Pedro — blessed sight! — was splashing ashore, carry- ing something that dragged his right shoulder down perceptibly. The wild-looking soldiers on the beach in- stantly lost all semblance of discipline and broke out over the gravel like children at play, their guns clattering against the stones as they raised the joyful cry of: "Dinero! Dinero! Dinero!" ***** At six o'clock a loquacious group of American nurses were safe on the Ilo-Ilo dock, having poured thanksgiving gen- LAST FRONTIER 165 erously into the ear of a certain modest hero. Miss Royce alone, of the ladies, failed fairly to punish him with praise. Sevier alone of the whole party openly held aloof. Rainier's face darkened in the midst of all his triumph as Miss Royce passed up the dock in company with Miss Carroll and Sevier. He tied up the launch, reported the whole affair by 'phone from the dock office to the commanding officer, and then after being ordered by that excited and indignant gentleman to report as soon as possible in person, he called up McBurney and by good fortune located him at the Com- missary. "Mac, darling, where on earth did you get all that money? " The answer came cheerfully creaking back over the wire: 166 RAINIER OF THE "Appropriated the reserve fund of the Army Young Men's Christian Association of the Department of the Visayas, and by that same token you are under contract to work out the sum of $500 gold, or 1000 pesos Mexican." " Sure thing. I expect to make that good some way. I'm getting twice what I spend now and — What's that? Resign my job? Got to do it? Well — I — should — say — not. You're crazy to suggest it. You're dippy in the dome, Mac. Quit fooling. I'm a stevedore and not a sky pilot. Well, see you later. I've got to go up to the C. O. now. He will be all stirred up about the affair and want to send soldiers out all over Guimaras Island. Tell you details later. But say, Mac, you're a J. Pierpont Morgan and a Rockefeller rolled into one when it comes to helping a fellow in a panic." LAST FRONTIER 167 .When McBurney finally got the whole story of the ambuscade, he evinced much interest. But not so much as Rainier showed when McBurney quietly remarked at the finish: " Rainier, old boy, I am going to Manila to push our work up there along. Rigsby needs me up there. I'm going to leave my work in your charge here as I intimated over the 'phone. Now resign your cargo business and settle down to a job that's sev- eral times bigger than chief stevedore for the port of Ilo-Ilo — the job of helping men to be men and soldiers to be soldiers. " Don't fail me. I picked you out for this three months ago. Your letters and dispatches have come at last, and money from the Seattle Spirit to bind you in a contract for a year at a figure that dazzles me. But, brother beloved, don't go back 168 RAINIER on me now. .Will you resign as chief steve- dore of the port of Ilo-Ilo at one hundred and fifty a month, break loose from the Seattle Spirit at a loss of goodness-knows how much more a month, and ascend to the job of acting Army Secretary of Panay at a paltry one hundred a month? " Don't answer. Pray about it. For it's work that God must put you in if you are to do the work. Now in one week I'm going to get your decision." TO TEA OR NOT TO TEA CHAPTER X TO TEA OE NOT TO TEA " Yes, there's infantree an' cavalree An' the red-cord boys with the tubes; There's the Medical Corps an' the Engineers An' the Q. M. D. with the rubes; But, bunch them all And they look mighty small When we're soaked with fever an' afire with pain, And we toss on our little old Helen Gould cots And moan to the sound of the rain. So, give us one more for the Army Nurses' Corps," etc., etc. — Army Song. Rainier received on the third morning after the successful feat of high finance a call from Lieutenant Carlisle, who under- took to pay over some $500 in gold to the hands of the stevedore. He evinced no few signs of amazement when Rainier calmly- stated that the whole obligation had been 171 172 RAINIER OF THE met, he having cheerfully but privately un- dertaken to render back in personal serv- ice to McBurney's work the amount bor- rowed from the Association treasury. He did not explain the matter, but simply as- sured the officer that the ransom had been settled. The lieutenant departed with a rather effusive manner. Poor Carlisle had no money to spare and had borrowed of others his fourth of the $500. For a blanked civilian, thought he, Rainier wasn't a bad sort, even though Sevier did rub it in about his being a dirty beach-comber. Cursed if he (Carlisle) didn't see more to be admired in Rainier, whatever his origin, than in that amorous shadow of Miss Royce, Dr. Curt Sevier. The day of Carlisle's visit came also a sweet-scented note that poor Rainier opened LAST FRONTIER 173 with a dangerously high-pressure heart. You would hardly have thought his old brain fever had left him had you witnessed the shameful shaking of his hand. He was aglow with gladness when he finished it. "Dear Me. Rainier: I have learned from Miss Carroll that our deliverance of three days past was from the terrible renegade Fagan himself. May God re- ward you for your splendid coolness and the wonderful way in which you served us in our time of fearful need! " If I appeared rather indifferent to you for the service rendered, it was because I felt somewhat humiliated to find myself so deeply in the debt of one toward whom (I must be frank) I had formed a most de- cided aversion. " I am beginning to feel that I must have 174 RAINIER OF THE been misinformed concerning you — in fact, I am sure of it. I do wish humbly to thank you for your act of wise and modest hero- ism. " Miss Carroll and myself have a little old-maidish custom of serving tea to those who care for it on Thursday afternoons from three o'clock to five. Could you en- dure the tea to-morrow that we may have a chance to chat with you? " We shall expect you unless you write otherwise. " Benicia Royce." Rainier carefully folded the little sheet of tinted paper back into its square, dainty envelope. Then as carefully he withdrew it and feasted on its lines again. What a crooked, deliciously " scrawling " way she had of writing; the few sentences climbed east across the first page, south over LAST FRONTIER 175 the next, turned west around the corner, and ended in a northerly twist and curlicue. And so he twisted the little message from one angle to another and pondered his an- swer. Now he had received and answered many a similar invitation and had long ago learned the fine tricks of carpet knights, but as he fashioned his idea for his reply the smile left his face, for the solemn question involving Miss Royce and Sevier and his own growing affection made him realize that the grateful missive of the delivered girl had brought him to a point of vantage, of leverage, and of crisis. He who fights on the brink fights with grimness, and knowing that the hold he had upon the object of his desire was hardly more than a tantalizing touch, he grew solemn indeed as he penned his reply. He 176 RAINIER OF THE had determined upon a daring course, and only the fact that he felt she must under- stand the tremendous loyalty of his heart to her welfare blinded him to the inevitable response to his answer to her invitation and his unsparing denunciation of Sevier. Within four hours he had received his second note: "Mr. Clarke Rainier, In care the Depot, Quartermaster's Office, Ilo-Ilo. "Me. Rainier: The issue you raise in your note is a false one. I cannot feel it necessary that I should treat Dr. Sevier dis- courteously. He has been kindness itself to me since his arrival in Ilo-Ilo. It is true that he has not seemed friendly to you in much that he has casually said. " But he is a gentleman, and I am deeply disappointed that in your hour of triumph over him — for you must realize that a man LAST FRONTIER 177 of so strong a type as he, was keenly alive to his helpless position in the Guimaras affair — in the hour of your triumph — you have tried to take an unfair advantage of him. " Grateful as I am to you, I am certain that I make no mistake in retaining as my friend the one whom you so uncharitably suspect. I am sure that you will see this eventually as I do. " L Your well-wisher, "Benicia Royce." " All right," muttered Rainier doggedly, lowering his head as if receiving a blow, " I've cleared my skirts. What little pres- tige I had I spent to warn her. I've lost her now, but so shall he before the game is finished. How whipped he looked in that launch, returning from Guimaras! Pre- tends still that he doesn't know me! 178 RAINIER OF THE There's -always a 'Colt's .45 ' to fall back on. But I'll take the pretense from him soon. Meanwhile he has his innings." Sevier was indeed having his innings. His best pose with Miss Royce since the Guimaras affair was one of self-deprecia- tion. He lost no chance of upbraiding him- self for his careless negligence of their safety. He even said some judiciously nice things about Rainier, only taking pains to regret the man's antecedents. His manners were on occasion perfect, his appearance strikingly effective, his visits at the Nurses' Home timed to a nicety. Not a wish of Miss Carroll's or of Miss Royce's but was anticipated. Lieutenant Lately, of the Provost-Guard, was left biting his lips with so great a frequency that he scarcely complained when an order from his general transferred him far out into the in- terior. LAST FRONTIER 179 Miss Royce was monopolized in so gra- cious but decided a manner that she found herself yielding a little more of thought and time to the physician every day. " Do I yield myself to him because of his subserviency or his masterliness? " she ques- tioned her own heart, in the seclusion of her apartment in the still hours of the Ilo-Ilo night, fielding she unmistakably was. Her genuine girlish pleasure in men was beginning to be a more intense and disturb- ing pleasure in the presence and attentions of a single man. " How little I really know of him! " she exclaimed within herself. " Yet how fully, how deeply, he is entering into my life. It frightens me as I think of what all this may mean. I wonder if Mildred has noticed anything? Dear me, I mustn't get silly over any one. I'm sure it's more this glori- 180 RAINIER OF THE ous moonlight in the palms than anything else." As to whether it was the pale glow of Luna, or the brighter torch of the God of the Altar, I leave my readers to judge. Meanwhile, outside the pale of teas, of drives, of tete-a-tetes and trivialities, a whole world of practical affairs revolved, and in the midst of them our friends Mc- Burney and the chief stevedore of Ilo-Ilo. Do you hear a hearty shout? That's Mac's voice. He has come to the end of his week's waiting, has put his vital question and received the answer that he craves. "God bless you, old man; I just knew you'd come on into the game. You'll never regret it when you once get a taste. Now I'll sail on the Santa Isabel on Saturday. I'll leave everything in your hands — shack, tent, supplies, and the fellows who are help- LAST FRONTIER 181 ing and being helped. Don't despair of Rod Garrison. He thinks the world of you and we will save him yet. Now if I can get back to inspect the work in a few months, I'll do it. Keep me fully informed. " Here are letters of introduction to the officers and garrisons of Panay. You'll find some opposition, but more sympathy. Don't worry about your enemies. Pitch in and enjoy yourself. Most of all keep close to God in prayer and He will help you through." Thus Mac beamed on, holding Rainier's hand and pouring in encouragements until Rainier smiled back in response. Their hands parted, and the Army Young Men's Christian Association on the Island of Panay had its newly ordained secretary. A NEW TASK CHAPTER XI A NEW TASK " Pay day is the day when we claim the right of way, But we're angels when the mail comes in." — Army Song. Mac had disappeared over the rim of the Jolo Sea, and Rainier began a new and solemn task with a fearful heart. He had a shack to sleep in, the privileges of the Commissary, a large and well-filled- out canvas Association headquarters, the loyal friendship of McBurney's friends, and a semi-official position as a civilian chaplain. Really, he had nothing to rely upon in his religious and social work among the troops 185 186 RAINIER OF THE other than his own initiative and charac- ter. He knew that he had to "make good," and the knowledge of the odds against him in his new consecration drove him to his knees and thus revived the heart-fires of his love to Christ. It was evident that an un- tried Christian layman, armed with a scanty equipment of Bibles, games, old magazines, and similar stuff, would make but little headway against the bino- joints, the beer- selling army canteens, the houses of ill-fame, the gambling and the thousand demoraliz- ing tendencies of tropical service, unless that Christian man had help from On High. With the counsels of McBurney in his mind, Rainier began habits of daily prayer and Bible study that were to mean worlds of character development to him. Little by little, as he felt his way in his new but fascinating work of checkmating LAST FRONTIER 187 the devil in the Ninth Separate Brigade, he found his confidence increased, and he began reaching out in those tours that were to give him an influence over the soldiers of the Island such as no officer in the service was able to wield. It was mainly in the bat- tle for Rod Garrison's soul and the relief of Mabalacat that the new secretary won his spurs and caused old General Hughes to bang his