“You have that figured out correctly,” Ned cut in.  “If the man we are after had been doing business with the Chinese government, we would have had officers of the law after us at Tientsin and Taku, instead of men who ran when it came daylight.”

“What national seal made that stamp on the wax you have in your pocket, Ned?” Jimmie asked.

Ned made no reply.

“Was the stamp made with the seal you have with you?” was the next question.

Still Ned did not answer.  He was in a quandary.  It did not seem possible that the two nations pointed out by the seal and the wax could be engaged in such dirty business.  He hoped to prove to his own satisfaction that they were not.

“The only way to find out what we want to know,” he said, “is to go on to Peking.”

“Your proof will assist you when you get there?” asked Frank.

“Yes, I’m afraid so,” Ned answered, tentatively.

“I don’t understand that reply,” Frank observed, with a serious face.  “You must have discovered something in this house which is not to your liking.”

“Time will show,” Ned said.

Captain Martin, of the marines, now entered the room where the discussion was going on.  His face was pale, and his eyes showed greater anger than Ned had ever seen reflected there before.

“Just a moment, Ned,” he said, and the two stepped into another room.  The Captain dropped into a chair.

“We have struck the hornet’s nest,” he said.

“Do you hear them buzzing?” asked Ned, with a smile.

“Worse than that,” was the reply.  “I am feeling their stings.  Two of my men have been attacked in the dark.”

“And wounded?”

“Yes; one of them seriously.”

“I’m sorry for the poor fellow,” Ned said.  “Do you think we can get him on to Peking?”

Captain Martin shook his head.

“It is a bad wound,” he said.  “The man was on guard not far from the edge of the grove when a figure loomed up before him.  He challenged and was about to shoot, for no reply came, when he got the knife in his back.  He can’t be moved.”

“The trouble is,” Ned replied, “that we got here too soon.”

“What’s the answer to that?”

“We did not give the plotters time enough to finish their business.  When that old Chink, back there at the gate, signaled to them with his rockets, they cut and ran, leaving important evidence behind them.”

“And you think they will hang about the flying squadron until they recover what they have lost?”

“They certainly will try to recover it.  Now you see the wisdom of the Washington people in sending me to Peking on a motorcycle!  You see that I was right in saying that we were being set up as marks for other nations to shoot at!”

“Yes,” said Martin, “you never could have got to the fellows in the old way.  It was right to plan it so that they would come to you, although it was placing you in great danger.”