“I am determined to satisfy my—call it curiosity if you will—in regard to this fox-woman,” the Tojin-san told the three students who were his almost constant companions outside the school.

“I can get no help whatever from my servants and less from the guard. Genji Negato is worse than a woman, and the Daimio’s officer has point blank refused to give me a guide to direct me to her home on Atago Yama.”

He paused and looked at the embarrassed faces of the students. They were devoted to him he knew, eager to serve and please him; yet even they, sons of the new, sane Japan, feared the fox-woman. He was determined to win them over.

“So I want your help, Junzo, and yours, and yours, Nunuki and Higo. You can help me if you will.”

“In what way?” demanded Nunuki cautiously.

“In any way you wish. Devise some scheme to trap this creature of the mountains.”

“Can we trap the north wind when it raves over the wilderness? Can we trap even the gentlest zephyr when it dances across sunlit paths?” asked Junzo, wistfully.

“But the fox-woman is neither the rough north wind, nor the playful zephyr of the south. She has a physical body, which even you will admit. The wildest thing of the wildest forest can be caught,” and he added, half under his breath, “and tamed.”

Higo was considering, his young patrician face very thoughtful and intent; but Junzo with a burst of boyish pity put his hand timidly, affectionately into that of the Tojin’s.

“Ah, dear sensei,” he said, “you are tortured, obsessed by this wretched witch. She has put her evil spell upon you.”

“Nonsense,” said his teacher, almost roughly, releasing his hand. “This is not helping me, Junzo.”

“But you have never heard the story of Chuguro. It happened in Yedo, many years ago, your excellency. He was in the service of a Hatamoto named Suzuki, and seemed like any other contented and healthy ashigaru. Then came a time when his comrades missed him in the night, and they would not again see him till just before the dawn, when he would creep back to his quarters looking very strange and white and exhausted. He became weaker and weaker from day to day, and at last was unable to leave his couch at all, though he pleaded and begged to be carried to the foot of a little bridge not far from the main gateway. But his friends were obdurate. They called in a great Chinese surgeon, who made an examination of the dying man and declared his veins had been literally drained dry of blood! All declared it was the fox-woman; but the Chinese doctor said: ‘It was a frog, which took to the soldier’s eyes the form of a woman.’” The boy paused, eying his teacher wistfully. “It is only a legend you will say, sensei, but I beseech thee, honored sir, to avoid contact with even a stray fly, a spider, any crawling thing that may beat its way into your yashiki. Who knows what form this dreadful fox-woman may take to lure you.”

Higo broke in impatiently:

“If indeed our sensei is tortured, why waste words on idle tales of the past? It is our duty to conceive some sensible scheme by which to rid his excellency of the torture.”

He began to talk swiftly and eagerly to his friends in Japanese, and gradually their resisting and doubting faces changed. With boy-like zeal they discussed the adventure proposed by Higo. Then the latter turned abruptly back to the Tojin-san.

“You will permit us free access to your grounds at all and any hours?”

“Most certainly. I will so instruct the gateman.”

“And, if necessary, we may call upon the guard for assistance?”

The Tojin-san slightly smiled.

“Come now, surely you don’t anticipate so hard a task?”

“We cannot tell. Even the guard may prove insufficient, but with Shaka’s aid we may succeed!”

A look of alarm came to the Tojin-san’s face.

“I wish no harm whatever to befall her. If you can surprise her upon one of her nightly peregrinations in our neighborhood, and induce her gently but firmly to accompany you, it will be gratifying. Once brought face to face with other people—for I am convinced she is the same as we are—I hope to be able to lay this bugaboo of a fox-woman.”

“As for that, impossible to say,” said Higo vaguely. “Now sinking, now floating, thus is life says the poet. If disaster befall us in the undertaking it will be as decreed of the gods. All things are beforehand ordained.”

“You anticipate hazard in the adventure?”

“We would not attempt it otherwise,” proudly asserted Nunuki, his hand unconsciously caressing his sword-hilt, for these boy-samourai all wore the sword. Higo indeed was of a princely house, and kin to Echizen himself.

As the American looked at them, nerving themselves thus bravely for an encounter which to them at least was a deadly one, he suddenly thought of that frail, fleeing shadow which had gone before him in the gloom of the unlighted halls, and, unconsciously, he smiled. Why, boys as they were, any one of them could surely have crushed her between the palms of his sinewy young hands. If there were a real risk to run, he knew he would be the first to thrust himself in their way. But no! The undertaking was worth while, necessary, indeed, if only for the purpose of demonstrating the foolishness and cruelty of superstition. Even the melancholy tones of his favorite pupil, chanting almost monotonously the Buddhist text:

“Brief is the time of pleasure, and quickly turns to pain, and whatsoever is born must necessarily die,” failed to move him.

Young heroic fatalists! His heart went out to them overwhelmingly.