Boy Scouts on Motorcycles | Page 8

cages! If they get out, they'll eat you up!"
"Oh! I'll pull their fangs!" laughed the other, and then he was gone.
"This China seems to be a nice country," Jimmie said, turning to Ned. "Some people would break our crusts in instead of tyin' us up."
"I rather think," Ned replied, "that they have planned to do that a little later on. We ought never to have taken such chances."
"You can't have a chicken pie," grinned Jimmie, "unless some one kills a chicken! No more can you find out what's goin' on by sittin' down in an old house an' waitin' for someone to bring you the news in a New York newspaper! We had to keep cases on this chap, didn't we?"
"I think you would talk slang if you were drowning," Ned smiled. "Anyway," he added, "we've caused Rae, if that is his name, to show his hand. That is something."
"If we never get away," laughed Jimmie, "we can leave the information to our friends in a will! I wonder if this gazabo will get Frank and Jack?"
"Possibly," Ned answered.
"They seem to be puttin' most all the Americans in China out of circulation!" said the little fellow. "Wonder if that old gear-face thinks he can guard us an' sleep, too? Say, you watch your chance, Ned, an' I'll roll over and geezle him an' you get out of the house. Roll out, tumble out, any way to get out! There," with a sigh of disappointment, "there's another Chink in the game. Listen to what they are saying!"
CHAPTER IV
TWO BLACK BEARS IN TROUBLE
Jack and Frank sat long by the window, waiting for Ned and Jimmie to return. The doors of the adjoining rooms were wide open, so they had a full view of the lower floor.
There were windows, unglazed like that which looked out on the Gulf of Pechili, too, and the lads could see for some distance along the street which ran parallel with the one upon which the miserable old structure faced.
Presently a mist crept over the sky, and black clouds rolled in from the threatening canopy over the gulf. There was evidently a storm brewing, and, besides, the night was coming on.
In spite of the fact that they had a good view all about them, so far as the house and its immediate vicinity was concerned, both boys felt that almost indescribable sensation which one experiences when being observed from behind by keen and magnetic eyes. They were not exactly afraid, but they had premonitions of approaching trouble.
"I wonder what's keeping Ned?" Jack asked. "Hope he hasn't gotten into trouble."
"Oh, he'll look out for that!"
"Of course! Ned's no slouch!"
While the boys cheered themselves with such remarks as these, the rooms grew darker and the black clouds from off the gulf dropped nearer.
"What an ungodly country!" Jack exclaimed. "I feel as if I were surrounded by snakes, and all kinds of reptiles. How would you like to take a New York special, just now?"
"I'm not yet seared of the job we are on," Frank replied, "but I'd like a half decent show of getting out alive. I feel like we were in a hole in the ground, with all manner of creeping things about us. The very air seems to be impregnated with treachery and cunning."
"That's the breath of the Orient," smiled Jack, not inclined to continue in the vein in which the conversation had started.
"I don't know why the breath of the Orient should differ from the breath of the Occident," replied Frank, well pleased at the change of subject. "It wouldn't, if the natives of the far East would put bathtubs in their houses and garbage cans on the street comers."
"Well, there certainly is an odor about the East," grinned Jack. "Perhaps it is the hot weather."
"Hot weather has nothing to do with the sanitary conditions of this part of the world," Frank went on. "Peking is in the latitude of Philadelphia, or New York. You wouldn't think so to hear people talk about the Orient back home, but you'll change your mind if you don't get out of this before winter sets in."
"Somehow I never associated cold weather with the East," Jack said.
"Why," Frank continued, "this river freezes over about the middle of December and they run sledges on the ice until the middle of March. In summer it is often 106 above zero, while in the winter it drops to about 6 degrees below. If the natives were half civilized, you might get the idea that you were in Ohio, because of the fields of corn."
"We don't know much about China, do we?" mused Jack.
This was Frank's opportunity. Before reaching the coast he had spent many hours studying up on the history of the strange land he was about to visit. His father was owner and