parents at tiffin when a Moro, with whom her father had had a trifling
business disagreement, knocked at the door and asked for a moment's
conversation. Telling the native that he would talk with him after he
had finished his meal, the trader returned to the table. Scarcely had
he seated himself when the Moro, who had slipped unobserved into the
dining room, sprang like a panther, his broad-bladed _barong_
describing a glistening arc, and the trader's head rolled among the
dishes. Another sweep of the terrible weapon and the mother's hand was
severed at the wrist, while the future Mrs. Rogers owes her life to the
fact that she fainted and slipped under the table. I relate this
incident in order to give you some idea of the local atmosphere.

A few weeks before our arrival at Jolo, Governor Rogers, in compliance
with instructions from Manila, had ordered a census of the inhabitants.
But the Moros are a highly suspicious folk, so, when some one started
the rumor that the government was planning to brand them, as it brands
its mules and horses, it promptly gained wide credence. By tactful
explanations the suspicions of most of the natives were allayed, but
one Moro, notorious as a bad man, barricaded himself, together with
five of his friends, three women and a boy, in his house--a nipa hut
raised above the ground on stilts--and defied the Governor to enumerate
_them_. Now, if the Governor had permitted such open defiance to pass
unnoticed, the entire population of Jolo, always ready for trouble,
promptly would have gotten out of hand. So, accompanied by five
troopers of the constabulary, he rode out to the outlaw's house and
attempted to reason with him. The man obstinately refused to show
himself, however, even turning a deaf ear to the appeals of the village
_imam_. Thereupon Rogers ordered the constabulary to open fire, their
shots being answered by a fusillade from the Moros barricaded in the
house. In twenty minutes the flimsy structure looked more like a sieve
than a dwelling. When the firing ceased a six-year-old boy descended
the ladder and, approaching the Governor, remarked unconcernedly: "You
can go in now. They're all dead." Then Rogers called up the
census-taker and told him to go ahead with his enumeration.

The provincial treasurer, Captain Link, is a lean, lithe South
Carolinian who has spent fifteen years in Moroland. He is what is known
in the cattle country as a "go-gitter." It is told of him that he on