Boy Scouts in the Philippines; Or, The Key to the Treaty Box

by G. Harvey Ralphson

  CHAPTER VII.

  A MISSING MOTOR BOAT.

  "You rapscallion," Pat Mack whispered, as the two came together in theembrace of a particularly tough creeper, "how did you ever get here? Isaw you last on the good old Bowery!"

  "I didn't fly over," replied Jimmie. "Here," he added, "take this boloan' cut that rope! What did you mean by chokin' me when I cut youloose?"

  "A hug of affection!" retorted the other. "You looked like an angel tome! Did you flutter down from the sky in the rain?"

  "I ought to give you a good punch for it!" Jimmie replied. "You neartook the hide off me beautiful nose! Have you got that bloomin' steelcable cut? Seems to me they are comin' after us!"

  The boys stood perfectly still and listened. Above the patter of therain, above the murmur of the trees, above the chattering of the arousedmonkeys, came the crash of heavy bodies through the bushes, the sound ofhuman voices.

  "Sure they are!" whispered Pat, and they set off again.

  Working their way painfully through the jungle, falling now and thenover long vines, coming into contact with great trees and swingingparasites which brushed against their faces like snakes, the boyspressed on as rapidly as possible, but ever the sounds of pursuit camecloser! The pursuers were more familiar with jungle methods than they,and no pretense of secrecy was made.

  "Have you got a gun?" whispered Jimmie.

  "I haven't even got a toothpick," was the reply.

  "We'll have to fight before long," Jimmie said, panting with theexertion of the unfamiliar struggle with the jungle.

  "There's plenty of hollow trees about," suggested Pat. "Why not hide inone of them until they pass?"

  The suggestion seemed a good one, for a moment. Then the uselessness ofsuch an effort at concealment became apparent. With sinking hearts theboys heard the low whine of a hound!

  "I wonder how they managed to track us so easily," Jimmie said.

  "Give me the bolo," Pat said. "I'll split the dog's head open if hecomes near us. Use your gun on the men."

  The boys did not give up hope of final escape, but pressed on for atime. However, the acclivity they were ascending grew steeper as theyadvanced, and they were obliged to stop now and then to rest. On one ofthese occasions they heard a commotion in the jungle just ahead of them.This was disheartening!

  "They've flanked us!" whispered Pat.

  The pursuers were carrying a torch which, in the rain, gave a dim light,but still served to direct their steps, and the glow of the flame nowreached to the very spot where the lads stood. The bushes behind themparted and the glowing eyes of the hound looked up in their faces. Thenthe call of the beast told the men following that he had at last sightedhis prey.

  The boys turned to flee again, but came up against an almostperpendicular wall of rock. The pursuers saw them now and came on withcries of victory.

  "Guess they've got us!" Pat said.

  "Not yet!" Jimmie answered.

  But, however courageous the lads might have proved themselves to be,they would have been taken in a moment had they not received unexpectedassistance. The hound was almost at their feet when a shot was heard andthe great beast fell to the ground, struggled for an instant, and laystill.

  Another shot followed the first instantly, and the torch dropped fromthe uplifted hand of the evil-faced man who was carrying it in the lead.An intense, uncanny darkness followed the extinction of the torch, andthe two boys took advantage of it to edge around the face of the rockwhich had blocked their progress. Without the help of the dog, andwithout the torch, the pursuers could do little, and stood on equalterms with the pursued.

  It was impossible, of course, for the boys to make their way through thejungle without making any noise, and in a moment the pursuing partyshowed its temper by firing revengeful shots at the spots from which thesounds of their progress proceeded. After half a dozen bullets hadclipped the bushes about the heads of the lads two shots came from infront, the lead whizzing over their heads. A sharp cry of distress washeard in the rear at the second shot, and then all was still.

  The boys crouched in the open space between the "legs" of a balete treeand waited for some possible explanation of the strange thing that hadtaken place. Who had killed the hound, and who was it that was shootingat the enemy over their heads? These questions were hard to answer.

