Part 16 (1/2)
”You remember what the consul said regarding trouble on the road to Peking?” asked Ned of Captain Martin as the two took seats under a tree not far from the cooking fires.
”Yes, and I wondered at his expressing such gloomy predictions. He gave me quite a scare.”
”I think I understand, now, why he did it,” Ned said, with a smile. ”He was following instructions.”
”What do you mean by that?”
”I mean that he had been communicated with by the Was.h.i.+ngton office, during the day, and given instructions.”
”To scare you?”
”No; to keep me up to the mark in caution.”
”I don't think you needed that.”
”Well,” Ned went on, ”this is a queer case. At first I could not make up my mind why the Secret Service people insisted on my making this trip to Peking on a motorcycle, guarded by soldiers like a pa.s.senger in time of war. Now I think I know.”
”Then you have the advantage of me,” said the officer. ”I've been thinking that over quite a lot, and the answer is still to find.”
”Unless I am mistaken,” Ned replied, ”I am expected to do my work on the way to Peking.”
”Come again!” smiled the Captain.
”In other words,” replied Ned, ”I'm set up on a motorcycle as a mark for the diplomats of Europe to shoot at.”
”Then I must be a mark, also,” grumbled the Captain.
”Exactly. How do you like it?”
”Oh, it isn't so bad!” smiled the other, won into better humor by the laughing face of the boy. ”But why should the Secret Service department put you in such peril?”
”It is my notion,” Ned hastened to say, in defense of his superior officers, ”that they give me credit for sense enough to take care of myself. The same with regard to you.”
”But why--”
”It seems to me,” Ned interrupted, ”that the department is up against a tough proposition. The matter is so delicate that no foreign government can be accused of mixing this conspiracy for Uncle Sam. What remains to do, then, is to spot the tools being used by the power that is most active.”
”That's good sense.”
”Well, we can't spot them in Was.h.i.+ngton, nor in Tientsin, nor yet in the American emba.s.sy at Peking. Where, then, but on the road--on the road where they are striving with all their might to block the progress of the agent who is trying to land them?”
Captain Martin mused a moment and then broke into a laugh.
”And so,” he said, ”you think we are spread out along this road for the conspirators to grab off?”
”If they can, of course; but that is not stating the case right. We are spread out along the road to Peking to catch the men who will try to stop us. See? We are here to watch for those who will try to catch us, and to catch them! What do you think of that?”
”Clever!” exclaimed the Captain.
”The system is an old one in detective work,” Ned explained. ”It is no unusual thing for an officer to permit a prisoner to escape in order that be may be traced to his confederates. Only this case is somewhat different, of course. We don't know exactly who the criminals we, but we expect them to reveal their ident.i.ty by their own acts.”