Tacoma lay behind them. Gib saw the islands of the Sound and the wooded shores give way to the rushing currents of the Strait of Juan de Fuca as the ship dropped Seattle far behind-Seattle where it had taken on more mail and assorted cargo. Thousands of miles due west to the Far East was the Empire of Japan and the country of China.

The weather was fine. Off the coast of Washington herds of sea lions nodded them by as they swam to the north to play with acquaintances in Alaska. They barked, and Owney barked back to the captain's great delight.

"Oh, I feel safer with you aboard," said the captain.

Day after day the ship plowed the lifting swells of the Pacific. There were showers but no hard rains. There were winds but none strong enough to do more than change the color of the sea surface--blues, greens, purples and grays.

The dawns were strong. The sunsets were a nighttime embrace before the bed-lamp stars flicked on.

"I guess," said Owney, "that you could call the voyage uneventful. Unless of course, you count the whale."

"I count the what?" asked Gib, sitting straight up.

"The whale. W - A - L, however you spell it. Giant sperm type. The newspapers back in this country claimed it was eighty feet long. They claimed I saved the ship. Made me a hero again. Naturally, this helped me in postal circles. But the newspapers never had the story straight at all. Short on facts."

"Owney," said Gib sternly. "What about the whale?"

"Well, let me tell you," continued the dog. "I had the run of the ship you know. After I explored it quite thoroughly, saw that the mail was stowed just right, examined the engine room and all that, I used to spend my time with the captain on the bridge. Now and then I ran about the deck to keep fit. But in a vessel of three thousand tons and only three hundred and forty-three feet in length it wasn't' like climbing a mountain. However, muscles are important."

"Owney, THE WHALE."

"Yes. It appeared off the stern of the ship one day. I had just finished chatting with a line of porpoises. Very intelligent creatures. They went off toward the horizon when this whale came to the surface and nosed in close to the stern of the ship. Not any eighty feet though. More like seventy-five. It upset the captain terribly. I could hear him shouting; then the whole ship shook. We had a compound tandem engine and he had it racing."

"OWNEY!"

"It was a fast ship. Could go about fourteen knots. It couldn't outrun a healthy whale though. This one stayed nosed in right at the stern. It was curious. It asked to see my medals. I barked some explanation. Then it wanted to know what a dog was, said it had never seen one. I eased under the stern rail so that it could have a closer look. It asked me to come on down. It was really only a short jump. I skidded a little on landing. The whale's back was wet, but it had a fine, rough paw-gripping texture."

Gib saw it.

There was the ship slicing the slanting, green waves into whipped cream. A plume of black smoke rose from its single funnel and blew a cloud of inky pellets back over the deck. The men who ran the engine came up from the engine room and hung dirty faces over the side to see what was going on. Sailors leaned over the railings too. Some of them started to take ropes from the lifeboats.

The captain danced up and down upon the bridge. Sunlight twinkled his brass buttons into tiny fires on his blue uniform. He had a big, brass speaking trumpet and he shouted through it toward the stern of the ship.

"DISMOUNT THAT WHALE, SIR! DISMOUNT THAT WHALE I SAY!"

There in the wake of the fleeing ship, with its nose as close as it could get without brushing against the thrashing propeller, cruised the whale. The little dog trotted from its tail to its head. It barked down a hole in the whale from which, from time to time, came a huge white feather of water.

"THROW THAT DOG A LINE," yelled the captain.

"PREPARE FOR COLLISION!" he blared.

It was a fine sight, thought Gib, what with the steaming ship and the running men and the dancing captain and the stately whale and Owney all brave with harness and medals.

"I was never trained in rope climbing," mused Owney. "I told the whale that too. He swam up to the side of the ship, humped his back a little and heaved me right up onto the deck. Port side, I think. I never learned port from starboard. One's right, the other's left. The whale dived away and left us."

"What did the captain do?" asked Gib.

"He said I had saved the ship by my courage. A whale that size could have damaged his ship severely. He was wrong, you know. But I couldn't have told him that the whale just wanted to know about dogs. It was a cow whale anyhow, a momma whale, a loving whale. Nothing fierce about her. The captain was pleased, however. He sent the story back to the United States by the next ship out of Yokohama. The newspapers made much of it."

