Produced by Sean Pobuda
Boy Scouts on Motorcycles
Or
With The Flying Squadron
By G. HARVEY RALPHSON
CHAPTER I
BOY SCOUTS IN A STRANGE LAND
"Fine country, this--to get out of!"
"What's the difficulty, kid?"
Jimmie McGraw, the first speaker, turned back to the interior of theapartment in which he stood with a look of intense disgust on freckledface.
"Oh, nothin' much," he replied, wrinkling his nose comically, "onlyBroadway an' the Bowery are too far away from this town to ever amountto anythin'. Say, how would you fellers like a chair in front of thegrate in the little old Black Bear Patrol clubroom, in the village of N.Y.? What?"
The three boys lying, half covered with empty burlap bags, on the bareearth at the back of the apartment chuckled softly as Jimmie's facebrightened at the small picture he drew verbally, of the luxurious BoyScout clubroom in the City of New York.
"New York is a barren island as compared with this place," one of theboys, Jack Bosworth by name, declared. "Just think of the odor of theOrient all around us!"
Jimmie wrinkled his nose in disdain and turned back to the window out ofwhich he had been looking. The other boys, Ned Nestor, of the WolfPatrol, and Jack Bosworth and Frank Shaw, of the Black Bear Patrol, allof New York, pulled their coarse covering closer under their chins andgrinned at the impatient Jimmie, who was of the Wolf Patrol, and who wasjust then on guard.
It wasn't much of a window that the boy looked out of, just an irregularhole in a bare wall, innocent alike of sash and glass. Away to the eastrolled the restless waters of the Gulf of Pechili, which is little morethan a round bay swinging west from the mystical Yellow Sea.
To the south ran the swift current of the Peiho river, on the oppositebank of which lay the twin of Taku, Chinese town where Jimmie stoodguard. Tungku, as the twin village is named, looked every bit as forlornand disreputable as Taku, where the boys had waited four days forimportant information which had been promised by the Secret Servicedepartment at Washington.
The gulf of Pechili and the Peiho river glistened under the October sun,which seemed to bring little warmth to the atmosphere. Junks of allsizes and kinds were moving slowly through the waves, and farther outlarger vessels lay at anchor, as if holding surveillance over the mouthof the stream which led to Tientsin, that famous city of the greatChinese nation.
"Look at it! Just look at it!"
Jimmie pointed out of the opening, his hand swinging about to includethe river and the gulf, the slowly moving boats and the picturesquestreets.
"'Tis a heathen land!" the boy went on. "They wear their shirts outsideof their trousers an' do their trucking on their shoulders. Say, Ned,"he added, "why can't we cut it out? I'm sick of it!"
"Cut it out?" laughed Jack Bosworth, "why, kid, we've just got to theland of promise!"
"Most all promise!" replied Jimmie. "We've got nothin' but promisessince we've been here. Where's that Secret Service feller that wasgoin' to set the pace for us?"
"Perhaps he's lost in the jungle," laughed Frank Shaw. "He certainlyought to have been here three days ago. What about it, Gulf of Pechiliand the Peiho river Ned?" he added, turning to a youth who lay at hisside, almost shivering in spite of his shaggy burlap covering.
Ned Nestor yawned and threw aside his alleged protection from thegrowing chill of the October day. The boys, fresh from a submarine inwhich they had searched an ocean floor for important documents as wellas millions of dollars in gold, had arrived at Taku five days beforethis autumn afternoon.
After concluding the mission on the submarine, Ned had been invited toundertake a difficult errand to Peking, in the interest of the UnitedStates Secret Service. Even after landing at Taku, he had confessed tohis chums his utter ignorance of the work he was to do.
He had been requested by the Secret Service man who had engaged him forthe duty to wait for instructions at the old house on the water frontwhich, in company with Frank, Jack, and Jimmie, he now occupied. Thehouse was old and dilapidated, seemingly having been unoccupied foryears, so the lads were really "camping out" there.
Their provisions were brought to them regularly by a Chinaman who didnot seem to understand a word of English, and, as the boys knowledge ofthe Chinese tongue was exceedingly limited, no information had beengained from him. The Secret Service man had not appeared, and Ned wasbecoming uneasy, especially as the curiosity of his neighbors wasbecoming annoying.
"I guess this is a stall," Jimmie grumbled, as Ned arose and stood athis side. "You know how the Moores, father an' son, tried to get us onthe submarine? Well, I'll bet they've got loose, an' that we're bein'kept here until they can do us up proper without attractin' theattention of the European population."
Ned laughed at the boy's fears. He had no doubt that the man who hadpromised to meet him there had been delayed in some unaccountablemanner, and that the information he was awaiting would be suppliedbefore another day had passed.
"Anyway," Jimmie insisted, "I don't like the looks of things hereabouts!There's always some pigtailed Chink watchin' this house from the street.I woke up last night an' saw a snaky-eyed Celestial peering in at thiswindow. I guess they've got rid of the man we are waitin' for."
"If we only knew exactly what we were to do in Peking," Frank said,approaching the little group by the window, "we might jog along andreport to the American legation. I'm like Jimmie. I don't fancy thislong wait here--not a little bit!"
"As I have told you before," Ned replied, "I don't know the first thingabout the work cut out for us by the United States Secret Servicepeople. There was some talk about following a brace of conspirators toPeking, the conspirators who tried to discredit the United States in thematter of the gold shipment but that was only incidental, and I wasordered to come here and await instructions. So I'm going to wait--until the moon drops out of the sky, if necessary."