veteran fist on his office table in approval when the stories came to his ears. As to Mabalacat, it came to pass in the Christmas time. Far up in the interior the world had been dissolving and steaming by turns. All pre- cedents in Filipino weather manipulation had been disregarded, and Mabalacat was at its best a vile place for a white man to be stationed — a snarled knot of bamboo houses straggling out into a world of dun-colored 188 RAINIER OF THE pampas grass, worse than the desolate country about it in that it sent up from its gaseous puddles a sickening evidence of primitive sanitation. Small wonder, then, that the erstwhile dudish Lieutenant Lately, now command- ing officer of Mabalacat, had yielded to the squalor of the place and lay upon his dirty cot in the musty " Tribunal," unkempt and sullen, and answering the clumsy kindnesses of his men curtly and moodily. Five weeks of alternating sun baths and water baths, of broiling and soaking, had filled his body with " dengue," and had drawn the hope and resolution from his soul fibre. His mental picture of Miss Royce far away in the comforts of Ilo-Ilo, attended by the flattering Sevier, had not helped to make a model soldier of him. He had not surrendered all at once. But tantalized LAST FRONTIER 189 with the banishment from Ilo-Ilo, he had at length turned from the petty affairs of his s °ggy kingdom and gone to whisky-and- soda solace. It took only a few days of this latter mood to bring him down to where Christ- mas Eve found him. Even then he might not have tasted the limit of misery had not the date been stabbed into him by a request from the men for a little extra in their next day's menu. The first sergeant had asked the favor clumsily enough, and the snarl of the emaci- ated, feverish officer as he started up on his elbow made even that seasoned " non-com " wince. " Great heavens, is this Christmas Eve? " " That's the way I reckon it, sir," said the sergeant soothingly. " I'll take your word for it," sneered his 190 RAINIER OF THE superior. " Get whatever you want from the quartermaster and don't come bother- ing me." The sergeant saluted and went down- stairs. Lately remained propped up in bed, staring resentfully after him for a moment, his eyes bright with fever. Then, reaching down between his cot and the wall, he pulled up his flask, measured tremblingly a double dram and drank it with an unpleasant chuckle. " Christmas Eve. Here's to it. May God forget the rest of the world along with Mabalacat." The whisky acted quickly, and he soon sat erect and sang to the gathering shadows of the room. He sang, in raw and reckless voice, song after song, running the gamut from love songs of " The Point " and Moore's " Oft in the Stilly Night," to the LAST FRONTIER 191 last barrack song that had fastened its cheap chorus upon his mind: "Come here! Come here! My clerical man, and think There's ninety thousand reasons why; The soldier loves his drink; And if you'll only train with us And make the glasses clink Why — you'll be the happiest man in old Manila ! " The two muchachos brought in candles in the middle of the song, casting fascinated eyes at the wild face of the singer, who went on to a crescendo of enthusiasm in the last verse of the ditty, unheeded by the men over at the barracks, who were them- selves absorbed in the merits of a can of stomach-rotting bino. Only the slouching sentry below his window glanced appre- hensively up from time to time and uneasily told himself that it wasn't safe business for a private to expostulate with a drunken " C. O." on Christmas Eve. 192 RAINIER OF THE Now turn the clock back a few hours, hoist the sun again into the heavens and let its afternoon rays, patched with misty clouds, flitter down upon the new Army Secretary, as he halts his pony with a jerk six miles from Mabalacat and peers over that diminutive animal's ears at a tell-tale nest of loaded Mauser cartridges spilled across the mud of the trail. Mausers, mind you, not " Krags," gleaming with all their newness, not coated with dust or loam. And thus speaking of grim possibilities to Rainier, whose eyes grew grave indeed as he stared at them. Give Rainier eight seconds and both man and beast have disappeared. Only the wheeling grain-birds above the pampas saw him strike off the trail at right angles, lead- ing his pony and allowing the tall stems to close protectingly behind him. LAST FRONTIER 193 Only these same birds saw him make a cautious halt a hundred yards from the trail, transfer a bulky bag from his pony to his own shoulder, shift it to suit him, and then leave his wondering beast and dive forward alone into the miles of heavy growth stretch- ing toward Mabalacat. Give the burdened traveler ten minutes' start and then know that the mahogany- skinned, brooding owner of the cartridges has come back down the trail, is thankfully recovering his carelessly spilled ammunition, and is then about to run on after his more careful comrades of the Republic Filipina, when his eyes see a hoof-mark freshly turned since the downpour of a half -hour ago. A quick scrutiny of the ditch at the side of the trail reveals to his startled mind all he needs to know. 194 RAINIER OF THE In an instant more he is off down the back trail with tidings of a lone Amer- icano. Ten more precious circlings of the minute hand of Rainier's wrist-watch and the guerillas have appropriated his aban- doned pony and are running the trails to head off their entangled prey. Thus it came to pass that rifles flashed their hate two miles farther down the valley when the Secretary tried again to use the beaten path for speed's sake, and he felt a thrill of the old days in the Soudan as he whipped out his revolver and gave them a sharp reply. But they were firing from am- bush along the trail, and he stumbled back into the merciful pampas with a trouble- some wound over the temple, which per- sisted in trickling its flow into his eyes and blinding him. Night dropped with equatorial sudden- LAST FRONTIER 195 ness upon both hunters and hunted two miles from Mabalacat, and it was hardly out of ear-shot of the Irish sentry on outpost duty at the edge of the town that the Secre- tary's arm was broken by an insurrecto's lucky shot. And then came the great ques- tion of that individual's narrowing world — which is it to be, sack or revolver? One or the other must be abandoned. And as he staggers out into the trail again, for the first time clearly ahead of the skulkers, it is not the heavy sack but the " Colt's .45 " and its half-empty belt that is flung ignominiously behind him in the ditch. And now un- armed, bleeding, blinded, but still tena- ciously gripping his sack, the Secretary went on toward Mabalacat. Only the feel of the harder ground of the trail against his shoe soles kept his stumbling steps guided bright. 196 RAINIER OF THE Twice the agony of the grating bone splinters of his lacerated arm pulled his dogged mind from his path-finding task and caused him to bring up in the laced growth of the ditch. The second time this occurred he had tripped and gone headlong, his wounded arm doubling up under him. As he recovered himself, faint with fearful pain, he heard distinctly the sound of the guerillas' bare feet pattering swiftly behind him. With a cry half of pain and half of defiance he stumbled on in a final desperate spurt, and was greeted by the glorious music of a rich Irish challenge as a rifle-lock snapped back and a startled voice shouted, "Halt! Who comes there? Halt!" A few seconds later Private McManus, sentry on No. 4 post of Mabalacat, was put- ting tonic into the Secretary by his horror at the fugitive's bloody plight. For the sounds LAST FRONTIER 197 of pursuit had suddenly ceased at the ring of the Irish challenge. " God of Hiven, sind thim aginst this out- post!" said McManus fervently, fumbling at his " first-aid " bandage but staring out into the black trail southward with wrath in his heart. " Only six or eight in the bunch," said the now prostrate Rainier, breathing hard. " They won't give you a shot." " They've got a good pony and my gun and they've branded a mark on me. That's a good night's work for that crowd. They don't want an honest, two-sided argu- ment." " Clost shave fer ye, ould mon." Mc- Manus was kneeling in the mud now and beginning to wind the bandages. " Fwhat's yer outfit? Air ye over from Dumangas way? " " I'm a civilian — Y. M. C. A., you know. 198 RAINIER OF THE Came through from Ilo-Ilo with some stuff for the boys." The Secretary grated out the words, for the Irishman's sympathy outclassed his skill, and the smashed arm was one long limb of fire. " But here, I'll talk it out wid ye to- morry. Up wid ye now. Arrums around me an' I'll prop ye down the street to the barracks. Aisy. Niver moind yer kit. I'll come back for't." But the Secretary stiffly arose, his dam- aged arm rudely held in a triangular first- aid bandage tied clumsily behind his neck, his good hand still obstinately dragging his sack and his head wound picturesquely about with McManus' handkerchief. " Got to have the old sack, comrade," he said cheerfully, and the two went down through the silent shacks of Mabalacat and LAST FRONTIER 199 out over the little plaza to the lights stream- ing from the upper rooms of the head- quarters building. Here the secretary was held up by the sentry below the "C. O.'s" window; the whispered colloquy of McManus, the head- quarters guard, and Rainier was punctuated very nicely indeed by a sound of crashing furniture in the Tribunal and a maniacal shout which formed the preface to a most urgent drunken invitation to — "Come here! Come here! My clerical friend, and think There's ninety thousand reasons why The soldier loves his drink." "Drunk as a lord," growled the head- quarters guard. " [You'd better not report to him to-night. He's liable to shoot any- thing that goes upstairs. You sleep with the boys to-night. They're pretty lively themselves to-night. Got ahold of some 200 RAINIER OF THE bino. But they'll treat you white. And the steward '11 fix your arm up. Sorry we ain't got a doctor." The Secretary was listening intently to the noise above. He had no pleasant mem- ories of Lately, the former prig of the Provost-Guard. But he was, strange to say, tender and pitiful in spirit as he listened to the man above. Down in his precious sack there was a medicine for Lately, and he was glad for the chance to apply it to his erstwhile enemy. "All right," he said absently to the guard. " I'll go over with you in a minute. McManus had better report my little brush to the sergeant of the guard. And, besides, I've a little mess of Christmas stuff for the men in my bag here. That's why I came over, you know. I thought you fellows might enjoy your mail on Christmas. You LAST FRONTIER 201 see it just got into Ilo-Ilo, and the ambu- lance wasn't coming over until day after to- morrow. So they let me have it." Rainier was painfully kneeling at the last sentence and began fumbling at the sack. " Strike a match, one of you," he sug- gested. "Well, I'll be ! Say, you're all right! " By the light of the sulphur match Mc- Manus was looking at the kneeling Secre- tary with open admiration, and the head- quarters guard had laid down his rifle and was helping to spread out the letters as directed. A bright red drop from the Secretary's forehead splashed like a seal upon a square envelope engrossed in a refined but quaver- ing feminine hand, as he held it up trem- 202 RAINIER OF THE blingly to McManus' second match and said: " That's the one. I knew I had one for him. jLooks like a mother's message, men. Just tie a cartridge to it and toss it in the window. Then get ready and we'll shout, 'Merry Christmas,' all together." Even as he spoke, from over the plaza be- hind them came the echo of a drinking chant from the barracks' celebration, and just above their heads the Tribunal win- dows were vomiting forth blasphemies. McManus fumbled a moment in the gloom of the plaza and then the weighted missive shot up over the balcony and rattled across the floor of the " C. O.'s " quarters, while three hearty, but anxious, voices shouted: "Mail's in, sir. Merry Christmas." ***** The cursing and singing above them had LAST FRONTIER 203 ceased. Utter silence in the Tribunal. Then the three heard the officer's feet creak- ing from his cot to the message lying mid- way of his room. Again silence. Then a head appeared outlined in the square of light over them and a shaky but quiet voice said: " Sentry." Guns below rattled, and the two soldiers saluted. " See that the men get their mail at once." "Yes, sir." " And, sentry — listen " — Lately's voice had even conquered its tremor. " Whoever brought that mail in — why, my best wishes to him — and a merry Christmas." ROD GARRISON OF THE GRAY SOX CHAPTER XII BOD GARRISON OF THE GRAY SOX " The sand of the desert is sodden red, Red with the wreck of a square that broke, And the Gatling's jammed and the Colonel dead, And the regiment blinded with dust and smoke; And England's afar and honor a name, And the river of death has brimmed its banks, But the voice of the schoolboy rallies the ranks — Play up ! Play up ! And play the game ! " — British Song. .When Rainier came back to Uo-Ilo from Mabalacat, he found himself a recognized member of that city's social life. He had done a brave deed and had come back with a crooked arm and a reputation for fear- lessness. General Hughes had him over for a luncheon and said nice things to him. Several officers of the garrison took the cue and called upon him at the canvas head- 208 RAINIER OF THE quarters. He became suddenly popular