Boy Scouts in the Philippines
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G. Harvey Ralphson >> Boy Scouts in the Philippines
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11 Boy Scouts in the Philippines
Or
The Key to the Treaty Box
By Scout Master G. Harvey Ralphson
Author of "Boy Scouts in Mexico; or On Guard with Uncle Sam." "Boy
Scouts In the Canal Zone; or The Plot Against Uncle Sam." "Boy Scouts in
the Northwest; or Fighting Forest Fires."
Copyright 1911.
M. A. Donohue & Company.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Eleotrotyped, Printed and Bound by M. A. Donohue & Co.
[Illustration: Boy Scouts in the Philippines; or The Key to the Treaty
Box.]
CONTENTS
I. Black Bears and Wolves
II. It's Up to the Boy Scouts
III. The Midnight Visitor
IV. The Signals in Grass
V. On the Rim of the China Sea
VI. The Low Call of a Wolf
VII. A Missing Motor Boat
VIII. Wigwags from the Beach
IX. Two Keys to the Treaty Box
X. A Hot Night in Yokohama
XI. A Fairy History of Japan
XII. Pat Takes a Big Chance
XIII. Of the Wild Cat Patrol, Manila
XIV. The Senator's Son Seeks a Key
XV. Signal Lights in the China Sea
XVI. For Piracy on the High Seas
XVII. The Flare of a Rocket
XVIII. The Man Behind the Door
XIX. Boy Scouts Unearth Plot
Boy Scouts in the Philippines
OR
The Key to the Treaty Box
CHAPTER I.
BLACK BEARS AND WOLVES.
"Wake up--wake up--wake up!"
Frank Shaw, passenger on the United States army transport _Union_, San
Francisco to the Philippines, awoke in his cabin to find the freckled
face of Jimmie McGraw grinning above him.
"What's the use?" he demanded, sleepily and impatiently. "It will be
only another roasting day on a hot deck on an ocean fit to stew fish in.
What's the use of getting up? I'm going to sleep again."
Frank's intentions were all right, but he did not go to sleep again. As
he turned over and closed his eyes, Jimmie seized him deftly by the
shoulders and dumped him out on the scarlet rug which covered the floor
of the stateroom.
Frank was seventeen and Jimmie was younger, and so there was a mixture
of legs and arms and vocabulary for a moment, at the end of which Jimmie
broke away and made for the door, which he had thoughtfully left open as
a means of retreat.
Left thus alone on the tumbled blankets of the bunk from which he had
been hustled, Frank rubbed his eyes, threw a pillow at his tormentor,
and began making his way toward his cozy nest, much to Jimmie's disgust.
"Aw, come on!" the boy urged, still standing in a safe place by the
doorway. "It's hot enough to melt brass in here, an' the siren's been
shoutin' for half an hour! That means land--the Philippines! Perhaps you
think you're lookin' for Battery Park, in little old New York! Get up
an' look out of the port, over the rollin' sea, to the land of the
little brown men!"
Looking through the doorway, over the boy's shoulders, Frank smiled
serenely at what he saw and sat waiting for something to happen. Then
Jimmie was propelled headlong into the room, where he landed squarely on
top of the drowsy boy he had dragged out of bed. There was another
scramble for points, and then two boys of about seventeen showed their
faces in the doorway, laughing at the mix-up on the floor.
The transport's siren broke out again in its long, shrill greeting of
the land which lay above the rim of the sea, and Frank, catapulting
Jimmie against the wall at the back of the bunk, hastened to the open
port and looked out.
The boys who had entered the cabin so unceremoniously were Ned Nestor
and Jack Bosworth, who were traveling with Frank and Jimmie to the
Philippines, the party being under the direction of Major John Ross, of
the United States Secret Service.
They had left Panama about the middle of April, and it was now not far
from the first of June, the transport having been delayed for a week at
Honolulu, where she had put in for supplies. The boys had enjoyed the
trip hugely, but were, nevertheless, not displeased at the sight of
land.
Leave it to the lads themselves, and this was a Boy Scout expedition,
although there was a serious purpose behind it. Ned Nestor and Jimmie
McGraw were members of the Wolf Patrol, Ned being the Patrol Leader,
while Frank Shaw and Jack Bosworth were members of the famous Black Bear
Patrol, both of the city of New York.
Those who have read the first two books of this series[1] will readily
understand the object of this journey to the Philippines, but for the
information of those who have not read the books it may be well to state
here that while in Mexico and the Canal Zone Ned Nestor had been able to
render valuable services to the United States government.
[Footnote 1: Boy Scouts In Mexico; or, On Guard with Uncle Sam. Boy
Scouts in the Canal Zone; or, The Plot Against Uncle Sam.]
