Boy Scouts on Motorcycles | Page 2

the work he was to do.
He had been requested by the Secret Service man who had engaged
him for the duty to wait for instructions at the old house on the water
front which, in company with Frank, Jack, and Jimmie, he now
occupied. The house was old and dilapidated, seemingly having been
unoccupied for years, so the lads were really "camping out" there.
Their provisions were brought to them regularly by a Chinaman who
did not seem to understand a word of English, and, as the boys
knowledge of the Chinese tongue was exceedingly limited, no
information had been gained from him. The Secret Service man had not
appeared, and Ned was becoming uneasy, especially as the curiosity of
his neighbors was becoming annoying.
"I guess this is a stall," Jimmie grumbled, as Ned arose and stood at his
side. "You know how the Moores, father an' son, tried to get us on the
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' the attention of the
European population."
Ned laughed at the boy's fears. He had no doubt that the man who had
promised to meet him there had been delayed in some unaccountable
manner, and that the information he was awaiting would be supplied
before 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 this

window. 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 and
report to the American legation. I'm like Jimmie. I don't fancy this long
wait here--not a little bit!"
"As I have told you before," Ned replied, "I don't know the first thing
about the work cut out for us by the United States Secret Service
people. There was some talk about following a brace of conspirators to
Peking, the conspirators who tried to discredit the United States in the
matter of the gold shipment but that was only incidental, and I was
ordered 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 to know how
much longer we have to remain here, and just what we are to do when
we get to Peking, if we ever do."
"Of course we'll stick!" Jimmie exclaimed. "All I'm kickin' on is the
delay. We might have remained on board the submarine, where we had
cozy quarters an' somethin' to eat besides this Chink stuff."
"Whenever you want to bump Jimmie good and plenty," laughed Jack,
"all you need to do is to tamper with his rations. What's the matter with
this rice, kid, and this meat pie?" he added, as the man who had served
their food since their occupancy of the old house approached with a
large, 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 Chinese
concoctions 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 hear the rats
squeal nights when I'm tryin' to sleep an' can't."

"Say, Chink," Jack said, seizing the Chinaman by the shoulder and
facing him about so that a good look into his slanty eyes might be had,
"what do you know about this chuck?"
"No chuck! Pie!"
"Of course it's pie!" answered Jack. "It would be pie if it was made of
old shoes, if it had a crust on. What I want to know is, where did you
catch him, and who pays you to bring it to us, and who pays him to pay
you to feed it to us? Where does he live, and is he black, white, or red?
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 across
his 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 you
know what we were saying when you came in here."
"Let him alone," Frank advised. "That head of his is solid bone. He
would