Boy Scouts in the Philippines | Page 4

of opinion that the Captain was stepping on his official rights.
"Then we'll go up to the house and you look them over while I see what can be found to celebrate this auspicious event! I don't often have the pleasure of meeting four happy, husky, hungry boys fresh from the United States!"
"You're the goods, all right!" shouted Jimmie. "But how did you guess we were hungry?"
Captain Godwin laughed and clapped both his broad palms on his knees.
"How did I know?" he roared. "That's a good one! As if the boys weren't always as hungry as black bears!"
"There are two Black Bears in the party!" Jimmie said.
"And two Wolves!" Jack added.
Captain Godwin looked from face to face in smiling wonder, and the boys thrust all kinds of Boy Scout signs and words at him.
"I see," the Captain said, then. "I've heard of the Boy Scouts! And now we'll go up to the house. Never saw a Black Bear or a Wolf that wasn't hungry!"
The jolly Captain gave instructions to his servants and they promised, with many native grimaces and a waste of tribal vocabulary, to have a satisfying breakfast ready in half an hour. Then Godwin drew Major Ross and Ned to one side, his good-natured face assuming a grave expression as he seated them in a private room of the rambling and wobbly old house.
"There's something unexpected here," he began, as the Major sat with his sealed instructions in hand, "and I wish you would open your packet immediately. To tell you the truth, I'm not a little worried."
The Major opened the packet and glanced hastily through several typed sheets. Then his keen eyes grew puzzled and he arose to his feet and looked out of the window.
"Something here I don't understand," he said. "Where's this Lieutenant Rowe?"
"You are to confer with him here?" asked the Captain, and Major Ross nodded assent. "Do you know what information he possesses?" continued the Captain, "what papers he has in his possession?"
"My instructions say he has important documents."
"Well," said the Captain, arising to his feet, "now I'll take you to the place where I last saw Lieutenant Rowe. He came here in the launch Manhattan, which you are to have use of, last night, and went to bed without talking much with me. I suspect that he brought the boat from Manila, though I can't be sure. Anyway, he brought with him only two young men who did not seem to know much about the boat--Americans."
"Have you seen him, the Lieutenant, or either of the young men, this morning?" asked the Major, impatiently. "And why do you say you will take us to the place where you saw him last? What is wrong here?"
"I don't know," was the reply. "There are no known hostile elements here, and yet the little nipa hut where Rowe and his men lodged last night was found empty this morning--empty and the contents in disorder, the floor spotted with blood."
CHAPTER II.
IT'S UP TO THE BOY SCOUTS.
"Do you mean that he has been murdered?" asked the Major, his face, flushed before, looking gray and old.
"I don't know," was the reply. "I have tried to look on the bright side of the thing, but there's a subconscious warning in the back of my brain somewhere. I've tried to be jolly, this morning, but I've about reached the end of my store of optimism. It looks to me as if the Lieutenant had been made way with."
"This leaves me stranded," the Major said. "I am ordered to act only after acquiring later information concerning the situation, the same to be delivered by Lieutenant Rowe. In the absence of that information, what am I to do? My present orders may be all wrong."
"Perhaps," Ned suggested, "it may be well to visit this hut and see what we can discover there. The Lieutenant may have gone out for a morning's hunt."
"No such good luck as that," replied the Captain. "Why, the little furniture the hut contains is broken to bits, and the floor is streaked with blood! There was a fight in there last night, depend upon it!"
"And no one heard anything unusual during the night?" asked Ned.
"Not that I know of."
"Are the usual residents of this place, so far as you know, all here this morning?" was the next question.
"I will ascertain that," said the Captain. "I learned of the strange happening only a few minutes before your arrival."
The three left the house, the only one of size there, and proceeded down a mushy street between huts and thickets until they came to a little nipa hut set high on poles. They climbed the bamboo stairs and stood on the swaying porch in front, seeing no one about the place.
The door stood wide open, and Captain Godwin was first to enter. There