  "It is one of the boys from the _Manhattan_," Jimmie concluded, at last.

  "Then why don't he show up?" demanded Pat. "Who is in the _Manhattan_?"

  "Ned Nestor and two members of the Black Bear Patrol," was the reply."We came over here to sleuth."

  "To what?"

  "To sleuth. To do the Sherlock Holmes stunt. To put down an insurrectionin the Philippines!"

  "You seem to be putting it down," Pat said, in a sarcastic tone.

  "We've got it by the neck!" insisted Jimmie.

  "Ned's being along will help some," said Pat. "He's the boy to get tothe bottom of a tough case. If he's on this side of the world, that'shim in the shrubbery just ahead. Did you hear the signals a short timeago?"

  "Of course."

  "Well, that's the bunch coming."

  "What bunch?" demanded Jimmie.

  "Why, the Chinks, of course."

  "What they coming here for?"

  "I guess they expect to take the Philippines home with 'em," was thereply. "Anyway, they're plotting to take Uncle Sam down and search himfor them."

  "Did you hear much of their talk?" asked Jimmie.

  "Quite a little, but Lieutenant Rowe made so much noise I couldn't hearall that was said when they were near me. He's badly wounded."

  "I'd like to know just what took place at the hut Captain Godwin put youfellows in night before last," Jimmie said.

  "There's treachery somewhere," began Pat, but just then a sound reachedtheir ears which drove all thoughts of that other night from theirminds. It was the low, snarling call of a wolf!

  "That's Ned!" whispered Jimmie.

  "It's a Wolf, anyway," Pat exclaimed, losing caution in the excitementof the moment. "That will help some!"

  The boy's voice must have been heard above the rain and the swishing ofthe tropical growth, for several shots came from the rear, and one ofthe bullets cut into the tree near Pat's head.

  "They seem to be gettin' the range!" Pat said, scratching his head andblessing his lucky star that a bullet had not connected with it.

  "They couldn't hit a flock of bridges!" said Jimmie, disdainfully.

  Then he straightened up and gave out a long, shrill cry, like that of awolf calling to the pack. Pat caught him by the arm and drew him backinto the semi-shelter of the "legs" of the balete tree.

  "You'll have a spray of lead flying this way in a second!" he said."Can't you give the Wolf call without alarming the people of Hong Kong,six hundred miles away?"

  "I'm celebratin'!" answered the boy.

  Again the wolf cry echoed through the forest, and this time it wasanswered from within a few feet of where the boys stood. There were noshots this time, and it was concluded that the pursuers had returned tothe camp.

  "Ned!" called Jimmie.

  "Hey, there!" added Pat.

  "That voice sounds like Chatham Square!" said a voice close to the boy'selbow, and in the darkness two hands fumbled together and clasped in ahearty greeting.

  "What you followin' me about for?" demanded Jimmie, as the three startedon through the jungle again.

  "You've got your nerve!" said Pat. "Only for the darkness I'd hand youone for that. What's he following you for? If he hadn't followed you,both of us would have been captured back there."

  "Hereafter," Ned said, "when Jimmie goes into the woods I'm going to tiea string to him, so he can be pulled back home."

  "Huh!" snickered Pat, "they tied plenty of strings to me, but theydidn't pull me back home!"

  It was so still in the rear, for all of any sounds of pursuit, that theboys decided that their enemies had given up the search for them, sothey walked faster and soon came
out on the elevation which Ned hadmounted on leaving the _Manhattan_ in the afternoon. The rain ceasedgradually, and a fugitive moon was seen now and then among the hurryingclouds.

  With the first show of light Ned looked Pat Mack over with interest. TheIrish lad returned the friendly glance with interest, and the two againclasped hands.

  "We didn't anticipate such a meeting," Ned said.

  "You knew I had gone to the Philippines," Pat said, "but I had no ideayou would ever wander off here. Tell me about it."

  The story was soon told, in condensed form, and then Ned asked:

  "That was Lieutenant Rowe who was captured?"

  "Sure! They got into our hut and geezled us good. I shall not be able tostraighten out my arms for a month."

