"Well, before he stopped threatening me with that awful handkerchief, he had made me swear over and over that I would not call for help, that I would not make any signal, that I would sit quietly on the seat. When you recognized me, I felt that all need of observing the promise was over." "Naturally," muttered Orme. She sighed. "It does seem as though Fate had been against us," she said. "Fate is fickle," Orme returned. "You never know whether she will be your friend or your enemy. But I believe that she is now going to be our friend--for a change. To-morrow I shall get those papers." CHAPTER VIII THE TRAIL OF MAKU When for the second time that night he bade the girl adieu and saw her enter the house of her friends, Orme went briskly to the electric-car line. He had not long to wait. A car came racing down the tracks and stopped at his corner. Swinging aboard at the rear platform, he glanced within. There were four passengers--a man and woman who, apparently, were returning from an evening party of some sort, since he was in evening dress and she wore an opera-cloak; a spectacled man, with a black portfolio in his lap; a seedy fellow asleep in one corner, his head sagging down on his breast, his hands in his trousers pockets; and--was it possible? Orme began to think that Fate had indeed changed her face toward him, for the man who sat huddled midway of the car, staring straight before him with beady, expressionless eyes, was Maku. Under the brim of his dingy straw hat a white bandage was drawn tight around his head--so tight that from its under edge the coarse black hair bristled out in a distinct fringe. The blow of the wrench, then, must have cut through the skin. Well--that would mean one more scar on the face of the Japanese. The other scar, how had Maku come by that? Perhaps in some battle with the Russians in Manchuria. He seemed to be little more than a boy, but then, one never could guess the age of a Japanese, and for that matter, Orme had more than once been told that the Japanese had begun to impress very young soldiers long before the battle of Mukden. While making these observations, Orme had drawn his hat lower over his eyes. He hoped to escape recognition, for this opportunity to track Maku to his destination was not to be missed. He also placed himself in such a position on the platform that his own face was partly concealed by the cross-bars which protected the windows at the end of the car. In his favor was the fact that Maku would not expect to see him. Doubtless the Japanese was more concerned with his aching head than with any suspicion of pursuit, though his somewhat indeterminate profile, as visible to Orme, gave no indication of any feeling at all. So Orme stood where he could watch without seeming to watch, and puzzled over the problem of following Maku from the car without attracting attention.