, and that type is never
interested in drinking or gambling, or any of the vices and
dissipations, if that is what you mean."

Then, noting that Colonel North had just stepped out on deck from his
stateroom, Captain Cortland added hastily:

"Pardon me; I wish to speak with the commanding officer."

As colonel and captain met they exchanged salutes.

"I told Draney, sir, that I wished to speak with you," Captain Cortland
reported, in a low voice. "I did not tell him, however, that I wished to
speak with you mainly as a pretext for getting away from his society."

"You don't like Draney?" smiled Colonel North, eying his captain
shrewdly.

"I certainly do not," Cortland confessed.

"And I'm almost as certain that I don't, either," replied the regimental
commander. "However, Cortland, we shall have to treat him with a fair
amount of courtesy, for Draney is an influential man down in the part of
the world for which we are headed. He is influential with the Moros, I
mean. Often he is in a position to give the military authorities useful
information of intended native mischief. Draney is a very big planter,
you know, and white planters are somewhat scarce in the Moro country. It
is one of the great disappointments of our government that more American
capital is not invested in establishing great plantations in the
extremely rich Moro country. But, as you know, Cortland, some of the
Moro dattos are given to heading sudden, unexpected and very desperate
raids on white planters, and that fact has discouraged Americans,
Englishmen and Germans from investing millions and millions of capital
in the Moro country."

"Yet the fellow Draney is a planter there, sir?"

"Draney owns half a dozen very successful plantations."

"And is he never molested by the Moros, sir?" inquired Captain Cortland.

"Never enough to discourage him in his investments. Rather odd, isn't
it, Cortland?"

"Very odd, indeed, sir," replied Captain Cortland dryly.

That same afternoon Captain Cortland, after finishing a promenade on the
saloon deck, went forward, descending to the spar deck. There, under the
awning, he came upon Sergeants Hal and Noll, who saluted as he addressed
them.

"Sergeant Overton," began the captain in a low tone, "you seemed, this
forenoon, to feel a good deal of surprise at seeing Mr. Draney on
board."

"I was surprised, sir."

"Tell me what you know about the man."

Sergeant Hal briefly related the adventure that he