CHAPTER IV.
THE SIGNALS IN GRASS.
Captain Godwin turned to the Filipino.
"Can you give us a description of him?" he asked.
Tag shook his head.
"I saw only his figure at the window," he said, "and only for aninstant. He was assisted in, and then after a time, the lights werelowered, or extinguished entirely."
"So that is why you didn't loiter around!" cried the Captain, "Youthought they had gone to bed! Are you sure you did not stop and listento what was said?"
"I went to bed at once," was the sullen reply.
"Did you see them burning matches after the lights were out?" asked Ned.
"I could not see the interior of the hut from my bed," replied theFilipino, with flashing eyes.
"Well, don't get hot about it," advised the Captain. "Go on, Ned."
"The matches burned," Ned went on, "were not of the kind kept in stockhere, the sort supplied by you to your guests. There is a difference inthe shape and size of the stick. The paper which I found in the alcoveis part of an official letter dealing with the situation we came here tolook into. It is more than half burned, so little can be learned fromit."
"It is a wonder they didn't see that it was entirely destroyed,"suggested Frank.
"It may be," Ned replied, "that they intended to burn the hut aftertheir departure, and left the paper blazing."
"That is just about it!" cried the Captain.
"Then we have to take it for granted that the visitor came here withinstructions for Lieutenant Rowe. Secret instructions, probably. Heeither betrayed his trust and assisted in what was done, or was followedhere and attacked with the others. It is a great puzzle. One might ask adozen questions without finding an answer. For instance: Why was theinterior of the hut wrecked?"
"There was a fight, of course," Frank said.
"And not a shot fired!" cried the Captain. "I don't believe it! A fightwould have led to shooting; shooting would have attracted attention. No,sir, you will find that Lieutenant Rowe stood in with this game! Whyshould official communications follow so closely on his heels? If theofficials who sent him here had anything to add to his orders, theymight have sent a messenger on after him, of course, but there are nocables here, so he could not have been notified that the man was coming.Yet it is clear that he expected this man! Oh, he was in it, all right!"
"Did you size him up for that sort of a man?" asked Ned.
"I didn't see much of him," was the reply.
"You may be right," Ned said, "although I can't see why he came here atall if he was to make so sensational a disappearance."
"He wasn't thinking of disappearing when he came here," insisted theCaptain. "Something in the instructions the fourth man brought changedhis line of action. I'll bet my head on it!"
"Will you kindly talk with the two men who were put to sleep and see ifthey confirm the story told by Tag?"
The Captain agreed to this, and went away to look the men up. He wasback in a few minutes with the report that the men were not to be found.
"They left just after talking with Tag," he added, looking angrily atthe Filipino.
"They said nothing to me of going," Tag hastened to say. "They certainlywere not alarmed at what took place under their noses last night."
"Did they tell you who gave them the drink?" asked Ned.
"Yes; they said it was the fourth man."
"And there you are!" the Captain roared. "The fourth man! It is a wonderhe didn't stick a knife into them!"
"How old were the men with the Lieutenant?" asked Ned. "You said theywere young fellows."
"Well, they were tall and stoutish, but they looked young. Anywhere fromsixteen to twenty, I should say."
"Did you notice a locked box in the party?"
"No; they carried nothing of the kind."
"They carried some baggage?"
"Yes; one suitcase. Came away in a hurry, they said. I saw the suitcaseopened, on the table in there, and there was no box."
Ned took a thin, flat steel key from his pocket and held it out to theCaptain. It was a key of peculiar construction, evidently made ofindividual pattern. In fact, it was such a key as usually goes with astrong cash box, having no duplicate.
"This was not used to open the suitcase?" he asked.
"Certainly not," was the reply. "Where did you find that?"
"On the river bank, where the canoe the men came in was beached," wasthe reply.
"Well," observed the Captain, "if we can't learn why they went away, orhow, we may at least be able to discover where they went. Let us beabout it."
