Part 3 (1/2)
When Ned looked closer, he saw that the ground was stained a deep red, that there were dark crimson spots on the window casing. Then he saw that a struggle must have taken place in the room, for the few things it held were in disorder.
”Boys,” he said, ”perhaps our Secret Service man got here before we did.”
CHAPTER III
A SHOE AND A SURPRISE
”What do you mean by that?” asked Frank. ”If he had reached the old house first, he would have waited here for us, wouldn't he?”
”Look what's here,” Ned replied. ”There has been a fight in the room.
The combatants fought from the inner wall to the window, then a knife was used. These stains are by no means fresh, but they tell the story.
And to think that we've been here all these days and never found them!”
”Well,” Frank hastened to say, ”we weren't suspicious; and, then, we had no occasion to visit this room.”
”We should have been on our guard,” Ned replied, ”but there is no help for it now. This discovery may block our going on to Peking to-night.”
”I don't see why,” Jack said, in a disappointed tone.
”If the man who was wounded here and carried out of the window,” Ned replied, ”is really the messenger we are waiting for, we ought not to go away and leave him in the hands of the enemy. It may not be the one I fear it is, but we ought to find out about that.”
”It might have been only natives fighting,” urged Jack.
”Of course,” Ned insisted, ”but we ought not to leave if there is any possibility of our friend being in trouble. Besides, Jack,” he went on, ”a native fight here would hardly be umpired by a man wearing European shoes! Here are the tracks, and I found others like them on the ground outside not long ago. We may as well go out now and try to follow them.”
Accompanied by Jimmie, Ned went out and made a closer examination. The tracks crossed the yard and ended at the street in the rear of the old house.
”Now,” Ned said, as he stepped out on the beaten course of the unpaved street, ”we shall have to take chances. The trail has disappeared, and we can only depend on our enemies for guidance.”
”That's fine!” said Jimmie. ”We may as well go back!”
Ned pointed to a little group of Chinamen standing not far away, at the corner of a street lined with miserable huts.
”We'll walk about here,” he said, ”and if we get somewhere near any point of information to us or danger to the others, I have a notion that that nest of Celestials will begin to buzz.”
Jimmie laughed and the two pa.s.sed on, merely looking in the direction of the group as they pa.s.sed it. They moved on down the street on the opposite side. The Chinamen did not move.
When they turned back, however, on the other side of the thoroughfare and stopped, on speculation, for an instant before a hut somewhat larger and more dilapidated than the others, a pair of the watchers suddenly detached themselves from the group and hastened away in opposite directions. Two more strolled toward the boys.
”What next?” asked Jimmie, in a whisper.
”Seems to me that our halting here indicates that there may be something doing in this house,” Ned replied. ”Suppose we go in and ask some ordinary question?”
”An' get kicked out!” grunted Jimmie.
”That will be all right, so long as they let us out at all,” Ned replied with a smile. ”I just want to know why our stopping here excited the c.h.i.n.ks who were watching us.”
As Ned turned toward the house the little fellow caught him by the sleeve and held him back.