with the rank and file of the Sixty-first, and the crown of it all was a sudden flutter of skirts and the earnest face of Miss Carroll, on a visit of congratulations. " But why on earth did you stay up coun- try so long? If you had come down to us at the Brigade Hospital we would have fixed that arm up right ; I hear it didn't set just as it should." " Oh, a little out of alignment," smiled Rainier, waving his injured arm slowly to reassure her. " No doctor at Mabalacat. I think the steward did pretty well. And that prig Lately developed into a mighty good-hearted fellow. I think he's stopped the whisky-and-soda habit for good. He really nursed me, you know." A sudden reflective look softened Miss Carroll's face. LAST FRONTIER 209 "I remember so well," she said, "how brutally we all received you into Ilo-Ilo. Do you yet forgive us that little street epi- sode, when they marched you in under guard? I often think of it. Some day I want to hear your whole story, Mr. Rainier, from your own lips. Is it a good deal to ask?" .Whether it was the real womanly interest in Miss Carroll's frank upturned face or the vision of another to whom his words might be repeated, that decided Rainier, it would be hard to say. He suddenly escorted Miss Carroll to his most private corner of the big, hot tent and, seating her ceremoniously opposite him, told her his story from Seat- tle's docks to Garrison's shack. He was re- warded with an intense listener. He did not spare Sevier in his recital, but with brutal frankness gave his experience in Nagasaki, 210 RAINIER OF THE bringing a cloud of troubled thought into Miss Carroll's eyes. As he concluded, she sat a moment in si- lence and then, extending her hand as she rose to leave, she said: " I believe in you heartily, Mr. Rainier. Those of us who know Mr. McBurney have all confidence in his friend and successor. What you say of Dr. Sevier is most un- pleasant, but I think you are a true man to speak so plainly. I have felt for a long time that he is the kind of man you describe. But oh, Mr. Rainier, if you understood a woman's splendid folly, you would realize that I have a hard position to fill. To speak to Miss Royce as frankly as I have to you concerning Dr. Sevier, would drive my dearest friend under his influence far more completely than she is now. We iare drifting apart as it is." LAST FRONTIER 211 Rainier had not mentioned Miss Royce by name and felt himself blushing vividly as Miss Carroll concluded. He found little to say, and shortly after she left him with, a hearty word of good will for his work. " I envy you your new work," she said at parting. " This is such a miserable little war, isn't it? The real foe is the ma- laria, the monotony, and the awful lone- someness. To cheer up the men, give them services and entertainment and help them over their temptations, is so much grander than to lead them out to kill Visayans. I envy you your work, comrade." After she had left, he returned thought- fully to his work. As she had said, it was beginning to impress him as the biggest task of his life. His tent was now thronged with men off 212 RAINIER OF THE duty. His influence in gathering the men into nightly song services and impromptu entertainments was decreasing the amount of dissipation in the garrisons so perceptibly as to bring him an official commendation from the new Provost-Marshal. He was constantly in demand at the hospital to write letters for sick and dying soldiers. He read the burial service over the dead in the vile little Ilo-Ilo cemetery. He ran a regular campaign of counter-attractions on pay days to keep the men from the claws of the inevitable gamblers, who started up their games as soon as the paymaster had come in. He found himself beloved and hated, and by the double token knew that he was doing well. Every week came a letter from McBurney, full of encouragement and breezy news from Manila. But all the time, in the midst of bis sue- LAST FRONTIER 213 cesses, he was conscious of a feeling of de- pression and defeat. It haunted him home to his shack at night. If he journeyed up into the interior to cheer some lonely little garrison, the gloomy thing went with him to bother and discourage his soul. It was not the harassing thought of Miss Royce. More and more he was grimly convincing himself that he would eventually find his way to her side, although he could not even see the first step clearly. No, it was not the growing intimacy of Miss Royce and Sevier, of which the whole garrison was loudly talking. It was his failure to locate and be of service to Rod Garrison. Ever since McBurney had delivered him from the grip of the Provost-Guard, Rai- nier had lost touch with that ragged " bino " drinking Samaritan, who had pulled him out of the surf months before. 214 RAINIER OF THE He found that Garrison had served on the stone gang some four or five weeks, and then when Lately had been transferred to Mabalacat a clean-up of the list at Fort Ilo-Ilo had taken place and Garrison had been released on his good behavior. But he had promptly disappeared. Some of his old associates in dissipation had asserted that he had left on a cargo boat for Aus- tralia, others were just as emphatic in their belief that he was living with some Visayan tuba gatherers over in Guimaras Island. All were agreed that wherever he might be, he was drinking heavily and only sober under necessity. McBurney had left Gar- rison in Rainier's hands, saying quietly, "jYou're the fellow to get him out of the muck, Rainier. He, thinks the world of you." Rainier realized that here' Was the inside LAST FRONTIER 215 test of his ability to fill McBurney's place. He who aspires to the work of the Chris- tian Commission can be content with noth- ing less than the approbation from within. But the time of worry and the feeling of defeat came to an end on a certain glad day in February when Rainier had at last the evidence for which his own soul panted — the evidence that he was a graduate physi- cian of the spiritual school. He was tak- ing a day off and was fishing from a native boat on the coast of one of the little islands in the mouth of Ilo-Ilo Strait, known as The Seven Sins. As the boat bobbed cheerfully along, with the rocky beach not a hundred feet distant, Rainier caught sight of a scarecrow of a human being seated deject- edly on a rock near the surf. In two min- utes the fisherman and the bino fiend were in earnest conversation, Rainier pleading &16 RAINIER OF THE with Garrison to return to Ilo-Ilo and share his shack and Garrison sullenly shaking his head. " Ah got a shack of my own heah, an' no man to botheh me. An' Ah got all the grub Ah need. An' my ole friend bino is handy any day Ah want hit." Rainier tried a dozen arguments and prayed in his heart that they might grip the self -suicide and move him to acquiesce. He argued friendship, mother, home, manhood, ambition, heaven, and God. It was all as resultless as the breath of the wind on the rocky side of the Seven Sins. " No, pardner, Ah been knocked out of the box and chased to the woods an' Ah'm not the one to serve 'em ovah the plate again." Garrison spoke with an air of absolute finality, his coarse face locked in a stubborn LAST FRONTIER 217 grimness, well designed to end the interview. With a lazy gesture he pointed to the gable of a nipa shack, showing on the cliff, and with the other hand patted his hip pocket with a suggestive touch. But Rainier was in an instant radiant. With a whoop of joy that startled the beach-comber, he took off his hat and waved it to the gulls. The Visayan boatman gave a nervous jerk of apprehension. Coming down from his exuberance, Rainier went very solemnly up to Garrison, laid a heavy hand on his shoulder and demanded sternly, "Did I understand you to use the phrase ' knocked out of the box,' and ' serve 'em over the plate '? Did I hear you aright, or did the winds of this forsaken place deceive me?" " You shore heard those words, Misteh Rainier," said Garrison in wonder. 218 RAINIER OF THE " Thank heaven, I wasn't deceived," mur- mured Rainier fervently. " In other words, Garrison, you are a baseball ' bug ' or ' fan,' or perhaps even a player? " " Ah pitched fo' Galveston in the South- ern League fo' three seasons," said Gar- rison with dignity. " What ! " demanded Rainier with huge delight. " Pitched for the pennant winners of the Southern League, you scoundrel, and never told me! Well, say, this settles you, Garrison, for the next three months. You've simply got to come back with me to Ilo-Ilo. When I give you the reasons you'll see it as I do. I've been crying and praying for a baseball pitcher for the last two months. Now listen." And thereupon Rainier, who had sud- denly had delight given him from heaven, poured out many solemn words into the ears LAST FRONTIER 219 of the at last alert Garrison. Here are some of the facts that Garrison listened to: First, Rainier's ambition for some weeks had been to start a baseball league among the garrisons of Panay. Some of the companies already had teams. Others were willing to form them. The league would do a world of good in drawing away the attention of the men from drink, from gambling, and from homesick- ness. The need of the moment was for a man to pitch for a team to represent the Ilo-Ilo garrison. Good fielders and out- fielders were already in sight. Rainier himself could do the " back- stop " work. The essential thing was a pitcher, some one who could uphold the honor of the biggest garrison on the Island when the league got to going. Would Rod Garrison be willing to " cut out " the 220 RAINIER OF THE " booze," get into shape, and go into the box for Ilo-Ilo when the schedule began? Now, gentle reader, believe it or not, for it may seem incredible to you, but when Rainier's little boat put off from the Seven Sins into the eye of the sunset that evening, Rod Garrison was seated in the stern talk- ing batting averages and freak curves with the secretary, and his hip pocket was devoid of its bino bottle. What thoughts of " Mother, Home, and Heaven," could not effect, the fascinations of the diamond had accomplished and Rod was a willing captive to visions of " fanning " batters, shrieking "coachers," and applauding "bleachers." He could fairly sniff the old scent of peanut shells and orange peel wafting from old Southern League battlefields on the salty; breezes of Ilo-Ilo Strait. And yet to push the matter a point nearer! LAST FRONTIER 221 the truth, Rod Garrison was headed back to his own true self that day by the sudden recognition of a gleam in the eye of his friend — a gleam such as only lights the eye of a baseball devotee — a gleam of admira- tion for the man who had pitched for the Galveston Gray Sox for three successive years. AN OLD SOAK SOAKS THE BALL CHAPTER XIII AN OLD SOAK SOAKS THE BALL " Oh, they can't hit the ball, They can't hit the ball, They can't hit the ball at all! The Corp'ral's worse than th' private, The Sergeant's worse than the Corp'ral, The Lootenant's worse than the Sergeant, But the Captain's the worst of all! They can't hit the ball, They can't hit the ball, They can't hit the ball at all! " — Reveille, adapted. Thebe are veterans of the Filipino War now living quietly at home with their army experiences all in the past who remember as their most vivid day in the country's service a certain April afternoon in Ilo-Ilo. They seldom refer to their many battles and skir- mishes, but they often describe that April 226 RAINIER OF THE afternoon and the intensity of its conflict with an earnestness worthy of a lecture on the Battle of Gettysburg. It was that his- toric afternoon that gave Garrison the final assurance of Christian manhood. The Panay Island Baseball League had been organized with due solemnity in the tent of the Young Men's Christian Associa- tion at Ilo-Ilo, Clarke Rainier presiding. There were present representatives of the Field Artillery, the Cavalry, the Civilian Employees, and several infantry garrisons. A league of eight clubs and a schedule of two games a week were arranged for, wind- ing up at Ilo-Ilo at the end of the eighth week. Several of the clubs were already organized and came into the league with cheerful confidence. They had developed their stars and were ready for the conflict. It was surprising how much good baseball LAST FRONTIER 227 material the lowly little garrison towns con- tained. Ex-college diamond stars, ex-pro- fessionals from minor and major leagues popped up into sudden prominence. Base- ball blazed for two months across the map of Panay like a great revival fire. Rod Garrison, true to his first love, the game of games, wrestled with himself daily and hourly to get into shape for the Ilo-Ilo team. Rainier watched him like a hawk. He would take the man out in the fields near the sea-shore to the west of the city and in the cool of the evening would catch the painfully weak throwing of the once mighty pitcher of the hour. It seemed at times like a waste of energy thus to give himself to one man, but he knew in his soul that the re- generation of Rod Garrison was the touch- stone of his success or failure as a Christian worker, and he staid by his man like a hero. 228 RAINIER OF THE A hundred times Garrison would twist his face into a grimace and say that it was of no use, he simply could not get back into shape. But Rainier, against his own judg- ment, smiled him back into trying again. After these hours of practice with the sweat dropping from their faces they would strip, wait a few minutes to cool off a bit, and then plunge together into the surf. Then they would resume their clothes, pick up the ball