They ate what they’d been cooking, and then talked a little in their funny lingo. After that one of them laid down and shut his eyes, while the other one sat up with his eyes wide open. It seemed to me I never saw anybody who kept his eyes open so wide, and I says to myself that I’d bet his ears were open just as wide as his eyes. He was keeping guard.
Right off I began to wonder why two Japanese in a friendly country should think it was necessary to keep watch like that. They must have had some reason for it.
Mark reached over and touched my leg and then motioned back toward the hotel. I nodded, and we began to wiggle away feet first like a couple of crabs. We went pretty slow and careful, I can tell you. I don’t believe I drew a breath till we had gone a hundred feet, and my heart was beating so loud I was sure a man could hear it a quarter of a mile away.
We kept on going slow and easy till we were around a little bend in the lake, and then we legged it for home.
“Same ones we saw on the road,” says I.
“No,” says Mark. “You ought to n-n-notice things more. Those fellows were dressed different. Both of them had on blue suits. It was another two.”
“Then there’s four of ’em around,” says I.
“And maybe more,” says he.
“Why do you s’pose they go by twos instead of keepin’ together?”
“Tallow, sometimes I don’t b’lieve you’ve got anythin’ to t-t-think with. If you was huntin’ the country for somebody or somethin’ would you go in a crowd, or would you divide up and scour the locality that way, maybe watchin’ the roads, and that sort of thing?”