Some distance from the fishing village, the boys dropped breathless behind the large rocks near the sea, and laughed softly together.

Jo laughed with the others, though he said, "I sha'n't dare go near the village for a week, till my hand gets well.

The barbed wire gave me some pretty deep scratches on the back of one hand, and the Chinamen might guess how I got the marks." "I've got one on my forehead, I guess," answered Louis, laughing.
"It feels so, anyway, and I guess it's bleeding." The boys went home.

Jo was silent on the way.
"I'm tired, laughing so much," he explained to the rest.
He could not help remembering how kind Quang Po's voice had sounded when he said, "You draw like Melican." During the next week Jo stayed away from the fishing village.

The scratches on his hand and on his cheek were all too plainly visible.
He occupied his vacation-time in rambling in other places besides the Chinese village.
One morning, in his rambles, he went to what had once been an old adobe dwelling.