The rattle of a chain told the hibernation was over, while eight hundred pounds of shagginess squeezed into the open; tested the ground for frost with a paw, waved its head as a man sounds a stiff neck, and as if to say, “My! but this is early in the summer to wake a fellow!” But the captain had stooped quickly and snatched at a red object in Kuropatkin’s house. “Cuss them, Gen’ral!” he exclaimed, grasping a shinbone hung with flesh. “The Japs has tried to pizen ye! Peach kunnels,” he growled holding the meat to his nose. “But Mr. Jap Mustard-belly ain’t so all-fired wise, and don’t know God A’mighty can’t pizen a b’ar. He’ll learn a thing or two ’bout Rooshian b’ars some fine day, though now he’s got the nerve and numbers to do most anything.” Kuropatkin, cocking his head on one side, raised an ankle, and, pointing like a setter dog into the pine-grove, let out an “Oof!” “You see Mr. Mustard yonder?” drawled the captain, following the General’s gaze. “You’re sayin’ you’re pretty wise, you b’ars, ain’t you? I guess the’ ain’t no monkey law _yit_ about watch dog _or_ b’ar licenses in this country. My timber’s lyin’ pretty loose about this hill. We’ve likely got a vendetta on, General,” and having kicked away the poisoned bone, the captain unhooked Kuropatkin’s ankle chain, thus freeing him. Quite right was the Yankee about Jap nerve and a vendetta. The Islanders’ next militant move in the feud came that very night. In his French bedstead—the only kind in Korea, with its thin iron mosquito-frame aloft—he was wakened by a rasping, cracking sound out in his grove. Now and then came a swish and a thump. Then—— “Yai! Yai! Eee! Eee! and a diabolical yeodle curdled the moonlight on the hill-side. Presently a big brown object lolled from the shadows of the pines, and stalked majestically toward the flag-pole. “Got the fisheatin’ Japs in the act, did yer, Pat?” whispered the captain out the window, shaking with laughter. “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.