"There"s treachery somewhere," began Pat, but just then a sound reached their ears which drove all thoughts of that other night from their minds. 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 excitement of the moment. "That will help some!"
The boy"s voice must have been heard above the rain and the swishing of the tropical growth, for several shots came from the rear, and one of the bullets cut into the tree near Pat"s head.
"They seem to be gettin" the range!" Pat said, scratching his head and blessing 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 a wolf calling to the pack. Pat caught him by the arm and drew him back into 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 was answered from within a few feet of where the boys stood. There were no shots this time, and it was concluded that the pursuers had returned to the camp.
"Ned!" called Jimmie.
"Hey, there!" added Pat.
"That voice sounds like Chatham Square!" said a voice close to the boy"s elbow, and in the darkness two hands fumbled together and clasped in a hearty greeting.
"What you followin" me about for?" demanded Jimmie, as the three started on through the jungle again.
"You"ve got your nerve!" said Pat. "Only for the darkness I"d hand you one 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 tie a string to him, so he can be pulled back home."
"Huh!" snickered Pat, "they tied plenty of strings to me, but they didn"t pull me back home!"
It was so still in the rear, for all of any sounds of pursuit, that the boys decided that their enemies had given up the search for them, so they walked faster and soon came out on the elevation which Ned had mounted on leaving the _Manhattan_ in the afternoon. The rain ceased gradually, and a fugitive moon was seen now and then among the hurrying clouds.
With the first show of light Ned looked Pat Mack over with interest. The Irish lad returned the friendly glance with interest, and the two again clasped hands.
"We didn"t antic.i.p.ate such a meeting," Ned said.
"You knew I had gone to the Philippines," Pat said, "but I had no idea you 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 to straighten out my arms for a month."
"Your hands must have been free when you left those signs in the gra.s.s,"
said the patrol leader.
"They caught me doing it," said Pat, "and that is why I was tied up tighter than the others."
"Well, you did a good job before they caught you," Jimmie said. "When you 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?" asked Ned in a moment.
"Say!" Pat answered, "there was something strange about that! He came in with new instructions--instructions which would have sent us off to Manila again, and the Lieutenant wouldn"t stand for them, and so--"
"They had a sc.r.a.p?" asked Jimmie.
"Did the Lieutenant doubt the authenticity of the instructions?" asked Ned.
"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 the screen at the window where he entered was left unfastened for him."
"He was expecting some one," answered Pat, "but of course he did not know who it would be. Anyway, he was not antic.i.p.ating faked instructions."
"But why was he so secret about letting the fellow in? Why wasn"t the door used when he came?"
"I don"t know. The messenger the Lieutenant was expecting was to come secretly 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"t understand how a man could follow us with instructions, anyway. We came fast in the motor boat, and could not have been followed in a canoe. I don"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, and Lieutenant Rowe wouldn"t stand for it, and there was a conference, and then the brown men came in and we were geezled. Looked like a raid on a pool room in little old New York!"
"But this false messenger--the wrong man, or the right man with the wrong 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 some nation is trying to take the Philippines away from Uncle Sam."
"And receiving a.s.sistance from those in the employ of Uncle Sam!" Ned said, musingly. "Well, I"m here to see what can be done in the line of locking the traitors up in a nice hot cell at Manila."
"You needn"t look much farther," Jimmie said. "There"s a second motor boat out in a bay west of the island, and I"m tellin" you that it came across from China. It is the washee-washee people who are kicking up this mess, all right."
"You seem to have solved the mystery," laughed Ned. "From the first we have known that there was a conspiracy against Uncle Sam, but the question has always been "Who?" and not "What for?" The purpose of the alleged treaty has never been a mystery. What we are here for is to catch 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 c.h.i.n.ks, who is it?"
"That is just what we want to know," Ned replied, more soberly. "There is a notion at Washington that it may be some financial interest. The newspapers were saying, when we left civilization, that a certain monopoly was financing the Mexican revolution, and there is a suspicion that some disloyal men in the United States are doing the same with the ignorant natives of the Philippines--urging them on and supplying them with guns and ammunition."