and gloves, and walk back to the Ilo-Ilo shack. Twice Rainier caught his friend shame- facedly slipping out of the shack at night and had, without a word, gone out into the night with him. In both cases it had saved Garrison from a debauch. But the schedule opened at Ilo-Ilo without Garrison in the box for the local team. The crowd gathered, the band played rag-time music, the ladies LAST FRONTIER 229 approved in their white dresses, and the native population made a dense wall about the field; but a lanky Michigan lad went into the box and was clouted to the four corners of the field, while a miserable si- lence crept over the local rooters and only the visiting team from the Fifty-second Regiment at Capiz rejoiced. It was a bad beginning, but Rainier knew that Garrison was in no shape as yet to risk him on the team; and so he let the Ilo-Ilo nine play game after game, without appear- ing himself or bringing his strange recruit to the conflict. The team at last left Ilo-Ilo to make the rounds of the garrison and still Rainier and Garrison faced each other for an hour or two each day in a secluded place and sent the ball with ever increasing swiftness from one to the other. News of defeats and news 230 RAINIER OF THE of victories came in over the military wire from Capiz, from San Juan Bautista, from Oton, from Leon, from Santa Barbara, from Dumangas. The Ilo-Ilo team was doing better than had been expected, and soldiers gathered each day with grow- ing excitement around the blackboard in the Y. M. C. A. tent, where Rainier was post- ing up the percentages as the games were played off. Gossip and beer took second place all over the garrison life of Panay during that famous two months' struggle of the Panay Island Baseball League. Colonels, captains, major-generals, were suddenly eclipsed by some humble private by the name of Mullaney or Jones who de- veloped a pitching arm or a batting eye. To the wonder of the wise in the sport, Ilo-Ilo came back from its trip tied for first place with the fast nine of the Light Ar- [LAST FRONTIER 231 tillery stationed at Molo. The final game was fixed for the aforementioned April afternoon, and every officer and man who could get away from garrison duty in the interior flocked into Ilo-Ilo for the last and greatest game of the season. Officers of the Sixth Infantry over in Negros Island came over with megaphones to help out their infantry brothers, a detach- ment of sailors came ashore from the newly arrived war-ship Bennington, and a lot of fellows trimmed in the red of the Heavy Artillery landed from a transport Cn route to Mindanao, and marched out to cheer for their brothers of the Light Artillery. I think I will let Private Bill Sawyer tell the story of that famous game in his own words. He is new to these pages and there- fore neutral. He was in possession of all the facts ex- 232 RAINIER OF THE cept one. He had not seen Rainier and Garrison kneeling unashamed in all their baseball toggery in the little shack, before leaving ior the game. He had not heard two men welded together in a great fight for character humbly pray for strength and skill " to make good." It would have amazed him beyond measure had he done so. But the rest of the facts were his as he re- tailed the story to his " buddy," Corporal Charley Case of I Company of the Twenty- sixth, up at Leon two days after the game. Imagine Bill and Charley sitting with their backs against the shady side of the big stone convento, Charley listening with a scowl of intentness and Bill wriggling freely with excitement. " Say, Charley, she was a game for fair," began Bill ; " it made me homesick for the LAST FRONTIER 233 States just to see the crowd. They got a good diamond down there at Ilo-Ilo, and they had about ten acres of people around the edge of it. I seen Jimmy Whalen of C Company all the way over from Dama- guete, and that big stiff Ikenstein that was transferred into K of the Fourth Cavalry was there with a bunch from Romblon. I seen Teddy Dickinson sneak in about the middle of the fuss an' cuddle down so ole Cap Bridgeman wouldn't see him. He told me he'd run the guard at Calavista, swum the Rio Verde, slugged a Chino at Jaro and took enough off him to git a ticket. He said he didn't care what happened to him when he got back if only he could see a real dyed-in-the-wool extra-inning game. You know Teddy ust to play short-stop for Sioux City in '97. " Well, Charley, old boy, that game was 234 RAINIER OF THE sure in the limelight. Those nurses was out from the Brigade Hospital. That stunning one that nussed Cuss Corrigan was there, lookin' like a queen. She had about fifteen officers fussin' around her, an' they wasn't all ' shave-tails ' either. The old colonel himself was sitting as close to her as he cfould get, but a doctor guy seemed to shut the rest off pretty much. They had a stand rigged up for the ladies and the officers. The deep-water boys from the Bennington was out along the right field foul line. Those artillery fellows from Molo was packed around the third sack, an' the ' dough-boys ' from Ilo-Ilo an' the whole of Panay was squeezed in anywhere they could get. I reckon there was about thirty billion pock-marked Visayan ladrones forming a brown fringe outside of us soger boys around the whole field. LAST FRONTIER 235 "And say, it was hot — hot as a griddle in buckwheat-cake time. But we didn't mind it none. The crowd, all in place an hour before the game began, watched a lot of Visayans pour water out of bamboo joints on the diamond to settle the dust. "After a while we got to yelling at each other. Us dough-boys sassed the cavalry, an' they give it hot to the artillery, an' we all rubbed it into a bunch of marines. There was a red-headed marine who started a fight, but it all quieted down when the Sixty-first band tuned up with ' You Can't Make a Soger Love His Old Hardtack.' Then the umpire, Lieutenant Kilroy of the Scouts, announced the batteries, an' the thing was on. " You know what side I was pulling for, Charley. I didn't want a flossy little bunch of artillery primps to put it over on the 236 RAINIER OF THE Ilo-Ilo crowd. Six of those Ilo-Ilo fellows belonged to us infantry, an' I knew we'd never hear the last of our ' cold feet ' if we didn't stand those fellows square on their heads. " But it was mighty mournful for the first few minutes. Little Irish Carrigan was put into the box for Ilo-Ilo, an' Big Dutch Heitmuller of the Molo team knocked the first ball he pitched out into center for a three-sacker. Carrigan whiffed the next fellow up, a little bow-legged gun- swabber called Kelly. But up comes a tough guy by the name of Miller an' brings in Heitmuller with a daisy-cutter through second base. How those red-trimmed hats went up around third base when that big Dutchman came across the plate! " Well, that wasn't the worst of it. The next fellow got a pass — I. forget his name — LAST FRONTIER 237 and the next man up to the plate was their fancy short-stop. " He waited for a good One and straight- ened it out for two sacks. That brought in two more runs an' set the artillery crowd yelling like a lunatic asylum in an earth- quake. " Yes, Charley, it was awful. When we finished that inning a little Filipino mucha- cho put a big figure eight against Molo on the score board and a big zero underneath it for us. Eight to nothing in the first in- ning! When Carrigan went to the bench after the third out, he looked like a sick cat and the team trailed in after him like eight little kittens that had lost their mittens. There was an awful stillness among us ' dough-boys ' when the second inning be- gan, while over among the artillery they were cutting up didoes something fierce. 238 RAINIER OF THE "Well, I knew they wouldn't put Car- rigan back in the box for Ilo-Ilo, an' I had enough inside dope to know that they hadn't another pitcher. Easterly had split his knee-cap in the last game against Capiz, an' he was their only other slab artist. But while we waited {or the second inning to open up and great gobs of gloom stuck out on our faces, we got the surprise of our lives. The umpire walked out and an- nounced a change of battery for Ilo-Ilo. " ' Garrison and Rainier 1 ' shouts he, and I nearly fell off my seat. " You know Rainier, Charley. He's the Y. M. C. A. fellow that took little McBur- ney's place last Fall, the fellow that got shot up taking in the mail to Mabalacat. Out he stalks in an Ilo-Ilo suit and snuggles down behind the bat with a little side action to him that looked good to me. The rest of LAST FRONTIER 239, the team snapped out into position, and then a lanky-looking stranger walked out to the pitcher's box an' began rapping a new ball against his spikes. He looked a stranger to me all right, but close to my ear a cavalry sergeant yelled: 'If it ain't our ole friend Bino: how are you, you ole stone-breaker? ' Then I knew him in a flash. Charley, it was that old ' bino ' soak, that bum who used to comb the beaches when we was sta- tioned in Ilo-Ilo last year. Many is the time I'd stumbled on that sport hitting the bottle under the cocoanut trees. Yes, Charley, as sure as the dhobie itch, it was old Bino Bill, th' Bottle Buster. But you wouldn't a known him, he was that fixed up, and he had a swing to him that looked mighty nifty an' home-like as he straightened up and looked the first Molo batter in the eye. " It was that big Dutch Heitmuller 240 RAINIER OF THE again, and if any fellow ever looked like a home-run hitter he did. He was grinning all over himself as he tapped the plate with his club and jerked his cap down over his right eye. " But, pshaw, Charley, there was nothing doing for Dutch. He swung three times and missed the little white pellet worse each time. When he went to the bench the fel- lows over on the side lines had quit yelling at Bino and the Ilo-Ilo bunch let out a yell of joy that made you feel good all through. Well, that resurrected bum fanned three of 'em in a row, and when he went in to the bench about ten thousand of us poured out buckets of joy all over him, and he scraped off his cap twice an' ducked toward the stand. Say, how those ladies did shriek! "But what was the use of yelling? Wasn't it eight to nothing against us? Bino LAST FRONTIER 241 might hold 'em down all right, but it looked to me the game was gone anyhow. I scowled at that score board hard enough to knock the rim off our goose-egg, but there it stuck — eight to nothing. " But Bino's pitching had put some gin- ger into our fellows, and while I was looking down between my toes I heard a crack and saw the ball going into the crowd in right field, while Happy Hogan of B Company of our regiment, who was playing center- field for Ilo-Ilo, went all around the circuit for a home-run. It was all we got that in- ning, but it looked a lot better than a goose- egg, and I skinned the cat so often that I lost my wad. I didn't know it was gone until after the game. " Bino held those Molo sluggers down in their half of the third. They got a man on second, but they couldn't get him home. 242 RAINIER OF THE Ilo-Ilo got another run in their half, and the 'lectricity began to flow around amongst us dough-boys pretty lively. " Well, Bino kept on holding 'em. They just couldn't solve him. Along about the fifth inning a fellow back of me says, ' That pitcher working for Ilo-Ilo looks a heap like a fellow that ust to put 'em over for Gal- veston in the Southern League. Seems to me his name was Garrison, wasn't it? I seen him pitch against New Orleans back in '96. " When he says that, I looked old Bino over, every move, like a hawk, an' I could see pretty soon that he had all the earmarks of a ' profesh.' You know how to tell 'em, Charley. There's a sort of I-feel-at-home- here action about those fellows that's worked in the big leagues that gives 'em away every time. •LAST FRONTIER 243 " ' Pipe that off to the crowd,' says I to the fellow behind me, and pretty soon it had spread like wild-fire that Long Rod Gar- rison, who pitched Galveston to the pen- nant just before the war, was on the mound for Ilo-Ilo. Break the news to mother! How it took the starch out of those artillery boys!" " The next inning their pitcher took a balloon ascension, an' when he got back to earth the score stood eight to seven and there was one long howl from us infantry that raised the fear prickles on the ' Kha- kiaks ' for five square miles around. But there the game stuck from the sixth to the ninth, and when the Molo batters came up for their last bat we didn't take our eyes off the play long enough to bite a plug. Their first man up, Sweeney, got life on the first pass old Bino had given, but that Y. M. 244. RAINIER OF THE C. A. fellow caught him at second with a snap throw that had as flat a trajectory as my old brown Krag-Jorgenson. " That Rainier guy can play some ball, all right. Well, that was one down. Bino struck the next man out. But up comes Miller and pastes one on the nose for two bags." " We held our breath when the next fel- low connected with a low ball and lifted it out into left center. " It was a sky-scraper all right, but Ho- gan got under it and clamped on to it with a grin that I could see myself 'way up by first base. In raced our fellows and out came Molo. " I looked at our batting order, and I seen the next three men was the poorest we had. They was the bottom of the batting order. It seemed an awful thing to think of that LAST FRONTIER 245 eight to seven score and those weak-stickers coming up! " One run would tie it up an' two would win it. But I knew it was no use to hope, Charley, with those three coming to bat. " The first was