"Oh, we'll stick around!" Frank put in. "Don't think, for a minute,that any of us thought of quitting the game. Still, I'd just like toknow how much longer we have to remain here, and just what we are to dowhen we get to Peking, if we ever do."
"Of course we'll stick!" Jimmie exclaimed. "All I'm kickin' on is thedelay. We might have remained on board the submarine, where we had cozyquarters an' somethin' to eat besides this Chink stuff."
"Whenever you want to bump Jimmie good and plenty," laughed Jack, "allyou need to do is to tamper with his rations. What's the matter withthis rice, kid, and this meat pie?" he added, as the man who had servedtheir food since their occupancy of the old house approached with alarge, covered basket on his arm.
Jimmie wrinkled his freckled nose again and laid a hand on his stomach,as if in sympathy with that organ for the unutterable Chineseconcoctions it had been called upon to assimilate of late.
"Rat pie!" he said, in a tone of disgust.
"I'll bet a dollar to a rap on the nose that it's rat pie! I can hearthe rats squeal nights when I'm tryin' to sleep an' can't."
"Say, Chink," Jack said, seizing the Chinaman by the shoulder and facinghim about so that a good look into his slanty eyes might be had, "whatdo you know about this chuck?"
"No chuck! Pie!"
"Of course it's pie!" answered Jack. "It would be pie if it was made ofold shoes, if it had a crust on. What I want to know is, where did youcatch him, and who pays you to bring it to us, and who pays him to payyou to feed it to us? Where does he live, and is he black, white, orred? Come on, old top. You know a lot if you could only think of it."
The Chinaman, an
evil-looking old fellow with a long cicatrice acrosshis left cheekbone, shook his head and regarded his questioner craftily.
"No spik English!" he said.
"You spoke it then," Jack retorted. "I'll bet a pan of pickles that youknow what we were saying when you came in here."
"Let him alone," Frank advised. "That head of his is solid bone. Hewould think his foot hurt if he had the toothache."
"What a filthy, yellow, toothless, wicked old devil it is!" Jack wenton. "Some day when he comes here with that basket of rats I'm going tocut his pigtail off close behind his ears."
"I think he's the foulest old geezer I've ever met," Frank went on. "IfI had a dog with a mug like that I'd hire him out to the man whomanufactures nightmares."
The Chinaman stood looking stupidly about for a minute before placinghis basket on the floor, then dropped it with a jar which rattled thefew dishes within and scuffled out of the door. Jimmie followed to seethat he did not loiter around the house listening, and came back with amischievous grin on his face.
Long before the appearance of the Chinaman the boys had planned to usesuch uncomplimentary language in his presence as would be likely toexcite his anger, if he understood what was being said. They did notbelieve he was as ignorant of the English language as he pretended tobe.
"Well," Jimmie asked, of Ned, "did he tumble? What did you see?"
"I saw as evil a look as ever burned out of a human eye," Ned replied."Looked to me like he would enjoy feeding Jack and Frank to the rats."
"Then he understood, all right?"
"Of course he did," Jack, answered. "I could see that with one eye.He's been coming here with his grub for four days, and picking up a wordhere and there every time. We ought to have had sense enough to havebeen on guard against such treachery."
"What's the answer now?" asked Jimmie, turning to Ned.
"I'm afraid we're in a bad predicament," Ned replied. "This shows menew light. The messenger we are expecting should have been here longago, and I'm now sure that we've just got to do something. I'm gettingafraid to eat the food they bring us, and I lie awake at night,listening for hostile footsteps."
"That sounds a little more like Manhattan!" Jack cried. "Sounds likeaction! We're off in a heathen land, surrounded by enemies, and notlikely to get anything like a fighting chance, but I'm for doingsomething right now. I'm not going to lie still here and be poisoned,like a rat in a sewer!"
"I'm for going on to Peking," Frank said. "We can report to theAmerican ambassador there, and, at least, get something to eat besidesrat pie and something better than a bare floor to sleep on. If we onlyhad the Black Bear, the motor boat we cruised with on the Columbiariver, we wouldn't be long on the way."
"Huh!" Jimmie observed, taking out a minute memorandum book, "it isseventy miles by the river from Taku to Tientsin, and only twenty-sevenby the road."
"And how far to Peking by the road?" asked Jack.
"It is seventy-nine Miles from Tientsin to Peking," was the reply, "andthe roads ought to be good."
"That's more than can be said of the natives!" Jack said.
"The allied armies marched over the road to Peking in 1900," Frankexplained, "and I rather think the inhabitants of strip of country havea wholesome respect for foreigners. With our high-power motorcycles,ought to make Peking before daylight, if we start right after dark."
"And don't run across any cutthroats on the way," added Jimmie.
"Let's see," grinned Frank, "we were to have a flying squadron ofmarines with us? What? I reckon they're flying so high that they areout of sight!"
"Suppose we see if the horses are in good shape," Ned said, going to anadjoining apartment.
He made his appearance again in a minute trundling a magnificentmotorcycle. It was been built expressly for army use, with a long,powerful stroke 10 h. p. motor. It was as indestructible and as automachine as could well be designed. With a perfect muffler, automaticcarburetor and lubrication, it was a machine to cover miles silently andwith little danger of delay.
The open door behind Ned revealed three machines arranged along thewall, and the boys rushed to the examination of them. In second allwere in the room, bending over their steel pets.
"Say!" Jimmie cried, presently, "we'll get Peking to-night--not! Thismachine has been tampered with, and some parts are missing."
"Yes, I reckon the Yellow Peril is on deck!" said Frank.