"Unfortunately," Ned replied, "we can't track them through the waters ofthe channel. Water shows no footprints!"
"But they might not have gone away by water," insisted the other. "Ifthey had, they would have taken the motor boat."
"They did send a man to get it," Ned replied, "but he couldn't operateit. That is why it was out of order this morning."
"How do you know that?"
"The man used matches there--the same kind of matches used in thatroom."
"Some day," laughed Jimmie, "some guy will come here an' move thebloomm' place away without bein' caught at it. Why didn't some one wakeup?"
"I didn't wake up," said the Captain, "but that is no proof that othersdid not. You can't trust these Filipinos. The people of the pueblo mighthave helped them away."
"Exactly!" said Ned.
"If they left in a canoe," Frank suggested, "we may be able to overtakethem."
"In this maze of islands!" cried the Captain. "I should say not."
"We'll get a ride anyway," Jimmie observed.
"If you'll tell Jack to get the _Manhattan_ ready," Ned said, "we'lltake a run out toward that rough-looking bit of land over there towardthe coast of China."
The boy darted away, and Ned directed the Captain's steps to the spotwhere the canoe had been beached. After inspecting the thickets intowhich the canoe had been drawn when taken from the water, the two, Nedin the lead, pressed through the tangle which lined the bank until theycame to a clear space strewn with food tins which had the appearance ofhaving been opened within a few hours.
"They waited here," he said, "and ate while they waited. I found the keyhere, and not at the point where the boat was pulled from the river. Thebox to which it belongs was opened here and new papers put into it. Atleast some papers which it had contained were removed. They were burnedone by one in that thicket ahead."
The Captain looked Ned over from head to foot and laughed.
"My boy," he said, "you surely know what your eyes were given to youfor. Can you tell by looking at my coat how much money I have in thepocketbook in the breast pocket?"
"Hardly," laughed Ned, "but I can tell by looking at that light coat youhave on that you went to sleep in your chair last night, with the lowerpart wrinkled up under you! Did you sleep that way all night? Own up,now!"
Captain Godwin blushed through his coat of tan like a schoolgirl.
"To tell you the truth," he said, "I did sleep in my clothes last night.After I left the Lieutenant at the hut I went home and mixed a littledrink and sat down to read a bit. Well, sir, I fell asleep!"
"And woke up at daylight?" asked Ned.
"Pretty close to it," was the reply. "I awoke with a headache, too!"
"You mixed the drink yourself?" asked the boy.
"Yes; I always do."
"But your servant brought the glass?"
"Why, yes."
"Have you seen the servant to-day?"
"Sure! He got my early breakfast. We have two here, you know."
"Ever sleep like that before?"
"Not here."
Ned looked serious. This was something new. The Captain had withoutdoubt been drugged, but who had contrived the thing?
"What are you getting at?" demanded Captain Godwin. "You don't think Iwas doped, do you?"
"Looks like it," was the reply.
"Then the whole native populati
on is up to something!" shouted theCaptain. "I've noticed a good deal of whispering lately. Do you thinkthe tribe on the island has gone over to the insurrectos?"
"I don't know," Ned said, "but it seems to me that something is going tohappen here before long."
"I'll watch out," declared the Captain.
"How long have you been in charge here?" asked the boy.
"Two years. There's really nothing to do, but Uncle Sam thinks he needsa man in charge here, and pays pretty well, and so I've remained. It isa dull life, and I'm not certain that I don't enjoy this littleexcitement."
"Unless I am mistaken," Ned smiled, "it will not be so dull here in thefuture. I see trouble for the whole group."
"About a thousand of these brown leaders will have to be killed offbefore there will be any security of life or property here," said theCaptain. "The natives would behave themselves if let alone."
"Now," Ned said, "you have been insisting all along that Lieutenant Rowevoluntarily left the island. Let us see about that."