Baker. When he stepped to the plate, there was a silence you could cut with a knife. I could see by the way he twitched his leg that he was too scared to do anything. That Molo pitcher seen it, too, and curved 'em right over the plate while Baker slapped the air with his bat three times and then sneaked out of the limelight. " Collins of A Company of the Sixty- first come next. He's a poor hitter but a nervy little guy, and he pretty near worked that Molo pitcher for a pass. But Kilroy called him out on strikes and waved him to the bench after Baker. Us Ilo-Ilo rooters 246 RAINIER OF THE forgot all about Kilroy's being an officer an' we roasted him for fair. I reckon Col- lins was out, all right. But we wanted that game, an' wanted it bad; " I could even see the old colonel up in the stand shaking his fist at Kilroy, while those lady nurses hissed like a lot of geese. But the artillery bunch along the third-base line went dippy by the dozen. " We had just one chance left, and that was Eyetalian George. You remember him, Charley. He ust to be in the Q. M. D. and got a transfer to L of the Seventh. He was up next, an' I knew he couldn't hit a flock of barns with a repeating shotgun. I had played against him more than once. I just let out a groan when I seen him walk up to the plate. But, Charley-old-horse, the unexpected happens once in a while. Little Georgie dropped a bunt as neat as a LAST FRONTIER 247 needle and dusted to first base like a Con- gressman drawing his first salary check. Their catcher got the ball, straightened him- self up, and lammed her like a bullet to first base. But George had beat it by the flip of a kodak-shutter an' rooted on the bag with the whole population of Ilo-Ilo calling him pet names an' silver dollars raining all over him. Oh, buckets of joy for me! There was a chance left to tie or win." " I craned my neck out to see who was coming next. It was our catcher, Rainier, the Y. M. C. A. man. ' What's he been doing with the willow? ' asks I of Fatty Sesson, who had been checking up the hits. Fatty looked at his paper and says, 'Up three times, walked once, fanned once, and flew out to center.' " It looked mighty dubious as Rainier came up and faced their pitcher. He hadn't 248 RAINIER OF THE made a hit yet, but still there was something about the way he planted himself at the plate that gave me a little speck of hope. He looked like a hard man to whiff an' the crowd give him a generous hand and yelled, ' What's the matter with the Sky Pilot? He's all right ! ' Well, he grinned an' let the first one go by. ' Strike one ! ' yells Kilroy, an' the red-trimmings over by third fairly writhed with derision. " But the next ball, Charley, was a hoss of another color. That Molo pitcher held it up to his face so long I reckon it must have been a ' spitter.' I saw Rainier step out to meet her before she ' broke,' and then I saw him swing. It was a nice new ball, a nice new ball. An' it made a nice white streak clean over second base! As clean a single, old chum, as ever I've seen.- "When the smoke cleared away there LAST FRONTIER 249 was Eyetalian George roosting on third and Rainier dusting his pants off with his cap on first. Yell? Did we yell! Don't ask me. I beat any solo-screecher you ever heard in a high-toned church, an' so did everybody else in the regiment. And then when we all knew we couldn't howl another note, up comes old Bino himself to bat and then we soared and roared and threw away our hats and did circus stunts by wholesale. "But the Molo pitcher was a wise guy. He jest waited till our breath was spent an' a dead silence had settled down on us again. The game was all in old Bino's hands, and he knew it. I've seen Bino's old phiz many a time when he was hanging around town. We all liked the old booze fighter, but we didn't none of us think of calling him hand- some. Not much! But, Charley, when Bino was standing there at the plate and 250 RAINIER OF THE looking out under his visor at that Molo pitcher, there was something in his face that give me a start. " He looked like a different man, some- how. His mouth was as firm as old Cap Bridgman's, his eyes stared out like he knew he was as good as any galoot on the field, an' he stood up to th' plate as different from his old caved-in shuffle as you can imagine. Charley, I knew by the way he looked that Bino was going to hit that next ball. And he knew it, too. Now, remem- ber, I was out near first base. I seen the ball shoot out of the pitcher's hand and flash toward Bino. I seen him take a terrific swing and then I heard sweet music — the only kind of a sound that fits into the ninth inning of a ball game with two men on, two gone, and a hit needed to win — the music of the kerack of hardwood against horsehide LAST FRONTIER 251 that meant that old Bino the Bottle Buster had hit it on the seam! " Go? where did the ball go? did you ask, Charley? Ask me something easy. That ball hasn't come back yet. It was on the rise when it cleared Lefty Miller's head out in center field, an' the last I see of it was when it bounded off the corrugated iron on the roof of the corral. " As soon as Bino hit the pellet, he legged it for first while Eyetalian George an' Rainier sizzled in over the home plate an' tucked the game away for Ilo-Ilo. I was at the first bag when Bino got there, an' he no sooner struck his spikes into the canvas than we lifted him up an' began the obsequies. Did we whoop it up? Did we! All the yelling that we had done up to date in that game was dead silence compared to what we let loose as we paraded Bino up to the- 252 RAINIER OF THE grand stand. We stirred up the dust like a hasty pudding. We tore long strips out of the atmosphere, we hit high C with spon- taneous unanimity, an' went from there on up until every man's voice sizzled out in a hiss. " Honest, Charley, there's no use trying to let you know how we celebrated. " But we played it to the limit, you bet. One feller said to me afterward, c Bill, old boy, I was on the Maine when she blew up in Havana harbor, but it wasn't a fire- cracker to what Rod Garrison touched off in us when he soaked that ball over onto the corral.' " Well, to wind this yarn up, Charley, a kind of queer thing happened as we begun to quiet down after the game. Old Bino had kicked and squirmed so much that at last we set him down, but not until eight LAST FRONTIER 253 different commands had paraded him and yelled their heads off shouting: ' What's the matter with Garrison? He's all right!' But just as we set him down, an' he was starting to push his way through us off the field, a sergeant of C Company pushed a bottle of whisky under his nose and says hearty-like, ' Take one on me, comrade. It's all yours.' Now what do you think old Bino did, Charley? I never was so sur- prised in all my life. " 'Much obliged to you, suh,' says Bino, in that down-south-in-Dixie drawl of his, ' Much obliged to you. But I don't use the stuff any mo.' And with that up comes this Rainier guy, and the last I see of Bino he was working his way through that crowd arm-in-arm with the Sky Pilot, and it looked to me as if they was headed for the Y. M. C. A. tent. 254 RAINIER "Talk about miracles, Charley! When Bino turned that sergeant's good whisky- down, I seen a miracle myself. If there had been a church handy I'd a joined it on th' spot!" A THOUSAND-DOLLAR TOOL CHAPTER XIV A THOUSAND-DOLLAR TOOL " It's the bullet from behind that's most apt to hit the mark." — Army Proverb. Yes, the Y. M. C. A. of Ilo-Ilo was on the up-grade. Almost before he knew it Rod Garrison found himself commissioned as Assistant Secretary. He started in the un- accustomed work gingerly enough, but soon his Southern heart caught fire. Garrison had come from a land where men are not ashamed to be frank confessors of Christ, and soon Rainier found that his new recruit was leading him on faster than he relished. It was Rod who insisted upon nightly evan- gelistic services. It was Rod who suggested 357 258 RAINIER OF THE the value of a Bible Study Class for the soldiers of the Ilo-Ilo garrison. It was Rod who led in personal work among the men. "Ah've begun a new life, Rainier," he said earnestly, " an' Ah'm goin' to let the boys all know whar Ah stan'." So step by step the two men went on into the deeper things of the Association work, and found an increasing joy in their grow- ing knowledge of their common Saviour. Rainier, whose religious life at home had been orthodox enough but decidedly flavor- less, found new meanings in the Bible and new fellowship with the faith of his fathers. His inner prayer life began to delineate to his own soul an increasingly definite Christ, a holy, tender, omnipotent Redeemer. Great mysteries were revealed to him as he linked his life to his transformed friend. Life that was life indeed came to him. LAST FRONTIER 259 .Yet all the deepening life of his spirit could not erase the constant factor of irri- tation in regard to Miss Royce. Her form he seldom saw, purposely visiting the hos- pital when she was off duty. But her face, her voice, her mannerisms, came unbidden before his mind every hour of the day. The Ilo-Ilo gossip for the most part never reached him, but try as he would he could not shut his ears to it all and on several oc- casions he had the exquisite torture of hear- ing her name linked with Sevier's. Now and then he met them face to face, some- times passing together in a victoria, some- times walking along the shops of Calle Real. Her eyes on one of these occasions had met his before he could turn them away and she accompanied her bow with a look so eager that he trembled with hope for days. Could it be that she was beginning to 260 RAINIER OF THE understand the man who was monopolizing her? He found partial relief from his constant thought of her in pushing out frequently into the interior, establishing branches in the lonesome sun-blistered posts of the foot- hills. It is worthy of note that, while on one of these trips, traveling carelessly along with- out escort on the Cabatuan trail, his horse suddenly shied. Dismounting, he went into the jungle a few paces and found himself looking at a pitiable sight. A negro was lying unconscious on the ground, with a fallen tree across his shoulder and right arm. The arm was evi- dently mangled and bloody, for an army of red ants was wriggling over it. The sight of the puffed face of the negro in his plight gave evidence that, though still living, he LAST FRONTIER 261 was not suffering. Not stopping to tie his horse, Rainier sprang to the task of prying up the heavy eucalyptus log. The sight of the feasting ants gave him the strength of ten men. In a minute of time he was drag- ging the heavy body free and pulling it to a creek near by, the ants still clinging jn masses to their victim. But in a frenzy he washed the insects into the stream, tore up his own shirt into bandages, and wrapped the shattered arm up with care. The man had come to in the process and began to groan feebly with pain. "Do you speak English?" asked Rainier. The man shook his head and con- tinued his groans. Rainier tried Visayan dialect. "I will leave you now to get help," he said. " Do not worry. I will return with help." 262 RAINIER OF THE He left the man lying upon the bank of the stream, but as he did so something led him to scan the man's clothing. He had been too eager to relieve him from his horrible plight to make any deductions. But now as he turned to go away he noticed that the negro was wearing a blue flannel shirt and a pair of army shoes. He had no jacket, but his trousers were of native cloth and a broad gold stripe ran down the leg. A wild surmise filled his mind. But he shook himself free of it, mounted his pony, rode into the nearest "barrio," and soon came back to the place he had left the negro, accompanied by a score of natives and a rude stretcher. "We'll carry him into the nearest post-hospital," thought Rainier. But to his amazement the man was gone. The natives searched the banks of the LAST FRONTIER 263 stream but could discover no trace of the fellow. Evidently he had staggered away to his shack in the jungle. Once more Rainier's mind quivered with a disquieting thought. Who was the man? Could it be that he had stumbled on the most vicious in- surgent leader in the Island — the negro renegade Fagan? Should he report the matter to headquarters? He was at first inclined to do so, but a sudden inexplicable pity for the wounded man and the thought of the horrible tor- tures through which he must have passed, united in determining him to say nothing. Let the man have a chance to get away, he thought. To aid in his recapture would simply be to help hang him, for no com- mander in the Philippines would spare him the halter. So Rainier went on into the interior with 264 RAINIER OF THE one more strange experience to his credit, little dreaming that he was playing in the second act of a dark and evil drama. The first act had been staged in Ilo-Ilo near eleven o'clock of the preceding night, when the negro whom Rainier had found under the fallen eucalyptus trunk, tapped gently at the rear door of Dr. Sevier's quar- ters in Calle Ermita and was admitted so instantly as to prove a prearranged inter- view. "A light?" suggested the visitor when seated in the secluded little kitchen opening on the rear. ".You're not afraid," commented the voice of Sevier. Shortly a lamp illumined the place, but not before the windows with their thick shell-panes were drawn closely across the sliding sills. The doctor proved to be in pajamas, a LAST FRONTIER 265 slouching figure. His manner was that of a man