had gone off into a most outrageous peal of
laughter which almost shook his freight from the perch aloft. Then
slowly and carefully he proceeded into the shallows, set down his charge
on the further bank--"A magnificent compliment: but no more of this.
Perhaps now the Go Shukke Sama will have trust in Jimbei, submit to his
guidance. For once in earnest, the escape was a narrow one.... Ah! Ha!
Ha! Ha! How scared!" Dentatsu did not deny it--"More than frightened;
thoroughly scared." He scanned his companion. "A most surprising fellow!
Surely...." He was perplexed. But Jimbei paid no attention to his
questioning deferential manner. He was plainly the master--"Come now!
All haste is to be made." Urging the pace soon they were amid the hills.
The white light of dawn was approaching as they were reaching the top of
a difficult climb. "The Utsunoya-to[u]ge (pass)," said Jimbei. A
peculiar vibration in his voice made Dentatsu look at him with surprise.
His mouth was set. His eyes shone colder than ever. Every faculty of the
man was awake and alert. Silent he halted, put down the pack on the
steps of a little wayside shrine, drew out his pipe to smoke. "Beyond is
the Tsuta no Hosomichi, running along the mountain side for some
_cho[u]_; the 'slender road of Ivy,' for it is no wider than a
creeper."--"A bad place!" mechanically murmured Dentatsu. "A very bad
place!" was the grave reply.

Then the sound of steps was heard. A man, puffing, came up on the run.
He addressed himself with respect to Jimbei--"Honoured chief, they enter
on the pass."--"Good: now--vamoose; but be at hand." The man saluted, to
Jimbei and the priest, and disappeared in the direction whence he came.
"Vamoose? Vamoose? What and why this word vamoose?"--"Shut up!" was the
emphatic reply of Jimbei. His eye turned to wayside shrine, close by at
the summit of the pass. "Now, in with you, sir priest. No word or
motion, if life be valued.... In with you." Dentatsu looked him all
over. In resentment? If he felt it, he did not dare to show it.
Mechanically he turned and huddled himself within the grating. Jimbei
forced it in on him, for the space would but hold the big body of the
priest. He had hardly done so when another man came running up, almost
breathless--"Chief! They are at hand."--"Good: vamoose."--"Again
'vamoose'", grumbled Dentatsu openly.[24] "Why such strange words; and
at least why not explain them?"--"Ah! Ha! A noisy priest; these clerics
can do nothi