FOLLOWING our Camp-Fire custom, Clyde B

by Monte Herridge

  Malavete had directed the proceedings,

  The wily old devil motioned his men

  standing under his big sunshade which was

  back and waited for his remark to sink in. But held over him by two servants. But now he

  Darcy did not even hear. A little ivory cross came near and bent over so that Darcy would

  that hung from Malavete’s throat and rested

  be sure to hear.

  on his bare chest had given the soldier an idea.

  “When the senor has discovered the

  He knew that the Quiangan Igorots feared and easiest and safest way to reach the stores at the worshiped the cross and that their superstition

  Adventure

  6

  was boundless? He had often seen them cringe at the bottom.

  in terror when some angry priest raised his

  He looked up and saw a score or more

  cross with a threatening gesture.

  of black heads gaping down at him, their

  With sudden swiftness Darcy opened

  hands still busy with the crossing business. To the front of his shirt and pointed to his own them it was a feat that only a god could

  chest where a large cross was tattooed. The

  accomplish. And so as not to lose the prestige gugus slunk back in abject fear, and crossed he had gained, Darcy stalked into the jungle themselves fervently. Even Malavete was with a dignified nonchalance that he did not bowed to the ground and crossing himself like feel.

  mad. It needed no prophet to know that this

  Darcy was again free, with a much-

  was Darcy’s chance. He raised his hands as

  blistered neck, and two courses open to him.

  though calling down the special wrath of At one end, court-martial, hard work, Heaven. The gugus groveled lower and the

  disgrace. At the other? But he did not even

  two servants dropped the sunshade.

  stop to make a decision. He simply turned his This sunshade was about twice the face toward Vigan and hiked.

  size, and of the same shape as an ordinary

  umbrella. The cover was made of strong A LITTLE past ten o’clock the next day, bare-bamboo splits, wattled like a basket. It did not headed and exhausted, scratched, torn and

  open and shut; the ribs were straight strips, without a coat, Darcy staggered into Colonel tied at one end to the center-staff and tied at Brady’s office and panted out his story.

  the other to the edge of the cover, But on the The colonel dispatched an orderly for a

  whole it looked strong enough to use as a

  certain captain and sat looking at Darcy. The parachute.

  captain reported and was told to take a

  Darcy had never used a parachute, detachment and rescue three white men held at neither had he ever jumped from a cliff two

  Malavete’s barrio. The captain left at once to hundred feet high. But he still felt the sting of carry out his orders.

  raw lye on the back of his neck. So he took up

  “Darcy,” said the colonel, “you said

  the sunshade and walked deliberately to the

  you deserted? You’re a ——— liar Darcy.

  brink of the cliff and jumped over. The thing Report to your first sergeant for duty.”

  held, he drifted slowly down and landed safely