Boy Scouts on Motorcycles Part 19

"Oh, come along!" Frank exclaimed. "The boys may be in need of good advice and exclusive society! We'll go and see."

"Well," Sandy put in, "this ain't no case for the bulls. You've got to get to them without makin' any show of fight. You'd be eat up in this town with them few soldiers."

"What do you propose?"

"Why, we'll go to the American consul an' get him out."

"You seem to be almost human in your intelligence," Jack cried. "Let go your anchor and heave ahead!"

"We'll have to make good time," said Sandy. "Can you run?"

"We're the original record-breakers when it comes to working our legs!"

Jack said, and the three, after moving quietly through the lighted circle, so as not to attract the attention of the guard, broke into a run which fast lessened the distance between the camp and the telegraph office. At the end of half a mile Sandy drew up against a mud wall.

The rain was still falling, and the boys were soaked to the skin and s.h.i.+vering with cold, notwithstanding their exertions.

"I'm winded," Sandy explained, panting.

"I'm frozen stiff," Jack declared.

"I'm wet enough to swim home," Frank put in.

"Well," Sandy continued, "there's a little shack behind us--looks like one of the squatter shacks on the Lake front--an' we can go in an' rest up. Here's where the only friend I have in China lives."

"Go on in, then," Jack replied, his teeth chattering with the cold.

"We ought to keep on," Frank advised. "This is no time to rest and get dry when Ned is in trouble!"

"That's right," from Jack. "Trot ahead, little one!"

"I've got to go in here, anyway, an' get my uniform," the boy explained.

"I'll be more protection to you boys if I have it on."

"Protection to us!" laughed Jack. "You're a joker!"

"Hurry up, then, and get it," Frank urged. "We've got to be getting along toward the telegraph office."

"Ain't you comin' in?" asked Sandy.

"No; we'll want to remain if we go in. Hurry."

"Do you think he's on the level?" asked Jack, as the boy disappeared through the low doorway.

"I don't know," was the reply. "It doesn't seem as if an American lad, and a Boy Scout at that, would play a treacherous game against his own countrymen."

"No, it doesn't; yet what is he stopping here for? He ought to be as anxious as we are to get over the ground."

Then Sandy came stumbling to the door, on the inside, and asked the boys, through the rough boards, to come in with their lights.

"There's somethin' mighty strange here," he said.

"This may be a trap!" Jack said. "Shall we go in?"

"We may need this boy as a guide," Frank observed.

"All right, then. In we go."

There was only one room to the shack, which was of mud, with thick walls and a leaky roof. There was a table, a chair, a heap of clothes in a comer, and nothing else, save for a puddle of water on the floor.

Sandy stood in the middle of the floor, his feet in the puddle, when Frank's searchlight illumined the bare room. His eyes were staring in a strange way and his face was deadly pale.

"Look there!" he exclaimed, his lips forming the words badly. "The old woman who fed me when I was broke an' sick lies under the clothes, stupid from some dope. The house has been poked over. I saw a face at the little hole in the wall as I came in. What does it mean?"

Whisperings were heard at the door. Frank extinguished his light and the boys stood in darkness as complete as ever fell since the dawn of creation.

"What do you think?" asked Jack, of Frank.

"Looks like a trap."

Sandy sprang forward and seized Frank by the arm, and his voice shook as he began.

"No! It ain't no trap! I didn't bring you here to get rolled for your wads, or anythin' like that. I stopped here to get me telegraph messenger uniform. I can go anywhere in the city with that on, and not be molested. I don't know what this means, but there are c.h.i.n.ks all around this house."

"Perhaps you've been followed ever since you left the office," Frank suggested. "Where is your uniform?"

"Gone," replied Sandy, "an' everythin' else I had in that old box in the corner."

Frank walked to the door and opened it a trifle. There was no need to open it wider to see what kind of trouble they were in. In front, patient in the downpour, stood six Chinamen.

The flashlight dwelt on the silent row for an instant and was then turned off. Frank closed the door and stood with his back against it.

"Is there another way out?" he asked.

Sandy pointed to a small door at the rear. Frank opened it a trifle, as he had the other, and again the flashlight bored a round hole in the night. There were six Chinamen there.

"They mean to keep us here!" Jack cried. "I'll show them."

"I hear them all around the place," Sandy almost sobbed. "You'll think I brought you here for this. I didn't! I'm on the square with you boys. I wanted to help you."

"Perhaps they'll go away soon," Jack suggested.

"Never!" Frank replied. "This is purely an Oriental shut-in! They will wait out there until the hot summer tans their hides if they are told to. The patience of the Orient is something awful to run up against."

"But why?" asked Jack.

"Oh, they got next to me!" Sandy observed.

"They want to keep you from goin' to the a.s.sistance of your friends.

They'll let you go after they've found some mysterious way of disposing of the others. If I could get out, I'd go to the camp."