pretending a carelessness he did not feel. " You look about the same as in the old Yukon days, Doc; living at your pace I should think you would show it more." The negro spoke without a trace of dia- lect. His voice was deep and even. As he finished the remark he took a proffered ciga- rette from his host, laid aside his straw hat and struck a match. His white teeth glis- tened between his thick lips as he shot the first smoke from his nostrils. " Heavens, Fagan, I've lived like a Puri- tan for months," answered the doctor with disgust. "You?" " Yes, more fool I, I suppose. But hear me, Fagan. I've got a new deal on this time. Quite a contrast to those we pulled 266 RAINIER OF THE off together when you were with the old regiment on the Yukon. You remember that case of the little Eskimo, Kolana? And that mix-up about old trapper Kern's girl? Well, I'm caught on the hook myself now." The doctor paused, shrugged his shoul- ders, puffed out his lips with disgust and resumed. " Honest, Fagan, I think the grand pas- sion that the French talk about has come my way at last. Now don't laugh. I mean it. There is a little woman here in the Army Nurses' Corps who can twist me around her fingers. I keep her from knowing it too clearly, but the fact remains. I'm going to marry her. But she is holding back a little and I'm afraid to put the whole thing to the test." "Another man? " queried the negro. LAST FRONTIER 267 " Yes, curse it. She doesn't say anything about it, but she is thinking a good deal about a fellow who has it in for me, a man who came over in the same transport that brought me in here. He was a saucy guy and mixed it with me in Katayama's place in Nagasaki. I thought I had evened it up with him one night off the coast here. I slugged him and pushed him overboard, but he had the luck of a demon from the pit and crawled out on the beach." " Is he on to you? " " He acts so. But he didn't see me slug him. He can't prove anything on me. But the whole town here knows there's something between us. He's gotten mighty pious here lately, but he's laying for me just the same. But I don't fear him. Only the girl shares the feeling of the place in gen- eral. She thinks he's a great hero, and 268 RAINIER OF THE knowing that we are enemies it works against me. I've planted a few inventions of my own in her mind and they've helped a lot up to date. But I'm beginning to lose out. Ever since he ran the mail into Maba- lacat under the fire of your precious band of cut-throats his stock has been on the rise." The negro grinned unpleasantly, and his stocky body grew tense. " If I had been there on the Mabalacat trail it would have been a different story," he said grimly. " Uncle Sam taught me to shoot straight, and I try not to shame my uncle. Does he hang around the lady much? " " No. That is just the worst of it all. He strikes the holy attitude of so abhorring me that he avoids her for fear of meeting me with her. It is beginning to work on her pretty strong. Then she has a pet LAST FRONTIER 269 friend, Miss Carroll, who makes cat's eyes at me when she thinks that I am not look- ing. I've got to get that girl soon or lose out for good." " You really want this one, then? " Sug- gested the visitor, meaningly. The doctor's face grew strong with pas- sion. He struck the table with his hand and bent over until his forehead almost touched his auditor's. "Fagan, listen! That little woman has got me body and soul. I don't know what little Fanchette will say back in Omaha, but I'm willing to stand any row it causes to get this little nurse. And now here is my plan." The insurgent chief bent over carefully as the physician began to reach the heart of the business in hand. " Now, Fagan, the problem is how I am to eclipse this Rainier and be a bigger hero 270 RAINIER OF THE than he. Don't smile. I think you know that I'm no coward. But hanging around a hospital doesn't give a man any chance to dazzle the fair sex with heroism. My plan is very simple. I will see that word reaches Miss Royce that she is needed to attend some sick soldiers just outside our lines. I will make it out to be an emergency case and she will go out on the San Bias trail. I will act as her escort. You have your men ready on the trail, make a grand display of weapons, capture us and then, after holding her for a few hours, give me a chance to get away with her after firing a few shots into the air. It may sound like a silly plan, but I've got a thousand in gold Americans — for your part of the work. And I'll guarantee she will be in my arms before I get back to our sentries." Fagan sat for a moment in silence. Then LAST FRONTIER 271 he showed his teeth in a hearty laugh that brought a "Hush!" from his host. Both glanced at the window with a start of fear. But Fagan shrugged his shoulders again with returning carelessness and began puff- ing at a second cigarette. " You never failed to pay up in the old days," he said reflectively. "But where will you deposit the stuff? " " With the padre at Molo. He is treas- urer for your illustrious cause in Panay," coolly answered the doctor, his eyes nar- rowing with enjoyment as he noticed Fa- gan's eyes widening with surprise. " So you know that? I forgot that you were a Catholic, doctor. You have a great advantage of me there. But the padre at Molo got the water cure yesterday at the hands of some toughs in the Gordon Scouts and is a broken reed to-day." 272 RAINIER OF THE It was Sevier's turn to be astonished. He sat in silence a moment, busy with his thoughts. But he shook himself into shape again and said, "Well, Pagan, I'll have the money on me then when you capture us. Thieves can trust thieves. You have always played fair with me, and I'll trust the whole matter in your hands." The doctor spoke with apparent gener- osity of soul, but it was with the utmost dif- ficulty that he held himself back from say- ing, "But if you betray me I will have some way to even the thing up." Two years of dealing with Fagan in the wildest days of the Yukon gold fever had not entirely eradicated his fear of the man who had lived a life of crime when in the service of the nation and had now gone to his own place finally as a renegade of the worst type. LAST FRONTIER 273 No one knew better than the scheming surgeon that he was dealing with a forceful, cool, utterly selfish, vicious, greedy, lustful, childish, fearless outlaw. But he remem- bered the man's astonishing love for gold pieces and staked his all to win out with Miss Royce by the use of this two-edged tool. It was past midnight when the last de- tails had been settled and the renegade slipped out into the streets of Ilo-Ilo. As he arose to go Sevier's lamp threw into dazzling relief a broad gold stripe on the insurgent chief's trousers. "Great heavens, man! Is that part of your uniform? You are running a silly risk in parading that thing past our sentries." The only response was a light laugh of derision as the man passed out into the night. 274 RAINIER Five hours later a heavy wind near Ca- batuan snapped a weakened eucalyptus tree and laid it across the sleeping figure of a man who had crept into the jungle to rest after a hard march from Ilo-Ilo. FAGAN PROVES HIMSELF FAGAN CHAPTER XV FAGAN PROVES HIMSELF FAGAN " When you reach the seat of war, 'Jest remember what you are — Only one sixty-thousandth of the push; And your good old Uncle Sam Might get rattled in the jam, An' inarch away an' leave you in the bush." — Advice to Rookies. How, intricate the pattern of human af- fairs. Here is one, Sevier, of the Brigade Hospital Staff, compelled in his little con- spiracy to weave into his plans Fagan's love of gold and Miss Benicia Royce's com- passion for wounded men, Fagan's cupid- ity, her credulity. They were alike to min- ister to his own black end. How well it all began to work! On the third day after the conspirators had talked 277 278 RAINIER OF THE in Calle Ermita, Miss Royce colors with conflicting emotions at receiving a rather unceremonious morning call at her pretty little quarters from Dr. Curt Sevier. He tells her that he has been asked to send a nurse and physician out to Malate " barrio " on the San Bias trail to meet some fever- stricken soldiers who have been left under guard by Gordon's Scouts. It was a rather rough ride, but would she care to take the assignment and be ready to leave with Dr. Burns in a native " carromatta " within a' half-hour? Benicia's eager assent was eloquent of a' nature rarely given even to those born nurses of the Army Nurses' Corps. To few nurses has ever been vouchsafed of Heaven so real and tender a compassion for human suffering. Accustomed as she was to tid- ings of disease and wounds and the sight of LAST FRONTIER 279 bodies racked with pain, she never failed to feel a rising flood of tenderness responding to each successive appeal. When, with a light wrap over her arm and a small satchel in her hand she de- scended a half-hour later in a natty uniform to the hospital entrance, she was surprised to find at the awaiting " carromatta," not Dr. Burns, but Dr. Sevier. His forceful eyes noted her color rise as he helped her to her seat. " San Bias trail — Barrio Malate — Pronto, cochero," he said to the Visayan driver squatted before them, and then turned to his radiant companion: "Burns couldn't well make it, so I thought I would go personally. You're not averse, Miss Benicia? " She responded graciously enough to please him, and the coming crisis on the San 280 RAINIER OF THE Bias trail gave him a reckless buoyancy that soon charmed her into musical rejoinder, repartee, and laughter. As they rattled cheerily away over the; rough stones of Calle Real, a little urchin! raced out of a cross street and legged it after them, bawling piteously. Sevier with reluctance directed the cochero to stop at Miss Benicia's earnest request. " It's little George Washington Rizal," she explained, as she smiled adorably at the dirty little rascal pattering up behind. "What is it, dear?" Little George Washington Rizal, once abreast of the halted rig, had nothing to say. His shiny brown face changed from drawn sorrow to stolid, fixed delight. Without hesitation he started up over the wheel on Miss Benicia's side. LAST FRONTIER 281 The doctor interposed with as savage a word as he dared utter. With a thousand dollars in gold in the apparently innocent surgical case at his feet and with the girl at his side almost in his grasp for good, he did not relish the appearing of Benicia's little pet Filipino muchacho. " yamoose, kid ! " he said sharply. The little eight-year-old boy fell back from the hub with such a threat of tears that his idol cried out, " Oh, doctor, let's take him out with us. There is no mother to worry about him, you know. And I've promised him a ride so often. Could we? " " Just as you like, Miss Benicia," said Sevier coldly. But he did not regret the favor as the little fellow sprang in, for she bent toward him with such a look of ac- knowledgment that he drew a sharp breath to command himself. 282 RAINIER OF THE The little carromatta rattled out past the last American sentry a half -hour later. He was a big red-headed Irish infantryman and his face lit up as he saw the favorite nurse of the brigade in the rig. He brought his piece sharply to " present " and smiled his admiration of her as the doctor saluted in re- sponse and Miss Royce bowed. Miss Royce was to think often of that fearless sun- browned Irishman standing in salute of her at the edge of the lonely trail. The next two days brought him often to her mind, for it was only three miles beyond his post that the jungle on either side of the trail sud- denly disgorged a half hundred ragged, nondescript figures who neatly halted the terrified driver of the carromatta, hauled him from his seat without ceremony, and thrust wicked-looking pistols and bolos into the faces of the physician and nurse. LAST FRONTIER 283 The leading highwayman was a burly negro with a bandaged shoulder. Benicia's scream was one of real terror. Army nurse though she was, she found her- self shutting out the grinning faces about her by closing her eyes, while she clutched in piteous fear at Sevier's sleeve. Hardly able to repress a thrill of fright himself, the guilty physician yet managed to play his part. Closing his hand protect- ingly upon one of hers, he cried out : " What does this mean? We are non- combatants on our way to relieve the sick. Give us back our driver and let us pass." " You are a nervy man," responded the negro, with a wink designed only for Sevier. " But you can't bluff your way back to the enemies of the Republic Filipina — Viva El Presidente Aguinaldo ! " As prompt as a phalanx of " supers " in £84 RAINIER OF THE an opera, came the response from the tatter- demalion insurgents clustered about the in- tercepted rig: " Long live the Republic Filipina ! " "Madam, do not alarm yourself," con- tinued Pagan, boldly staring at the now partially composed face of Benicia. "We do not war on women. But hostages are useful to a man who has a price on his head. I trust that you will be sensible and understand that you are safer with our band of patriots than though you were in Ilo-Ilo at your work. A few weeks at most will be the length of time we shall detain you. Cochero, mount, your seat and drive these Americans up this side trail to the spot where my Teniente will appoint you. 