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R.C. said to the boys: "Well, Doc dragged me nine miles out of our way." Everybody but the Jap enjoyed my discomfiture. Takahashi said in his imperfect English: "Go get on more better dry clothes. Soon hot supper. Maybe good yes!" It rained the following day, making a good excuse to stay in camp and rest beside the little tent-stove. And the next morning I started out on foot with Copple.
With a shaking hand he pointed to the bruise on his jaw. "Look what he do!" exclaimed Takahashi. "He throw me off!... He kick me awful hard! I kill him sure next time." Lee and I managed to conceal our mirth until our irate cook had gotten out of hearing. "Look what he do!" choked Lee, imitating Takahashi. Then Lee broke out and roared. I had to join him. I laughed till I cried.
"Cinnamon," declared Copple, and turning him over he pointed to a white spot on his breast. "Fine bear. About four hundred pounds. Maybe not so heavy. But he'll take some packin' up to the rim!" Then I became aware of the other men. Takahashi had arrived on the scene first, finding the bear dead. Edd came next, and after him Pyle. I sat down for a much needed rest.
I had supplied the men with their own outfit and supplies, to do with as they liked, an arrangement I found to be most satisfactory. Takahashi was to take care of R.C. and me. In less than half an hour from the time the Jap lighted a fire he served the best supper I ever had in camp anywhere. R.C. lauded him to the skies. And I began to think I could unburden myself of my conviction.
At times R.C. when he was tired fell victim to discouragement and he would make some caustic remark: "I don't know about you. I've a hunch you like to pack a rifle because it's heavy. And you go dreaming along! Sometime a bear will rise up and swipe you one!" Takahashi passed from concern to grief over what he considered my bad luck: "My goodnish!
He climbed straight up or descended straight down. Copple and Edd were compelled to see him take the lead and keep it. What a wonderful climber! What a picture the sturdy little brown man made, carrying a rifle longer than himself, agile and sure-footed as a goat, perfectly at home in the depths or on the heights! I took occasion to ask Takahashi if he had been used to mountain climbing in Japan.
The spruce was fully one hundred and fifty feet high; and unless I made a great mistake the Jap descended in two minutes. He grinned from ear to ear. "I no see you no hear," he said. "You take me for big cat?" "Yes, George, and I might have shot you. What were you doing up there?" Takahashi brushed the needles and bark from his clothes. "I go out with little gun you give me.
But such feat was beyond human ingenuity. "Wal," ejaculated the hunter, "in all my days raslin' round with fools packin' guns I never seen the likes of thet. No wonder the Japs licked the Russians!" This achievement of Takahashi's led me to suggest his hunting bear with us. "Aw sure I kill bear too," he said. Takahashi outwalked and outclimbed us all. He never made detours.
If all Japanese were like Takahashi they were a wonderful people. Men are men because they do things. The Persians were trained to sweat freely at least once every day of their lives. It seemed to me that if a man did not sweat every day, which was to say labor hard he very surely was degenerating physically. I could learn a great deal from George Takahashi.
My family and friends severely criticise this primitive trait of mine, but I can not help it. Later I went to Takahashi and asked to examine his jaw, fearing it might have been broken. This fear of mine, however, was unfounded. Moreover the Jap had recovered from his pain and anger. "More better now," he said, with a grin. "Maybe my fault anyhow."
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