"I never said he left the island. He may be here still, plotting withthe natives, for all I know."
"You are mistaken there. Whether voluntarily or not, his party left theisland last night, with the men who came here in the canoe."
"If he left the island, why didn't he go in the launch he came in? Thatwould have been the most comfortable mode of leaving the place."
"Because, as has been said, the man who was sent to seize the motor boatcould not make it move."
"How do you know that?"
"The fellow burned matches like those used In the hut as already stated,and threw the sticks about. He left the electric apparatus out of order,and that is why it would not run this morning when the Major wanted touse it."
"Originally that might have been the reason," laughed the Captain, "butI have an idea that the boys--"
"Never mind that!" Ned said. "We are not supposed to know anything aboutit. For if the Lieutenant had been a willing member of the party,wouldn't he have taken charge of the motor boat and got the party awayin it?"
"Oh, all right! Have your own way about it!" smiled the Captain. "Let ussuppose, solely for the sake of argument, that the Lieutenant was takenprisoner and went away against his will. Does that prove that he wastaken from the island?"
"I was coming to that point," Ned replied.
He then called the attention of the Captain to the food tins which layscattered about.
"These tins," he said, "have been opened within a few hours, which showsthat the intruders rested and waited here and ate their suppers, perhapstheir early breakfasts also. There were several of them, as you will seeby the number of tins opened. The party embarked here. You can see wherethe nose of the canoe struck the mud."
"I reckon, as I remarked before," the Captain said, "that you don't needany instructions as to the use of your eyes! And the gray matter back ofthem seems to know what to do with the material unloaded on it! Whatnext?"
"About the Lieutenant going away voluntarily," Ned went on. "Now stepdown here to the river bank. You notice the footprints in the mud, closeto the water's edge?"
"Yes; they are plain enough."
"And some are heavy and some are light. See that? Some are faintimpressions in the mushy soil, while some sink in a couple of inches.Some of the deep ones are clean cut, while others show that the footwobbled in the track."
"There must have been a fat man who was unsteady on his feet," observedthe Captain.
"Yes, there was a heavy man, but his tracks are cut sharply in the mud.His step was quick and firm. Now these other deep tracks show astaggering foot. What does that mean?"
"Blessed if I know!" cried the Captain.
"It means, to my mind, that the men who made these deep, wobbly trackscarried a burden into the boat. What do you think that burden was?"
"You will be telling me next that it was a wounded man--perhaps theLieutenant himself," said the Captain, his face alive with interest.
"It was a wounded man, all right," Ned replied, "but we have no means ofknowing whether it was the Lieutenant. See, there are drops of bloodclose to the margin of the river!"
"You're a genius!" roared the Captain.
"Just observation," Ned said modestly. "There is nothing unusual aboutthe faculty of seeing things. We all draw the same conclusions after thefacts are pointed out. So, you see, there was a struggle in the hut,after all, and some one was cut with a knife, for there were no shotsfired. As there would have been no fight if the Lieutenant had been inthe game, as you express it, the inference is that he was takenprisoner."
"Granted--for the sake of argument!"
"Now," Ned continued, "you have seen Indian service, I understand, soyou will no doubt recognize these signs in grass. Read them!"
"Sure I can read them," exclaimed the Captain, "but I never would havediscovered them. Indian signals in grass, eh? Now, who do you think putthem there?"
At the edge of the thicket were two bunches of grass, each tied tightlyat a point near the top. On one the grass stood straight up beyond theband. On the other the top was bent toward the river.
"'Here is the trail,'" Captain Godwin read, pointing to the first one,"and the trail leads this way," he added, pointing to the other. "Theyleft by the river!"
"There is one more," Ned said. "Read this," pointing to three bunches ofgrass, each tied near the top and standing in a row.
"That is a warning. It says, 'Be careful,'" read the other. "What doesit mean?"
"Just what it says. It also means that there is a Boy Scout with theparty!"