ring from one terrace to another. The plain was low and
damp and the paths and roads lay deep in mud. They had a long toilsome
walk between the ricefields until they came to the first village
of these barbarians of the plain. It was very much like a Chinese
village,--dirty, noisy, and swarming with wild-looking children and
wolfish dogs.

The visitors were received with the utmost disdain. The Chinese students
were of course well known, for these aborigines had long ago adopted
their customs and language. But the Chinese visitors were in company
with the foreigners, and all foreigners were outcaste in this eastern
plain. The men shouted the familiar "foreign devil" and walked
contemptuously away. The dirty women and children fled into their grass
huts and set the dogs upon the strangers. They tried by all sorts of
kindnesses to gain a hearing, but all to no effect. So they gave it
up, and plodded through the mud and water a mile farther on to the next
village. But village number two received them in exactly the same way.
Only rough words and the barks of cruel dogs met them. The next village
was no better, the fourth a little worse. And so on they went up and
down the Kap-tsu-lan plain, sleeping at night in some poor empty hut or
in the shadow of a rice strawstack, eating their meals of cold rice and
buffalo-meat by the wayside, and being driven from village to village,
and receiving never a word of welcome.

And all through those wearisome days the young men looked at their
leader in vain for any smallest sign of discouragement or inclination
to retreat. There was no slightest look of dismay on the face of Kai
Bok-su, for how was it possible for a man who did not know when he was
beaten to feel discouraged? So still undaunted in the face of defeat,
he led them here and there over the plain, hoping that some one would
surely relent and give them a hearing.

One night, footsore and worn out, they slept on the damp mud floor of a
miserable hut where the rain dripped in upon their faces. In the morning
prospects looked rather discouraging to the younger members of the
party. They were wet and cold and weary, and there seemed no use in
going again and again to a village only to be turned away. But
Kai Bok-su's mouth was as firm as ever, and his dark eyes flashed
resolutely, as once more he gave the order to march. It was a lovely
morning, the sun was rising gloriously out of the sea and the heavy
mists were melting from