At the close of his work in the Secret Service department of the Canal
Zone government, he had been invited to accompany Major Ross to the
Philippines for the purpose of assisting in the uncovering of an alleged
treasonable plot against the peace of the Islands and the continued
supremacy of the United States Government there.
Knowing little of what there was to be done, or of what was expected of
him, Ned had accepted the invitation to enter the Secret Service,
stipulating only that his chums should be permitted to accompany him to
Uncle Sam's new and somewhat unruly possessions in Asia.
"I won't go if we can't make a Boy Scout outing of it," he had insisted.
"I shall be glad to be of service to the government, but I want the boys
to have a jolly time, too. There must be plenty of opportunities for
adventure in the Philippines," he had added, thinking of the many odd
customs of the tribes of natives on the twelve hundred islands that
constitute the group.
"I shall be only too glad to have your friends go," the Major had
replied, "for I understand that they contributed not a little to the
success of your efforts in Mexico and the Canal Zone."
"I couldn't have done a thing without them," had been Ned's generous
reply, and so it was all arranged.
However, only three of the boys who had accompanied Ned from New York to
the Canal Zone had been at liberty to go to the Philippines, the others
reluctantly turning back home. The three to go were now assembled in the
cabin occupied by Frank Shaw, looking out to the dim line of land.
Frank Shaw was the son of the owner and editor of an influential daily
newspaper in New York, Jack Bosworth was the son of a wealthy board of
trade man, and Jimmie McGraw was a Bowery newsboy who had attached
himself to Ned Nestor, his patrol leader, just before the visit to
Mexico and had clung to him like a puppy to a root, as the saying is,
ever since.
"Come on, boys," Ned said, after an inspection of the ocean through the
port, "let's go on deck. We can see the whole show from there."
The boys trooped up to the rail and were soon joined by Major Ross. It
was now a little after dawn, and a sunrise breeze was lifting little
ripples on an otherwise motionless sea. Spread out, a couple of miles
away, was the outline of shore the siren was greeting.
It was a low coast, stretching away to right and left until lost in the
mists of the morning. It looked monotonous and furry with forests,
deserted and still, but in time the presence of man became observable.
A river wound down out of the trees and broke over a bar set against its
mouth in the sea. On the right bank of the stream a tin roof glistened
in the early sunlight. Wherever there is a tin roof there is
civilization in some degree, though this seemed to be a sleepy one.
Presently the call of the siren brought forth a boat, not in the little
bay, but up the river a few hundred yards. It moved down to the
coastline with only the canopy, which was of faded scarlet cloth, and
the heads of the rowers in view above the tops of the bushes and
creepers which lined the stream.
The land smoked under the rising temperature brought on by the climbing
sun, and Jimmie chuckled as he nudged Frank's arm.
"I see your finish there," he said. "A boy as fat as you are will melt
over there. There's nothin' left of the brown men in the boat but their
heads!"
Frank looked along the bow-shaped shore, over the palms, now touched
with the red light of a hot morning, and wiped his streaming forehead.
"This doesn't look good to me!" he said. "I thought we were going to
Manila!"
"Didn't Ned tell you about it?" asked Jack Bosworth.
"Not a word."
"Well, we're going to disembark here; I don't know the name of the
place, or even if it has one, and make our way among some of these
islands in a motor boat. There are a lot of secret service men at Manila
who don't want to mix with us kids!"
"That's nice!" Jimmie cried. "We won't do a thing to 'em! We'll put it
over 'em good, you see if we don't! I reckon Ned Nestor can give any of
'em half a string an' win out, at that!"
"Of course he can," Jack replied, "but I'm not kicking at this way of
doing things. I'm thinking of the motor boat, and the long days and
moony nights in the seas among these islands!"
"It will be great!" Jimmie admitted.
There was a short pause, and then he added, thoughtfully:
"Who's goin' to run the boat?"
"I can run it," was the reply.
"Yes, you can!"
"I own one," insisted Jack.
"Yes, an' you hire a man to run it!" Jimmie grinned. "I don't believe
you can run a hand cultivator!"
"Of course not!" laughed Jack. "But I can operate a motor boat," he
added.
"You can?" demanded Jimmie, with an exasperating grin. "Then perhaps you
can tell me if the motor boat we're goin' to have has pneumatic brakes?"
"Sure it has!" laughed Jack. "And it also has a rudder that you can
unship and use as a safety razor. You might open up a barber shop with
it, only the eminent citizens over here don't have any more whiskers
than a squash."
"You're gettin' dippy!" Jimmie shouted, darting away to the spot where
Ned and the Major were standing.
