"What did you go an' sit down there an' wait for?" asked Jimmie. "Why didn't you get a move on?"
"They did the very thing they should have done," Ned remarked. "If they had tried to fight their way out they might have been killed,' as there was, I am told, a strong guard here at daybreak."
"But how did you get here?" asked Frank.
"When we got out of the old temple," Ned replied, "we had no motorcycles to go on with, so we came back to hunt up more. There was little use in going on by any way other than the one mapped out for us.
"The scamp we almost captured had been kind enough to tell us that you boys were in trouble and perhaps that had something to do with our coming back."
"But how did you get here?"
"Easy," laughed Ned. "We knew that you boys had been captured, and it was easy to see who had had a hand in it. The people at the telegraph office would know more about the matter than any one else.
"So we went to the American consulate and got into these disguises. The consul says he never saw anything smoother, though he must be prejudiced in our favor, for he helped get up the disguises himself.
"Then we went to the vicinity of the telegraph office and waited. In a moment we saw that something unusual was going on. Directly a messenger started off in this direction and we followed him. I knew then, as well as I know it now, that you boys had been detained in the hope of keeping us all out of Peking, so I bought some strong opium on the way and doped the pipes of the guards after I mixed with them."
"How could you mix with them?" asked Jack. "You know about as much
Chinese as a robin."