“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.