Boy Scouts in the Philippines; Or, The Key to the Treaty Box

by G. Harvey Ralphson

He was sure the treaty had not yet been signed, and he could not understand the delay. It did not seem possible that his appearance at the island first chosen for the meeting could have caused so long a wait in the important negotiations. He had suspicions at times that the disappearance from the scene of the men he had followed to Yokohama had had something to do with the delay.

In looking over the results of the trip to the Japanese city, Ned was fairly well satisfied with them. He believed that he had caught a glimpse of the man who was at the head of the plot against the United States. When he considered that the sailor who had complained so bitterly of the manner in which he had been treated had been murdered in his room while the suspect sat below in disguise, he did not doubt that the crime had been committed by paid assassins for the purpose of enforcing secrecy.

On the whole he was well pleased with the progress of the case. He had made his discoveries by deviating from the paths usually followed by investigators, but he believed that he held the right clues in his hands. It remained for him now to find the island where the treaty was to be signed and await developments.

It was sure that if the king-pins of the conspiracy could be captured the whole fabric would fall to the ground. He believed that large sums of money were being used, though he could not tell where the cash was coming from. Sometimes he thought commercial interests guilty of the reckless thing that was being done. Sometimes he thought the plot original with the foxy prime minister of some nation looking for additional possessions in the Orient.

At Manila he had learned that Lieutenant Rowe had been restored to liberty, badly wounded, but in a fair way to recover. The Lieutenant, however could do little to assist the investigation, as he had learned little during his captivity, had not been permitted to see the leading spirits. As Ned had believed from the first, the men who attacked him were not inclined to do murder unnecessarily. All they sought was the sealed orders carried by the officer and the man who had followed on after him and entered unceremoniously through the window.

One thing Ned could not understand was the matter of the despatches handed the Lieutenant by the man who had entered the nipa hut in so strange a manner, shortly after midnight on the night of the attack. These instructions, according to reports, countermanded the ones Lieutenant Rowe had received in person at Manila, and would have turned him back without conferring with Major Ross or the lads he had with him.

The fourth man had declared, when seen by by Ned at Manila, that he had managed to follow on the heels of the Lieutenant with the supplemental instructions, and had reached the island at midnight. He said that he had entered by way of the window because the front of the house seemed to be watched with hostile intent, and because there was a ladder there ready to his hand.

This story seemed a little fishy to Ned, but he had no means of proving that the man was not telling the truth. The fellow certainly had been given despatches to deliver to Lieutenant Rowe, with orders to follow him and place them in his hands personally. But the instructions received by the Lieutenant were not, it was asserted, the ones sent to him.

The supplemental instructions would have taken him back to Manila at once, as has been said, without conferring with Major Ross and the assistants he had brought with him. It was insisted at the military office that the instructions sent out had increased rather than diminished the Lieutenant's authority to act.

One of two things seemed to be true. Either there was a traitor in the office, or the instructions had been changed. The envelope might have been shifted after reaching the man's hands or he might have substituted the counterfeit ones for the original ones. In this latter case the messenger was himself a traitor, and would bear watching.