The rowers ran the boat up on the sloping pebbly beach and all stepped out with much relief to stretch their stiffened limbs. They had scarcely done so when a military officer came down the shore and approaching Dr. Mackay made him welcome with the greatest warmth. There was a military encampment here, and this was the officer as well as the headman of the village. He invited Dr. Mackay and his friends to take dinner with him. Dr. Mackay accepted with pleased surprise. This was far better than he had expected. He was still more surprised to hear his name on every hand. "It is the great Kai Bok-su," could be heard in tones of deepest respect from fishermen at their nets and old women by the door and children playing with their kites in the wide street. "How do they know me?" he asked, as he was greeted by a rice-seller, sitting at the open front of his shop. "Ah, we have heard of you and your work in the north, Pastor Mackay," said his host, smiling, "and our people want to hear of this new Jehovah-religion too." The cook-missionary had evidently spread wonderful reports of Kai Bok-su and his gospel and so prepared the way. He was preaching just then in a place called Ka-le-oan, farther inland. When the officer learned that Dr. Mackay wanted to visit him he turned to his servant with a most surprising order. It was to saddle his pony and bring him for Kai Bok-su to ride to Ka-le-oan. The pony came, sleek and plump and with a string of jingling bells adorning him. A pony was a wonderful sight in Formosa, and Dr. Mackay had not used any sort of animal in his work since that disastrous day when he had tried in vain to ride the stubborn Lu-a. But now he gladly mounted the sedate little steed and trotted away along the narrow pathway between the rice-fields toward Ka-le-oan. Darkness had almost descended when he rode into the village and stopped before a small grass-covered bamboo dwelling where the cook-preacher lived. For years the people here had looked for Kai Bok-su's coming, for years they had talked of this great event, and for years their preacher had been writing and saying as he received his reply from the eager missionary in Tamsui, "He may come soon."