“Yes,” says he, “and I’ll bet I know what it was. We’re bein’ watched, Tallow. That rabbit marked the comin’ of the f-f-first Jap.”
“Well?” says I.
“Lucky there’s rabbits,” says he. “When you’re sure you’re b-bein’ watched you can see to it the watcher don’t see anythin’ to be of profit to him.” He sat pinching his cheek for a couple of minutes. Then he says: “Tallow, get up and s-s-stretch. Then stroll into the hotel slow and sneak up to the t-top. Don’t pass any windows. Get as high as you can over on this side and then take a look down on those bushes there. From above you may be able to see somethin’.”
I did what he said, and climbed up as near the roof of the hotel as I could get. Then I crawled over to a window that was facing the way the rabbit came from and looked down. I couldn’t see anything but trees and bushes and water, and the brown of the road winding away till it turned a bend and went out of sight.
But, I’ve noticed, one look doesn’t always show you all there is to see. Lots of times you need to look twice, and sometimes three looks don’t do any harm. I kept on squinting away—to see something move. When you look down like that, on a mass of leaves, you can’t pick out objects. But just let something move and you have it spotted. So I watched for a motion. It was fifteen minutes before I saw anything, and then I saw the top of a bush crowd over and spring back. After that I knew where to keep my eyes, and you can believe I kept them there good and sharp. Pretty soon I saw more movement, and in a minute I watched something dark crawl across a little open patch. It was a man, all right.
I’d seen all I’d been sent to see, so I went on down to Mark and told him.
“They’d just send one m-man to spy around,” says he.
“I hope he gets an eyeful,” says I.
“Don’t tell Plunk or Binney,” says he. “They might do somethin’ suspicious.”
“Here they come,” says I, and there they did come with a dozen nice perch for breakfast. I pretended to stick up my nose and says: