Part 19 (1/2)
”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.