Yokohama, which is really Tokyo's harbor, was full of ships. Gib noticed battered sailing vessels and stubby steamships, some with old-fashioned paddle wheels. There were sampans and hundreds of tiny fishing boats, some with bamboo sails. The waters about the pier-sides were busy with strolling vegetables, broken oar shafts, drifting rope ends, stringy weeds and dead fish. The air was rich indeed.

"Japan is a very deep-smelling land," explained Owney. "I get most of my impressions through my nose, you know. I got almost a sneezable view of that country. It gave me fine training for China later.

"The Japanese are colored people, sort of pale mustard like the kind you get with hot dogs at the ball game. But very polite. They tend to hiss a bit when they talk like a leaky steam pipe or a friendly snake. One gets used to it. Ignores it. Just good manners. As a representative of the United States I had to watch my manners."

Gib nodded his agreement.

"Act like a baboon and they'll put you back in a tree," growled the dog. "Well, some very polite Japanese and our own American ambassador met me at the dock. The ship's captain introduced me to the ambassador and gave him my credentials, the papers that told all about me. Then the captain said good-bye. He was kind. Told me another captain would take me to China later."

The American ambassador was a tall man. He wore a dark suit with a swallowtail coat and a top hat as black and shiny as the sawed-off end of a cannon. He had a tremendous yellow mustache. It dropped almost to his chin. It made him look like a thoughtful walrus. But his eyes twinkled. He smiled when Owney sat up on his haunches and extended a paw for a handshake.

Two Japanese men were with him. They wore baggy trousers and short kimonos held in at their waists by gay silken belts. One kimono was emerald-green. The other was raving red. One of the Japanese men was the Director of the Port. The other was the Personal Representative of the Mikado. Both were dressed up to prove it.

"Sort of like a Scout Court of Honor?" asked Gib, thinking of the night he got his Second Class pin.

"Right," said Owney.

There was a small squad of soldiers behind them. They did not wear kimonos. They wore businesslike uniforms of dull green. They carried rifles stamped 'Made in Hartford, Connecticut U.S.A." They also wore swords. They were an honor guard.

Green Kimono stepped forward. Owney sat up to receive him.

"SSS ah, ah ss ###??//### ss," he said, and bowed.

The ambassador spoke. "He says the Emperor welcomes you as the Postmaster General of Japan and a member of the Universal Postal Union. The Emperor will receive you at his palace."

The welcoming committee moved down to the end of the pier and a waiting carriage. It was shiny black with crimson cushions. It was drawn by two white horses with slanty eyes.

Green Kimono entered the carriage with Owney and the ambassador. They moved off with the soldiers trotting ahead of them.

"The ambassador gave me advice as we rode," said the dog.

"What kind?" asked Gib. "Like Miss Jasper's or Mr. Johnson's?"

"He said, 'When you meet the Emperor, be careful. This is very unusual. You'll see him alone. Actually nobody is supposed to see him except his family and servants, and especially not Americans. I've never seen him, although I think he's seen some Englishmen. Just be careful. He's a god.' "

"God?" asked Gib startled.

"Not ours," said Owney peevishly, "Japanese type."

The streets of Tokyo were crowded with markets and shops and lots of little buildings with bamboo and paper walls. People in flat hats, wearing short coats, knee-length trousers and sandals, poured through them hissing. They got out of the road for the carriage though. The soldiers jabbed them in the ribs with their gun butts to thank them for being polite. Hundreds of dogs ran out of alleys, all of them barking sss###///???##ss, and yipe. Owney sat erect in his harness and ignored them.

"What kind of dogs were they?" asked Gib.

"Ssss###???///sss," said Owney. "Fish hounds."

The Emperor's palace was in the middle of a great green park. The park was scribbled all over by winding paths of washed, white pebbles; their sides were lined with flowering bushes. There were many peaceful pools and small ponds and tall, dark pine trees looked into them. The pines used the pools for mirrors to comb their needles. There were people in the park, and great golden statues sitting alone under wooden arches painted silver.

The palace itself was surrounded by a high wall. The carriage drove up to it and through an arched gate, with the soldiers now trotting behind. It came to a small building and stopped. The ambassador and Green Kimono got out and bowed to Yellow Kimono with a purple sash.

The ambassador leaned over, and his top hat tilted. Owney rose and put a paw on his knee.

"I'll wait for you here," said the ambassador. "This man is the Emperor's chamberlain, sort of servant of the court, but an important one. He'll take you to see the Mikado. I'll give him your papers, but the Emperor knows all about you anyhow. Be careful."