There was nothing which Hook feared now, and his spirit was wholly belligerent, swift snd sharp, like his gaze. Only the mixed smells and incomprehensible activities of the people at the Japanese farmer's home, inland of the coastwise highway, troubled him. The smells were strong, unsatisfactory and never clear, and the people, though they behaved foolishly, constantly running in and out of their built-up holes, were large and appeared capable, with fearless eyes looking up at him, so that he instinctively swerved aside from them. He cruised over their gardens and their crate-cluttered chicken yard, but he would not alight close to their buildings.