'Avante.' " Stunned with her peril, Benicia now found herself driven rapidly along a trail crossing LAST FRONTIER 285 the main trail at right angles. She was try- ing hard to think of the 'best way to remedy her situation, but her mind was in a panic and the cool assurances of Sevier that it would all come out right were welcomed with eagerness as he still retained her hand and murmured his sentences in her ear. They had traveled along the side trail for a hundred yards and were ascending a dif- ferent grade before she could find her voice. " Is — is it Pagan? " she fluttered, her ter- rified eyes falling, in spite of herself, upon the figure of the negro showing ahead of them. " I regret to confirm your suspicions," murmured Sevier. " I do not think you ought to be deceived. It is undoubtedly Fagan. But do not despair, Benicia, do not despair. I swear I will have you safe home 286 RAINIER OF THE unharmed. I swear it. Do you believe me, Benicia?" The caress in his voice at any other time would have alarmed her, but it was grateful to her now ; and he, even with his plan at its most dangerous point, saw it and pressed her cold hand ardently. The carromatta rattled at last out of the narrow trail, went noiselessly through a grassy glade, and finally halted in the midst of a group of crude nipa shelters. The litter on the ground, the burnt-out camp fires, and the bamboo platforms with the most dilapidated of grass roofs, all told them they were in the temporary camp of Pagan, the most hated of the insurgent chiefs. *I? ?!? *F flff |3p It was after hours of the most terrible fear strain of her life that night found Beni- cia lying sleeplessly in a hastily built shelter LAST FRONTIER 287 somewhat apart from the main camp. The insurgents had treated her kindly enough. They had prepared two meals for her, but she had scarcely touched them. Shortly after the arrival at the camp Sevier had been marched away with a squad of native soldiery in personal command of Fagan. With an awful fear in her heart that he was being led away to be shot, she saw him go, and worshiped him in the shrine of her pure spirit as a hero of heroes when he turned before losing sight of her and gayly waved to her in reassuring ges- ture. He had not come back, but neither, thank God, had the frightful negro com- mander. There was something so purposeful and yet so catlike in the look and tread of Fagan that, combined in her anguished mind with all she had heard of him, caused her face to 288 RAINIER OF THE blanch and her body to grow quite rigid with fear as she thought of him. And now it was close to ten o'clock. The camp fires about which the men had boiled their rice in bamboo joints and roasted wild venison, were only beds of embers from which the night wind occasionally resur- rected a flash of sparks. Back of her shack she heard the occa- sional stir of a man on guard. No sleep was possible to her. She cud- dled down in her now wrinkled uniform upon a pile of nipa leaves covered with a stolen cavalry blanket, and found the tears of a great fear in her eyes. But near-by voices in altercation: soon roused her to a sitting position. She grasped her only weapon, a long-bladed pair of scissors, taken from her satchel, and tremblingly listened. For a time the voices LAST FRONTIER 289 — two in number, one cautious and the other strident — gave her no intelligent meaning. Then came a sentence in Fagan's accent: " I reserve the right to change my mind." A lower voice, angry yet pleading, spoke at length. It could be no other than Se- vier's. Then Fagan's voice cut in sharply : " Why didn't you tell me what a prize package she was? Any man who would let her slip through his fingers is a fool — a blind idiot. " What do I care for your thousand dol- lars? I'd give ten thousand for her myself if I had it. Stop your whining, Sevier. I have beaten you at your own game, that's all. I've got your girl and I've got your gold, and I'm going to keep them both. And if you want me to speak plainly, let me say that she ought to be glad to get the ad- miration of a man, even though his skin is 290 RAINIER OF THE black. I'll do as well by her as a notorious old rake like you. Sabe, Senor Medico? How about the supremacy of the Anglo- Saxon now? " Cold with an awful horror, Benicia could yet hear, through her suddenly throbbing ears, a sudden wild shrieking of oaths, sounds of a furious struggle, a call for help, and a wild excitement throughout the camp. Men, awakened suddenly, went crashing and calling about her shack. One or two, leaning over, peered in to make sure of her safety. Wild thoughts of flying for the jungle came to her. But she was too fright- ened to move. In trying to rise, she found herself unable to stir. As the noises outside died away, she again, fascinated, listened to the voice of Fagan: " So you thought you could knife me, LAST FRONTIER 291 hey? How does your gag feel? Comfort- able? Now, listen, you low-lived knife- slinger, I'm not going to kill you. Some- body might find your dead body and think you had done credit to yourself in your death, and never know that you had hired Fagan for a thousand gold pesos to ambush you and make a hero out of you. If it hadn't been for that time you cut me out of that little Eskimo beauty, Kolana, on the Yukon, in '97, 1 might have played fair with you. " But now I even things up. How do you like it, doctor? Shall I take the gag out? To-morrow our sweet little friend will hear all about you and then she and Fagan will travel up into the hills, the beau- tiful honeymoon hills of this romantic country, and we will ask you to accompany us for a day just to keep you from break- 292 RAINIER ing into Ilo-Ilo with too much news. There's many a slip, doctor, many a slip, 'twixt the cup and the lip." There was no response. Gradually the camp settled down into quietness. The victim, in her attitude of frozen fear, sat silent through the hours of the night. Above her the constellations wheeled, ah, so slowly. Around her slum- bered the men with blood on their records and prices on their heads. Outside her shack a little mahogany body cuddled sleepily into Dreamland. It was George Washington Rizal. ON FAGAN'S TRAIL CHAPTER XVI on fagan's teail " It twisted into No-Man's Land, 'Twas hung with tropic garlands rare; It breathed of beauty, love and life, But the mouldy bones of our men lie there." — The Trail. The early morning is the" choicest part of the Filipino day. The first flares of the dawn-fires kindle on the gleaming breasts of innumerable brilliant birds, and the palms, the spires of bamboo, the mangos and the manzanita, all waver between dark green shadows and high-lights of golden orange. The humble " casas " of the peas- antry are at that hour glorified into a charm that the later hours will not sustain. Cheerful noises, too, greet the traveler on the (trails, from the first groups of workers 295 296 RAINIER OF THE sallying out from the towns to the rice fields and " tuba " groves. To the east, there will be an intense jagged line of bluest peaks beneath the melting sky. To the west a paler coloring will mark another range. Or, perhaps the great sea will show itself as a vast bed of opal fires. Homeward bound for his Ilo-Ilo tent, Rainier came down through a most glorious morning from a five days' trip into the foot- hills. His heart was as light as an anxious lover's is permitted to be, for he had opened up his fifth branch of the Association at the important garrison of Santa Anna. Men and officers had received him heartily, and two men — Christian fellows — had been de- tailed to look after the newly opened branch by the commanding officer. Yes, Rainier was glad of heart that his inexperienced work was proving so acceptable. His task LAST FRONTIER 297 was beginning to grip him with its great- ness. At first he had entered the work as a temporary help to McBurney. But now he found himself so devotedly attached to his unique position, with its leverage upon the life of the troops, that he deferred even contemplating in his own mind the time when McBurney should return from Ma- nila and assume once more the Associa- tion's activities in the Visayas. Would he be content to drop back from the task of helping men directly, as he was now doing, into the old work of a " war-special "? The night shadows were still lingering in the narrow valley of the Verde, as he urged his pony forward, hoping to make San Vicente before the full day should scorch his path. Out of those ravine shadows there came up the trail the sound of drumming feet. 298 RAINIER OF THE A little breathless Visayan boy was run- ning madly toward him, his scanty " camisa " ballooning about his neck. Instinctively Rainier pulled in. His practiced eye had caught a protest in even that ridiculous little child figure, flying to- ward him. As he came nearer, Rainier recognized the little fellow. He was a little lad whom he had often seen around the Brigade hospital. His father and mother were apparently unknown, for he was daily fed by the nurses of the staff. He remembered vividly seeing Miss Royce give the child an impulsive kiss on one occasion. He sprang out of his saddle to the ground. "What is it, nino?" he demanded sharply. The little fellow, gasping for breath, LAST FRONTIER 299 lifted up in his tiny fist a crumpled blue paper. It was evidently torn from the cov- ering of a roll of bandages. As Rainier took it, his eye first noted its Greek cross of red and then beneath the cross a hasty scribble in pencil. It said: "Fagan's band are just off the main trail, about a mile and a half east of San Bias. I have been captured and am in his camp now. It is about three o'clock a.m. Soldiers, please hurry! Benicia Royce." In a flash little George Washington Rizal was left crying in the road. A gold- piece fell in the dust at his toes, and Rainier was galloping on toward the San Bias trail. As the little Cagayan pony stretched himself almost flat in response to the lash of his rider, Rainier was muttering his 300 RAINIER OF THE plans aloud and trying to hold his mind from snapping with the awful situation. " I'll turn off to the southeast at the next ' barrio.' It's over two hours since she wrote that note. I'll pick up Sergeant Manlicher and eighteen men at Vicente. The other troops are too far away. But San Bias and Passi should be notified by 'phone from Vicente. Also Ilo-Ilo. We'll strike the San Bias main trail m another half-hour at the most." Out of the ravine of the Verde galloped Rainier. He swerved to the east at an abandoned cluster of bamboo houses and rode over a bad trail into the outskirts of San Vicente, emptying the chambers of his revolver to arouse the garrison. "I came near killing you, you blanked lunatic," shouted a sentry angrily, as Rai- nier shot past his challenge. LAST FRONTIER 301 The pistol did the work. As Rainier's pony clattered across the place there poured out of the " convento " the entire little gar- rison of San Vicente, a sergeant, two cor- porals, and scarcely a dozen men. Out they came with all the assurance of a battalion, each man in a different stage of dressing, but all grasping their long rifles. There were big, purposeful-looking cartridge belts gleaming around their waists. Manlicher's eyes flashed with recognition as he saw the rider. He knew Rainier by sight and admired him. In a dozen terse sentences, Rainier ex- plained the situation to the huddled groups of soldiers in the " plaza," while all around them the awakened and alarmed dogs and villagers lent their chorus of noises. As he finished, not a man spoke, but Cor- poral Klein sprang back into the barracks to 302 RAINIER OF THE telephone near-by garrisons and arouse the whole country to the fight, and the rest rushed pell-mell for the ponies in the im- provised " corral " back of the " convento." Manlicher had seen to it that his men were furnished with mounts at the cost of the town, and thanks to his efficiency Rainier dashed out of San Vicente at the head of seventeen horsemen, within exactly twelve minutes from the time he had reached the plaza. He who has seen American men aroused at a woman's peril and answering to a woman's cry, knows what faces these hum- ble knights wore as they went recklessly down the slope toward the coming rifle de- bate. " Soldiers, please hurry! " she had writ- ten. They were muttering it to themselves as they kicked their startled, straining little LAST FRONTIER 303 steeds into a mad scramble over the stony trail. Soldiers, please hurry! As they thought of that piteous sentence, their left hands clamped to their awkward guns, with a rigor like the steel they grasped. The line lengthened as the best horses forged ahead, but Rainier and the sergeant held the head of the line, as they rattled into the main San Bias trail and rode east more slowly, searching for a cross trail into the brush. " God help us," prayed the sergeant in Rainier's ear as they rode side by side. " We haven't got time to beat up this whole country. God has got to help us. Pray for us, Pilot. We've got to find that camp. There's the cross trail, now ! Come on, MEN ! " Both Manlicher and Rainier had seen the 304 RAINIER OF THE trail as the sergeant finished his appeal, and both turned their horses into it. Instantly the air crashed into a hundred rifle reports and the savage yells of men. The result was terrible. Manlicher fell with a dozen bullets rid- dling him. He was to live many a year after, but Rainier, as he saw the distorted face of the sergeant plunging past him over his horse's neck, believed the man slain. Rainier felt himself sinking to the ground, at the hot blast of the ambushed enemy. Gun barrels had been poked almost into his face from the manzanita brush and his khaki tunic was blackened with the flame of the nearest one. He found himself in a daze, trying to rise from a dead pony, uninjured, but