When Ned and Jimmie returned from the stroll they found Frank and Jack waiting for them with anxiety depicted on their faces.

“What have you been doing?” Frank asked.  “I thought you came here to interview the American ambassador.”

“All in good time,” Ned replied, with a smile.  “I want to pick up the American shoe print before I present my letter to the ambassador.”

“Fine show you stand of picking up a shoe print in a crowd like that one out there!” Jack said.  “It’s worse than Coney Island on a midsummer Sunday.”

“Perhaps I didn’t use the right words,” smiled Ned.  “I might have said I was waiting for the American shoe man to pick me up.”

“He’s done that now, all right,” Captain Martin said.  “You had not been out of the house five minutes before the spies were thick as flies in the old Eighth ward.  They are all about us now.  Watch and see if we are ever alone.”

Ned glanced about carelessly and nudged Frank with his elbow.

“That waiter?” he asked.  “How long has he been loitering about the room?”

“Ever since we arrived.  The men who have been entertaining us on the way were evidently waiting for us.”

The boys were not in a private room, but in a public apartment where there were tables and refreshments.

“But that chap belongs here,” Ned replied.

“Well, if you watch him, you will see that he is attending strictly to the wants of this party.  If we call he’ll wait on us.  If any one else calls, another waiter glides over to him.  Nice to be so exclusive, isn’t it?”

“If you are right,” Ned said, “it is time for us to move on.”

“To the embassy?” asked Captain Martin.  “You see,” the Captain went on, “I’m rather anxious to land you boys under the protecting folds of the American flag, for there my responsibility ends.”

“No, not to the embassy,” Ned replied.  “As yet I have nothing of importance to confide to the ambassador.  I can only tell him that we are here, that we had numerous nibbles on the road from Taku, but that all the fish got away.”

“Holy smoke!” exclaimed Jack.  “I hope you don’t think of staying out in the open until you can convey a couple of diplomats to the embassy!  You can’t catch your man single handed.  You’re not in New York now, but in a heathen town, a town where the life of a foreign devil is not worth a grain of rice.”

“Just the same,” Ned replied, “I’m going to stick around this town until I get what I want.”

“In this dump?” asked Jack.

“No; there’s an American hotel up the street—­an American hotel operated by Chinks!  We’ll go there and take rooms and wait for something to turn up.”

So, in spite of the protests of Captain Martin, the change was made, and late that night Ned awoke to find himself sitting up on the edge of his bed, automatic in hand, listening to the steady boring of a tool of some sort around the lock of his door!