Directly a flag broke out over the tin roof and in a short time the boat
was at the transport's side. Full of enthusiasm, and with high hopes for
the immediate future, the boys and the Major descended to the shaky
little craft and the transport steamed off, her rails lined with
soldiers and civilians cheering the boys and wishing them good luck.
The last voice they heard as the boat crossed the bar and swung into the
sluggish current of the river was that of Captain Helmer, who had made
chums and companions of the boys on the way over.
"Good hunting!" he cried, through his megaphone, and the marine band
struck up "Home, Sweet Home," "just to give us a cheerful mood on
entering this desolate land!" as Major Ross declared.
"Do they all think we're goin' huntin'?" asked Jimmie, as the windrows
of salt water heaped up by the transport grew smaller and lapped on the
beach.
"Sure they do," replied Jack. "Do you think the Major told them we were
going into the jungles to catch a few recruits for the federal prison at
Manila? Nice thing, that would be!"
"There are just two persons, so far as I know, outside of the Secret
Service headquarters at Washington, who know what we are up to," Major
Ross said. "These are Colonel Hill, of the Canal Zone force, and Captain
Godwin, who is to receive us here."
The brown oarsmen tugged and strained at the oars, and the waters of the
river came up to the rim of the native boat and crept in and spread
themselves over the rotten floor. The boys were all glad when the prow
touched the little dock at the lone pueblo where Uncle Sam's flag
snapped in a breeze which was coming over the trees, bringing with it a
musty smell of decaying undergrowth.
Captain Godwin met them at the landing with great hand outstretched. He
was a stout, brown-faced man of fifty, with muscles like iron and a mind
all stuffed and tucked in with the glory of the United States. He was
proud of the service he had passed the greater part of his life in, and
was proud of the record for efficiency he had made. A kindly, bluff,
seasoned old man of war, with soft blue eyes and a hard hand.
"I should have sent the _Manhattan_ after you," he said, after
introductions had been made, "only there's something the matter with her
batteries."
"You bet there is!" laughed Jimmie. "The only battery that never gets
under foot or loses a shoe is at the foot of Broadway, in little old New
York!"
"Hardly at the foot of Broadway," Jack began, but Jimmie interrupted.
"Never mind," he said, "if we know where it is! You go an' fix up this
motor boat of the name of _Manhattan_, an' we'll have a ride."
"The boat will be ready by to-morrow morning," the Captain said, smiling
at the friendly arguments of the two boys. "I presume you have your
instructions?" he added.
"I have them here," Major Ross said, rather sternly, as he took a sealed
packet from his pocket.
"When and where are you to open that packet?" asked the Captain.
"On my arrival at this place," was the dignified reply.
The Major seemed to be 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
was only one room in the hut, but there were two alcoves opening from
it--narrow little alcoves in which, evidently, bedding and articles not
wanted for immediate use were tucked away during the day.
As the Captain had stated, the apartment was in disorder. The mosquito
wiring had been torn from the three windows and the door and now lay in
a tangle on the floor. Bamboo chairs had been broken, and there was a
faint odor of whisky in the room. Major Ross glanced casually over the
interior and turned away.
"I can't stop here now," he said impatiently. "I've got to write a
report of this happening and get it to Manila. I suppose I can depend on
one of your men to deliver a letter for me?" he added, turning to
Captain Godwin.
"Yes, but it will mean a great delay," replied Godwin. "It will take at
least a week for a man in a swift canoe to go to Manila and return
here."
"It is unfortunate," grumbled the Major, "but I must, I suppose, endure
the delay. Unless," he continued, a sudden smile coming to his face as
he thought of the cozy club-life he had formerly enjoyed at Manila,
"unless I go with the messenger and receive my instructions verbally."
"And in the meantime--"
Captain Godwin was about to protest against being left alone there under
such tragic circumstances, but Ned caught his eyes and stopped him. He
had no idea what the boy had in mind in checking his expression of
regret at the proposed departure of the Major, but he liked the
appearance of the lad and closed his teeth on the words he was about to
say.
"And in the meantime," he repeated, "we can look about for some traces
of the missing man," the Captain completed the sentence.
"Exactly," replied the Major. "I regret exceedingly the peril of the
situation so far as Lieutenant Rowe and his companions are concerned,
and sincerely hope that they are all alive and not in serious trouble,
but it appears to me that my place is at Manila at this time, and not
here. We must start in on this remarkable case right, and I must confer
with my superior officers."
"We can put in the time very well, looking up clues in the vicinity,"
said Ned. He wanted to handle the matter in his own way, knowing that
while Major Ross might be an expert in military matters, he did not
possess a particle of the detective instinct so necessary at that time.
