Fred laughed as he crumpled the dispatch and thrust it into his pocket. With characteristic energy he obtained passage on a vessel chartered for Nagasaki, and within a week was on his way back to Manchuria with brand-new credentials from Tokio. Landing at Antung, at the head of the Korean bay, he engaged a man and a couple of ponies to take him and his baggage to the Japanese advanced lines, north of Liaoyang. This was in late February, 1905, when the ground was frozen hard and snow lay deep in the valleys and over the ice-bound streams of Manchuria. It will shortly be seen that for once the reporter's energy proved his undoing, so far as active service at the front was concerned. It was a bright, cold morning when he mounted his pony, after many provoking delays and setbacks from the local military authorities, and rejoiced to feel that he was really on his way northward. Kanuka, the guide and porter, strode along the path in advance, leading the pack pony, while Fred followed on the other little beast, whose bad temper was out of all proportion to his size. Kanuka appeared to be a Chinaman who spoke, besides his own language--a Manchurian dialect--a very broken sort of English and Japanese. Larkin had not liked his looks, but time was precious and he hoped to get rid of the man after three or four days at the utmost. Kanuka was under-sized, and had a droop of the head which gave his eyes a sort of malevolent expression as he peered upward, under his shaggy brows. He stooped slightly, was sallow-faced, and, oddly enough, had grizzled, curly hair and a full black beard, like a Russian. He was in reality, as Fred afterward learned, a native of Eastern Siberia, though he dressed like a Chinaman and spoke like a Manchurian. For a while the little train proceeded in silence, broken only by the snorting, kicking ponies and the harsh, guttural expletives of the guide, who belaboured them with his cudgel until Fred checked him. "These ponies must last four days, my friend," he sung out. "If you keep up your style of correction there won't be more than two hoofs and an ear left by the time we reach Liaoyang." Kanuka muttered something Larkin could not understand, and pointed to a low line of clouds in the west. "What does that mean--storm?" The man nodded. "H'm. What's the nearest large town?" "Feng-Weng-Chang." "That's too far. There must be something nearer than that!" Kanuka nodded again and made a gesture toward the north. "Good place to stop, near Yalu." "Near the Yalu? But that's off our route, old chap. I guess we'll push on toward Feng-Weng-Chang. There must be some villages along the road." The guide stolidly turned and plodded on without another word save a native oath or two addressed to the pony, which responded with a squeal and a sidewise kick with one hind-foot.