“Oofski!” grunted Kuropatkin, crowding into his house. Next morning Brewster walked to his grove to find that three of his tallest pine trees had been chopped and carted off, while two axes hung at hasty angles in a half-felled fourth. After breakfast, Puk-Chong, his Korean “boy,” started for the Jap headquarters with the copy of a telegram, declared in a brief note to be then on its way to the American Minister at Tokio. Brewster himself walked unnoticed down the hill to the cable office, which lies far from the barracks. He actually despatched the message sent in copy to the commandant, there being yet no war correspondents, and hence no censorship in Korea. It was rather a more fire-eating complaint than any he had pretended to send to Tokio before, and some time passed before he knew the importance of his act.
After tiffin, two Jap soldiers appeared on his veranda, mutely inquisitive in their brown leggins, yellow shoulder-straps, and high crowned caps. They drew white gloves from their hands, smiled, and bowed three times till their long swords clicked on the floor. The shorter, darker soldier—he with a wispy convex mustache and eyes like a dissipated doll—handed the captain a letter bearing the long brown Korean stamp. The captain whistled as he opened it. It was addressed in a round, shaded hand suggesting steel pens and primary writing books. Reading it, he glowered; then smiled, as if he discerned something pleasant on a mountain across the river; frowned again and more deeply, coughed, and put the letter gently into his left-hand breast pocket, where his heart underneath beat faster.
“So Korean postmen ain’t good enough to carry white men’s letters no more?” demanded the captain.
“We dare no longer trust the shiftless Korean with letters to so august a person,” explained the taller soldier, and both bowed.
“They won’t let you steam them open and read them, like you have this one?” said the captain. “Hey?”
“Your bear,” said the doll-eye, after each had stared with polite blankness at the captain, “is he dangerous?” and the soldier indicated the flag-pole.
“Mebbe your pardner’s pants ken show that,” drawled the Yankee, taking the other by the shoulder and turning him around. “Um, no,” he growled, “but that b’ar knows pizen when he smells it.”
“Pizen?” said the doll-eye vacantly, “What you call pizen?”
“We feed it to b’ars regular in Americky,” replied the captain fiercely. “We put it on shin bones and shove it in their kennels. It makes them strong so they ken bust chains and plug axes inter trees.”
“Ah, so, so,” gasped the pair, with the Jap stare which conceals understanding.