  "Your hands must have been free when you left those signs in the grass,"said the patrol leader.

  "They caught me doing it," said Pat, "and that is why I was tied uptighter than the others."

  "Well, you did a good job before they caught you," Jimmie said. "Whenyou goin' back to let the others loose?"

  "Lieutenant Rowe is in great pain because of his wound," Pat replied,"and we ought to do something for him soon."

  "Where is the fourth man--the fellow who climbed in the window?" askedNed in a moment.

  "Say!" Pat answered, "there was something strange about that! He came inwith new instructions--instructions which would have sent us off toManila again, and the Lieutenant wouldn't stand for them, and so--"

  "They had a scrap?" asked Jimmie.

  "Did the Lieutenant doubt the authenticity of the instructions?" askedNed.

  "I think he did," was the reply, "and so did the messenger! Odd, eh?"

  "But he must have been expecting the messenger," Ned went on, "for thescreen at the window where he entered was left unfastened for him."

  "He was expecting some one," answered Pat, "but of course he did notknow who it would be. Anyway, he was not anticipating fakedinstructions."

  "But why was he so secret about letting the fellow in? Why wasn't thedoor used when he came?"

  "I don't know. The messenger the Lieutenant was expecting was to comesecretly and go secretly. That's all I know about it."

  "He was to be sent by the government officers?"

  "Of course."

  "From what point?"

  "Oh, I don't know," answered Pat. "It is all a muddle. I can'tunderstand how a man could follow us with instructions, anyway. We camefast in the motor boat, and could not have been followed in a canoe. Idon't know where this messenger was to spring from, I'm sure. Anyhow,the wrong one came, or the right one brought the wrong dispatches, andLieutenant Rowe wouldn't stand for it, and there was a conference, andthen the brown men came in and we were geezled. Looked like a raid on apool room in little old New York!"

  "But this false messenger--the wrong man, or the right man with thewrong instructions--was captured also?"

  "Yes, he was; and he made a row about it. I'll tell you what I think.There's treachery in the secret service somewhere. Some interest or somenation is trying to take the Philippines away from Uncle Sam."

  "And receiving assistance from those in the employ of Uncle Sam!" Nedsaid, musingly. "Well, I'm here to see what can be done in the line oflocking the traitors up in a nice hot cell at Manila."

  "You needn't look much farther," Jimmie said. "There's a second motorboat out in a bay west of the island, and I'm tellin' you that it cameacross from China. It is the washee-washee people who are kicking upthis mess, all right."

  "You seem to have solved the mystery," laughed Ned. "From the first wehave known that there was a conspiracy against Uncle Sam, but thequestion has always been 'Who?' and not 'What for?' The purpose of thealleged treaty has never been a mystery. What we are here for is tocatch the conspirators with the goods, as Inspector Byrnes used to say.And now you've solved the puzzle!"

  "Quit yer kiddin'!" exclaimed Jimmie. "I can say what I think, can't I?Besides, if it ain't the Chinks, who is it?"

  "That is just what we want to know," Ned replied, more soberly. "Thereis a notion at Washington that it may be some financial interest. Thenewspapers were saying, when we left civilization, that a certainmonopoly was financing the Mexican revolution, and there is a suspicionthat some disloyal men in the United States are doing the same with theignorant natives of the Philippines--urging them on and supplying themwith guns and ammunition."

  "Well," Pat observed, "whoever it is that is doing the business, thereare traitors in the secret service department. The Americans who actedwith the Filipinos who captured us are posted as to what is going on atWashington, all right."

  "Let's go and get them," suggested Jimmie. "I guess the third degreewould make them tell all about it!"

  "Yes," suggested Pat, "you run out and get them while we find the_Manhattan_! That will be a nice little job for you!"

  "I wouldn't let them tie me up, anyway," growled Jimmie, annoyed at thechaffing of his friends. "Say!" he added, "here's our little bay now,but where is that bloomin' motor boat? Some one's come and carried itaway while we've been in the woods, an' took Jack and Frank away withit!"