They saw very little of the enemy. After that one brief clash he seemed unwilling to venture another encounter and kept out of the way, except that now and then a little group of his horsemen appeared for a few minutes on some far-off hill. It was march and dig and sleep, and do it all over again. But all the time they were nearing the river, and at last, when they had been almost two months on the road, they came to the range of bold hills that flanked the stream and concealed the enemy’s country from their view.
Here they camped several days. The scouts and advanced guards had driven the Russians back to the islands in the stream and the near shore was their own. But before they could go over the range and down into the town that lay in the pockets of the hills on the river bank, another kind of work was to be done. In little squads they scoured the near-by country with axes and ropes and brought in great bundles of pine boughs from the scrub-covered hills, and piles of mats and long cornstalks from the huts. Then at night they crossed the hills and flanked the river side of the road with tall screens which shut off the view of the enemy’s scouts on the high cross-river ridges. Where the way led straight toward his camps they built huge arches, whose broad tops made a great curtain that covered the road entirely. Then, sheltered by arches and screens, so that no enemy could tell their strength, they marched on into the town and were quartered once more in comfortable houses. Soichi dropped his pack with strange exaltation. When they left this place it would be to go to battle, and perhaps that fight would bring the opportunity he desired.
XIII
It was ten o’clock the second night in town, and Soichi had been asleep in his warm red blankets two hours or more when the sergeant shook him awake and told him to get up. He was to take rifle and cartridge belt and follow, making no noise. In the darkness he joined a squad of his mates and saw Omori, Ito, and two or three others of his friends, all equipped as he was. Presently an officer came up and Soichi recognized Kokan. He saw the lieutenant give him a sharp look, and heard him mutter something he did not understand. Then without a word Kokan strode away and the sergeant told them to come on. Nothing had been said of the duty, but Soichi knew it was not sentry-go and guessed they were going scouting.
In silence broken only by the muffled footsteps on the soft earth they followed Kokan to the river’s edge. A man with a boat was waiting and they stepped in softly, careful to make no noise. The man stood up, and with his long oar skillfully and silently drove the boat out into the stream.