"Two years. There's really nothing to do, but Uncle Sam thinks he needs a man in charge here, and pays pretty well, and so I've remained. It is a dull life, and I'm not certain that I don't enjoy this little excitement."

"Unless I am mistaken," Ned smiled, "it will not be so dull here in the future. I see trouble for the whole group."

"About a thousand of these brown leaders will have to be killed off before there will be any security of life or property here," said the Captain. "The natives would behave themselves if let alone."

"Now," Ned said, "you have been insisting all along that Lieutenant Rowe voluntarily left the island. Let us see about that."

"I never said he left the island. He may be here still, plotting with the natives, for all I know."

"You are mistaken there. Whether voluntarily or not, his party left the island 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? That would have been the most comfortable mode of leaving the place."

"Because, as has been said, the man who was sent to seize the motor boat could 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 to use it."

"Originally that might have been the reason," laughed the Captain, "but I have an idea that the boys--"

"Never mind that!" Ned said. "We are not supposed to know anything about it. 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 away in it?"

"Oh, all right! Have your own way about it!" smiled the Captain. "Let us suppose, solely for the sake of argument, that the Lieutenant was taken prisoner and went away against his will. Does that prove that he was taken from the island?"

"I was coming to that point," Ned replied.

He then called the attention of the Captain to the food tins which lay scattered about.

"These tins," he said, "have been opened within a few hours, which shows that the intruders rested and waited here and ate their suppers, perhaps their early breakfasts also. There were several of them, as you will see by the number of tins opened. The party embarked here. You can see where the nose of the canoe struck the mud."

"I reckon, as I remarked before," the Captain said, "that you don't need any instructions as to the use of your eyes! And the gray matter back of them seems to know what to do with the material unloaded on it! What next?"

"About the Lieutenant going away voluntarily," Ned went on. "Now step down here to the river bank. You notice the footprints in the mud, close to the water's edge?"

"Yes; they are plain enough."

"And some are heavy and some are light. See that? Some are faint impressions 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 foot wobbled in the track."

"There must have been a fat man who was unsteady on his feet," observed the 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 a staggering 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 tracks carried 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 the Lieutenant himself," said the Captain, his face alive with interest.

"It was a wounded man, all right," Ned replied, "but we have no means of knowing whether it was the Lieutenant. See, there are drops of blood close to the margin of the river!"

"You're a genius!" roared the Captain.

"Just observation," Ned said modestly. "There is nothing unusual about the faculty of seeing things. We all draw the same conclusions after the facts 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 shots fired. As there would have been no fight if the Lieutenant had been in the game, as you express it, the inference is that he was taken prisoner."

"Granted--for the sake of argument!"

"Now," Ned continued, "you have seen Indian service, I understand, so you will no doubt recognize these signs in gra.s.s. Read them!"

"Sure I can read them," exclaimed the Captain, "but I never would have discovered them. Indian signals in gra.s.s, eh? Now, who do you think put them there?"

At the edge of the thicket were two bunches of gra.s.s, each tied tightly at a point near the top. On one the gra.s.s stood straight up beyond the band. On the other the top was bent toward the river.

"'Here is the trail,'" Captain G.o.dwin read, pointing to the first one, "and the trail leads this way," he added, pointing to the other. "They left by the river!"

"There is one more," Ned said. "Read this," pointing to three bunches of gra.s.s, each tied near the top and standing in a row.

"That is a warning. It says, 'Be careful,'" read the other. "What does it mean?"

"Just what it says. It also means that there is a Boy Scout with the party!"

CHAPTER V.

ON THE RIM OF THE CHINA SEA.

The rain fell heavily, persistently, provokingly. Now and then came a crash of thunder which seemed to shake the earth; vivid lightning cut zigzags in the murky sky. The little islands of the Babuyan group in the Balintang channel seemed to rock in the arms of the storm.

The motor boat _Manhattan_ lay tossing and drawing at her anchor in an obscure bay of tiny dimensions on the west coast of a small island which is a member of the Babuyan group and faces the China Sea. Ned, Frank, Jack and Jimmie sat sweating in the little cabin, which was in the back of the boat, the engine being located toward the center. The day was dark because of the clouds and the downpour of the rain, and the heavy foliage of the trees which came down to the very lip of the bay made it dim in the little cabin, but there was no artificial light.

The boys were waiting for the storm to subside. They knew the moods of the weather man of the Philippines well enough to understand that the rain was likely to continue for several days, it being the opening of the rainy season, but they preferred not to face the initial tempest. In a few hours comparative quiet would come, and there would be only the steady fall of rain.

Since leaving the little island where the transport had landed them, they had visited three little dots of land in the channel, and on each one they had found signals in gra.s.s pointing to the north and west.

"That Boy Scout, whoever he is," Jimmie said, as they discussed the signals in the almost stifling atmosphere of the cabin, "is strictly next to his job! He's showing the way, all right!"

"I'll bet you a can of corn against a bite of canned pie that he's from New York," Jack Bosworth observed.

"Speaking of pie," Frank cut in, "there's a little restaurant on Beekman street where they serve hot pies at noon for a dime. You go in there at twelve and get a peach pie, and an apple pie, and a berry pie, hot out of the oven, and buy a piece of cheese, and go back to the office and consume your frugal repast. What?"

"If you talk about hot pie here," Jack said, threateningly, "I'll tip you out of the boat. Pie! When I go back to little old New York I'm going to have mother meet me at the pier with a pie under each arm!"

"I won't take your bet, Jack," Jimmie said. "I'd lose. I know he's from New York, an' he belongs to the Wolf Patrol."