"Yes," the Major replied, with his mind fixed on a few days of lazy
routine at Manila, with all the comforts of civilization within reach of
his hand, "yes, you may be able to accomplish a great deal in the way of
discovering clues, and may even be able to locate the missing men--I
have no idea that they have been murdered, but understand this: You are
not to take any important action without consulting with me."
"Of course not," Ned replied, chuckling in his sleeves at the thought of
waiting in an emergency for instructions from Manila. "I hope we shall
be able to report good progress upon your return. Shall you go in the
launch?" he added, hoping with all his strength that the officer would
not take the motor boat with him.
"Certainly," was the quick reply. "I must make progress, you know!"
Jimmie and Jack, who had followed their chum to the nipa hut, now
entered and stood by the door. Ned saw them winking knowingly at each
other when the Major spoke of going away in the motor boat, and decided
to prod their inclinations a bit.
"I shall be sorry to have the _Manhattan_ away just now," he said, "for
we might use her to good advantage during your absence. However, there
seems to be no other way."
Jimmie and Jack slid out of the doorway and down the oscillating bamboo
stairs, and when, an hour later, the Major went to the little dock where
the _Manhattan_ lay he found the two boys working over her, sweating and
complaining in loud voices against the inefficiency of modern motor boat
manufacturers. The Major went on with his preparations for departure,
never doubting that the _Manhattan_ would be ready for him in a few
minutes. At last Jimmie turned an oil-smeared face toward Ned.
"No use," he exclaimed, "she won't go! The batteries are off and there's
something wrong with the carbureter, and the spark-plug is twisted, and
the delivery is all to the bad. Perhaps Major Ross can bring new parts
down from Manila."
"Shut up, you dunce!" whispered Jack. "You'll give yourself away!"
Captain Godwin nudged Ned with an elbow and turned his laughing eyes
away. He saw what the boys were doing, and rather approved of the idea
of journeys among the islands in the motor boat during the Major's
absence.
"Preposterous!" shouted the Major. "You must get the boat in shape to
make the voyage to Manila! My mission will not endure delay. Captain
Godwin, see what you can do with the boat."
Captain Godwin knew about as much of the running gear of a motor boat as
did Jimmie, but he at once oiled up his hands and his face and tugged
and pulled at the wheel, tapped on the supply pipes, investigated the
electric appliance, and finally announced that the boat was not in
running order.
The Major blustered about for a few moments and then set forth on his
mission in the canoe in which the party had landed.
"Perhaps," he said, at parting, "I may be able to catch a ship at
Banglo, or whatever the name of that little pueblo is on the island to
the west. In that case I shall return inside of ten days."
And so the Major went away, urging the rowers to greater exertions and
wiping his red face with a red handkerchief. Then a strange thing
happened. Jack drove Jimmie away from the _Manhattan_, asked Captain
Godwin to bring him a wrench, and in ten minutes, or as soon as the
canoe bearing the disgusted Major was conveniently around a bend, the
boat was sailing about on the river like a bird in the sky.
Captain Godwin started to censure the boys for the deception they had
practiced on the Major, but his severe words ended in a laugh.
"You helped!" Jimmie said, accusingly. "You knew what was up! Why didn't
you tell him?"
"We'll discuss that later," was the smiling reply.
"Anyway," Jimmie said, "we're rid of the old bluffer, and may be able to
do somethin', if he stays away long enough."
"You came near spoiling the whole thing," declared Jack, grinning at
Jimmie. "You and your talk about twisted spark-plugs! You'd have been
finding worn places in the spark next! You know about as much of a motor
boat as a pig knows of the hobble skirt. Good thing the Major knows less
about a boat than you do!"
"Why didn't he use the wire, instead of going off on that long journey?"
asked Jimmie.
"The government can't lay cables to all these tiny islands," Captain
Godwin replied, "but we are promised a wireless outfit before the season
closes. Now, if you are ready," he added, turning to Ned, "we'll go back
to the hut and make the examination suggested. I'm afraid there was a
tragedy there last night."
"Are any of the people missing from the pueblo?" asked Ned, as the boat
came to the dock and they all stepped ashore.
"Not a man missing," was the reply.
"Have you talked with the man who was sent to the hut to wait on the
Lieutenant and his companions?"
"Only briefly," was the reply, "but he will be at the hut when we get
there. He is rather above the average native in intelligence, and may be
able to throw some light on the mystery."
"Is he dependable?" asked Ned.
"I think so. He has been with me for a long time, ever since I came to
this out-of-the-way jumping-off place."
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