"Ruh!" Jack retorted, annoyed at the tone of superiority adopted by the officer. "I guess we've been doing pretty well, thank you! I reckon you fellows must have followed off a cow path! We've been waiting here for you long enough to walk to Peking on our hands!"
"That's the fact!" the officer replied, speaking in a whisper in the darkness. "We were the first ones to fall into the snares set by the Chinks. Only for Ned, we would still be waiting for you in a house something like this one, in a distant part of the town. How the boy found us I can't make out, but find us he did."
"What are you going to do about that runaway kid?" asked Frank of Ned.
"Shall I go get him?"
It was not necessary for Ned to reply to the question, for at that moment a figure came tumbling through the window and a voice recognized as that of the little fellow cried out:
"Gee!" he said, feeling about in the darkness, "what do you think of my ruinnin' into a sea soldier an' getting chucked through the hole the carpenter left?"
"If you boy will get ready now," a voice said, "we'll be on, our way toward Peking."
"How many of the Chinks did you catch?" asked Ned.
"Not a blooming one," was the disgusted reply. "They ran away like water leaking into the ground."
"If you'd only let me alone," wailed Jimmie, "I'd have got one. I want to soak the man that tied me up."
The marines, a full dozen of them, now gathered in the old house and all made ready for departure. Directly a motorcycle for every man was wheeled up to the door.