caught, while the rifles of Fagan's men were LAST FRONTIER 305 answered by the crash of the Krag-Jorgen- son pieces, in the hands of Manlicher's men, over his prostrate body. It was an awful moment. Behind him were crowding fearlessly up, the little group of soldiers, the narrow trail blocked with the body of Manlicher and Rainier's fallen mount. One by one the men opened up from the saddle, firing at a foe that kept to cover and only gave an occasional glimpse of an active brown figure. It was a hundred rifles against a dozen, but the men fired back into the sound of the guns with a reckless bravery that was su- perb. They even called out to the enemy in taunting phrases, some cursing, some jeer- ing: " Come out into the open and fight, you pock-marked thieves, you liver-spotted coy- 306 RAINIER OF THE otes!" choked one man, brandishing his smoking rifle toward the jungle. Rainier, looking back through the smoke, saw him pay for his defiance by plunging to the trail and writhing in a death agony. The sight gave him fresh strength, and he wrenched himself at last loose and limped out into the main trail, calling to the men to fall back out of the impossible position. Three men had been tumbled from their horses, wounded. One at least was killed. Manlicher was lying quietly with his face turned up to the sunlight and bright red streams flowing from his temple, his cheek, and his thigh. All about hissed and shrilled the inter- mittent shots from the brush. Dragging their wounded down the trail with them, the survivors of the little band fell back a scant hundred yards, some still 'LAST FRONTIER 307 proudly sitting their ponies and turning to send shots into the deadly jungle. Here a swell of ground gave them some cover. As they re-formed about Rainier, angry, baffled, but unafraid, some of them hideous with blood, others white with the terrible pallor that speaks of mortal wounds, they heard shrill yells of triumph from the brush. An instant later a bugle blew. Rainier knew the signal. " They are going to fall back. That is the Spanish call for 'Fall back.' Now, men, patch yourselves up as best you can. .We'll hang on their flanks until we get rein- forcements." Thus began that plucky, dogged exploit of the nine uninjured men of Company K of the Sixty-first, under direction of Rainier and Corporal Klein — an exploit of which the whole island became proud. 308 RAINIER OF THE For those nine men, and their Sky Pilot, followed the retreating insurgents of Fagan's band over dangerous trails all day- long — and thus compelled, by their con- stant attack on his rear-guard, so much at- tention, that the night found him only as far as Passi and headed off from the safe refuge of the mountains by a long cordon of con- verging troops. Over the hills and through the terrible tropic tangle Rainier and his little band of trailers dragged themselves from cover to cover, firing with deliberation from rocks, banks, trees or natural trenches. Back into their faces came the spiteful answer of Fa- gan's slowly retreating rear-guard. !A bullet "spanged" against a near-by rock. Klein and Rainier at the moment were lying in a depression at a turn of the trail. LAST FRONTIER 309 "Ever handle soldiers in action before, sir?" " Once. In the Soudan I helped to fight a company of Egyptian Soudanese through a little affair. They were short of officers." " Well, sir, I thought you had heard these little things whistle before. Those ladrones with Fagan yonder can't hit the broad side of a barn when they aim at it. If they was any good, they wouldn't let us follow 'em up like this." "Bad shots," allowed Rainier. "But don't get careless. We've got to hold on until the garrisons head him off from the mountains. When we went over that last ridge, I could see the church tower at Din- gle. We're getting near Passi." "Company F's boys an' the Gordon Scouts are out near here somewhere on a hike. They'll mix in pretty soon." 310 RAINIER OF THE Rainier remembered that long day as a mixture of the commonplace and the sub- lime. For instance, he saw Private Wil- liams, Corporal Klein, and Private Carson kneeling in a row and drinking long gulps of water out of a tiny stream. Three sweaty, dusty, human animals guzzling greedily. As they drank, bullets from hid- den insurgents ripped into the water and spattered the gravel of its banks over them. In the afternoon they had become care- less through immunity. Twice they had passed a dead insurgent, a victim of their fire. But they had none of them been scarred. Then at three o'clock Klein was shot in the leg, and not ten minutes later Private Smith in the thigh. Private Sears was left with them, and the LAST FRONTIER 311 remaining six heroes went more cautiously on, sweating, burning with heat, giddy with lack of food, filthy with crawling in the dirt, only partly dressed to begin with and now marvelous racks of slithered cloth. The insurgents may have known their in- creasing weakness, for their fire became weaker, as if in contempt. At six o'clock, by his wrist watch, Rai- nier's little band found that they were well on their way through the hills. They crawled to a final ridge, and, looking down, caught the flutterings of insurgent uniforms far ahead on the road. Farther on still rose the stone tower of the church in Passi, flam- ing in the sunset. Fagan was entering Passi. Rainier's band had fought from the San Bias district to Passi over sixteen miles of the roughest hill trails in the Province of Alacan. 312 RAINIER OF THE " Let's give 'em a volley to let 'em know we're still with 'em." " Just one, then. You can't reach them effectively at this distance and your car- tridges are nearly gone." Five rifles gave a final bark of harassing fire. Back from the road below came a few scattered returns, the bullets zipping sharply over the ridge. And then came a surprise. Off some- where to the north of Passi, in the direction in which Fagan's column was pushing, there came the unmistakable bang of a piece of artillery. " Thank God! Fagan'a headed off from the mountains," cried Rainier. " This will be fought out here to-morrow at Passi. But how on earth did the men get that piece up here in the hills? I didn't know we had a piece of artillery this side of Ilo-Ilo." LAST FRONTIER 313 " 'Tis the mountain howitzer wid the Scouts," said Private Noonan, with a rapt face. " List to it, Chaplain. Isn't that a foine surprise fer that dirty nagur Fagin? " Once more out of the north came a heavy bang that rattled round the hills in a long, clattering echo. Fagan was shut off from the mountains! An hour later, instead of six exhausted soldiers hanging on the trail of a hundred insurgents, the plain around Passi was alive with sweaty columns converging on the town, and Rainier was stretched out in a stupor of exhaustion under the care of Sur- geon-Major Mallory, who had just ridden up from Mabalacat with Lieutenant Late- ly's command. " Heavens, what a sight! " exclaimed the dapper major, as he directed his steward to bring up a case of medicines. " He's posi- tively the uncleanest, raggedest, ugliest- 314 RAINIER looking patient I've had on Panay. Look at that clinched jaw of his. He's exhausted, but his jaw is like a vise. Well, he's a man, every inch of him. Let us get busy, stew- ard, let us get busy. Must have him fixed up for the morning, for there will be need of all our heroes when we ferret Fagan in his den." BENICIA MAKES THE TURN CHAPTER XVII BENICIA MAKES THE TTTBN " When healthy in the homeland We loved a lass or two; They caught us by a ribbon or a face. But now that we are soldiering We have met a woman true, Her hands are deft, her heart is full of grace. Chorus " Oh, it's worth ten thousand miles To win a woman's smiles, When there's regiments a-hoping for a share," etc. — A Song of the Eighth Army Corps. The morning sun looked down upon the little mountain town of Passi and saw within its bounds, stretched behind hasty earth-works and barricades, a hundred fear- ful Visayan riflemen. Twice during the night they had sallied out, only to be driven 317 318 RAINIER OF THE back baffled into their hole by the cordon of troops stretched around them to the north, to the south, to the west, to the east. They were fearful — all save one. The black renegade in command was as cool as though a halter did not hang just above his head. At five-thirty o'clock had sounded a bugle of truce, and Fagan had respected it. A moment later there had entered his lines the hero of this chronicle. Rainier, selected because of his unofficial chaplaincy of the brigade, had a face un- moved as he faced Fagan in the cool shad- ows of the dawning day. But his heart was in a tumult. He had been halted at the outer barricade, and his parley took place with at least a dozen paces between himself and the burly negro in a high native straw hat, who leaned upon his rifle on the top of LAST FRONTIER 319 the barricade, and announced himself as Pagan. " I'm Fagan — General Fagan. SVhat is your business?" " If you are General Fagan you will rec- ollect something that occurred a few days ago," said Rainier, in a loud, clear response. " you will remember that I saved you from a terrible death, not far from Cabatuan. The weight of a fallen tree had marked you as a feast for ants. Do you remember the matter?" There was a long silence on the barri- cade. Then " I do remember it, Chaplain. But I owe you nothing. You saved me from the ants, but the halter or the bullet will get me shortly. What is your message?" " General Fagan, you know that you have felt grateful to me in your heart for that 320 RAINIER OF. THE deliverance. On the strength of that serv- ice rendered you, I ask an answer to a single question. I will then deliver the message I have been commissioned to give you from our commanding officer, Colonel Montgom- ery." " I will answer you, Chaplain." " Is Miss Royce in your hands and unin- jured?" " She is in my hands, and is uninjured." " My message, then, is that Colonel Mont- gomery has established a complete cordon about your position. His howitzers and machine guns are ready to sweep your barri- cades. He demands your immediate sur- render. He also desires me to inform you that any harm in the slightest degree befall- ing Miss Royce will make it impossible for him to prevent a general massacre of your command." LAST FRONTIER 321 ".What terms does your colonel offer me?" " He is not able to offer you personally any terms except a fair trial under the law. He offers your command their liberty on taking the oath of allegiance to the Govern- ment of the United States." There came a sound of bitter laughter from the barricade. "Chaplain, listen! You know that my surrender means a halter of hemp for my neck — a nice, sweet, public hanging such as Montor del Moro got from General Hughes at the plaza in Jaro. You know this as well as I do. Now here is my ultimatum. That's a Latin word, Chaplain, and it doubtless sounds strange to you from a nigger. But you, a white man, know just what it means. Now this is my ultimatum — I will surrender my prisoners unharmed to Colonel Mont- 322 RAINIER OF THE gomery on condition that he open his lines to the north and let me go a day's journey into the mountains without pursuit. If he refuses, I will fight it out to the last. It will be necessary to retain Miss Roycd in the zone of fire. Your gatlings and howit- zers will murder her, and you will rescue her dead body only. In case you decide to ac- cept my terms, I must ask that a suitable guarantee be granted me that you will not violate your own terms. A brilliant idea has come to me since I began this parley with you, sir. I shall be compelled to ask the favor of your company with me into the mountains as an assurance that we will not be fired upon as we go through your lines or be followed within the prescribed full day. " Now, then, Chaplain, I trust that it is clear to you. I will only surrender my pris- •LAST FRONTIER 323 oners on condition that I be allowed to pass with my command into the mountains with no pursuit for twenty-four hours, and the pleasure of your company to guarantee that immunity. But honestly, sir, I would rather fight it out here, and now. He who thinks that Fagan is afraid of his enemies, is making a fatal mistake. Get back into your lines and attempt no compromise of these conditions." Back to Colonel Montgomery's bivouac went Rainier, heavy of heart. He had hoped that he might catch a reassuring glimpse of Benicia, but the gloomy figure on the barricade was his only reward for the risk he had run in bringing in Montgom- ery's message. Within a half -hour Fagan's ultimatum was being discussed with loud curses by the entire cordon of troops. 324 RAINIER OF THE Around the commanding colonel were grouped a half-dozen captains and lieuten- ants in special council of war, Rainier in the midst of them. For a full hour the situation was can- vassed, each round of opinion ending in choking anger. To rush the town meant undoubted death to Miss Royce. To let Fagan escape to the hills was almost equally unthinkable, yet gradually the latter al- ternative was settled upon. " Better that a hundred Fagans be raid- ing us from the hills than to have that little woman in that camp another hour," cried Mallory. ** What she must have suffered ! " " Yes, let Fagan's outfit through, Colonel. We'll follow him to the top of Canlaon if necessary." So spake Gordon of the Gordon Scouts, a man of his word. •LAST FRONTIER 325 s * SWell, it's hard medicine, gentlemen, but we will take it for Miss Royce's sake," said the white-haired colonel. " If Mr. Rainier is willing to meet his share