“We’d better hunt up Motu and tell him about these men lookin’ for him,” says I.

“I sort of calc’late from Motu’s actions t-t-that we wouldn’t be f-fetchin’ him any news,” says Mark.

“He may know,” says I, “that he’s bein’ hunted for, but maybe he don’t know the hunters are so warm.”

“They are tolerable hot,” says Mark, with an uncomfortable grin. “But I guess so long as Motu wants to mind his own b-business pretty strict, we’d better do the same. He knows what he’s up to.”

We got back to the hotel in a little while, but nobody else was there. We looked for Motu all over, but couldn’t find hide or hair of him. I guess as soon as we got out of sight he went and hid up. But it wasn’t long before Binney and Plunk came rampaging in, panting like a couple of grampuses, with their eyes bulging out and talk just spilling out of them in bunches. They both wanted to talk, and neither of them could manage it.

“Back there—” says Binney, and stopped to pant.

“We ’most bumped into—” says Plunk, and he stopped to puff.

“Lucky we was goin’ cautious—” Binney says.

“Or,” says Plunk, “nobody knows what—”

“They’d ’a’ got us sure,” says Binney.

“S-sit down,” says Mark, “and breathe a couple of breaths and drink a dipper of water. Maybe by that time you’ll both ’light. You’re f-floppin’ around like scared chickens.”

“You’d be a scared chicken if you’d bumped into what we did,” snapped Plunk.

“Yes, sir,” says Binney. “Why, before we suspected a thing we almost stepped on ’em.”

“On who?” says Mark.

“Two of them Japanese,” says Plunk.

“Where?” says I, getting pretty excited myself.

“Sittin’ down back from the road about a mile up,” says Binney.

That made it sure it was two more Japanese. Our two couldn’t have gotten where Plunk and Binney saw theirs.

“Then there’s four of ’em,” says I.

“Two, I said,” Binney snapped.

Mark grinned, but there wasn’t much enjoyment in that grin. “Don’t calc’late,” says he, “that you fellows have got any monopoly on seein’ Japanese. We saw a c-c-couple ourselves.”

“What?” Plunked almost yelled.

“Back there,” says I, jerking my thumb over my finger.

“Motu’s friends?” Binney asked.

“If they be,” says I, “he don’t appear anxious to see ’em, does he?”

“Are they why he’s so partic’lar about keepin’ out of sight?” Plunk asked.

“That’s our guess,” says Mark.

“You think they’re after him?”

“Looks that way.”

“Huh!” says Plunk. “Looks like a lot of trouble to be takin’ for one boy. S’pose he’s run away from home?”

“He’s run quite a ways,” says Mark, as sarcastic as could be, “and he must ’a’ s-s-swum the Pacific Ocean on the way. This ain’t any runnin’-away-from-home scrape. It’s s-s-somethin’ serious, I’ll bet.”

“And I’ll bet,” says Binney, “that I wisht I was back in the State of Michigan.”

“If there’s four Jap men lookin’ for one Jap boy, and they’re as close to him as these men are to Motu, it looks a heap like they’d get him,” says Plunk.

“I ain’t layin’ any claim to him,” says Binney. “I dun’no’ what I’d do with a Japanese boy if I had him. Them men can have him, for all of me.”

“I guess you said that without doin’ m-m-much thinkin’,” says Mark. “Just figger if you was in Japan and four Americans that had it in for you was t-tryin’ to catch you. S’pose you didn’t have any friends and didn’t know the country. Wouldn’t you be just a mite glad if somebody was to give you some help? Eh? Wouldn’t you sort of l-l-look at it as though it was somebody’s duty to help you? Tell me that. What kind of a country would you think Japan was if nobody l-lifted a finger to help you? Pretty rotten one, I guess. Well, that’s how Motu’s fixed here. He’s in a strange country, bein’ chased by men that’ll do somethin’ unpleasant to him, There ain’t n-n-nobody to help him but us. It strikes me we can’t get out of it if we wanted to, and, for one, I d-don’t want to. ’Tain’t a United States way of doin’ things. I’m just tellin’ you that if those men get Motu it’ll be b-because I can’t help it. I’m goin’ to stick to him just like I’d stick to one of you. Then he can’t go back home and say the United States is no good, and that American boys can’t be depended on. Now what about it? If you f-feel like pullin’ out, go ahead. But I’m goin’ to stay, and I’m goin’ to enlist with Motu.”

Nobody said anything for a minute, then Plunk got up and sort of stretched and felt of his neck and blushed and says, “That goes for me, too. I’m with Mark.”

“Me, too,” says I.

Binney looked pretty embarrassed. “I guess I didn’t think much before I spoke,” says he. “I didn’t have it clear in my head. I’m with you, and Motu can depend on me just as much as on the rest of you.”

“B-bully for you,” says Mark.

Well, sir, something happened then that clean took the wind out of my sails. It was pretty embarrassing, but, come to look at it now when everything’s over, it was sort of pleasing and satisfying, too. It was Motu. He stepped right into the middle of us, and held out his hand to Mark.

“I heard,” says he, his eyes shining, but his face was calm and dignified and without any more expression to it than a buckwheat griddle-cake. I expect it’s the Japanese way not to let your face give away what you’re thinking about. “What you said to the others I heard, and what they said in reply to you. It was as Samurai boy should speak, first for the honor of his country, then for his own honor. You, Mark Tidd, are Samurai,” he t............