"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."