"Ask your friend what's wrong with the road beyond Pao-Ting-Fu?"
Jo did as requested, and after a short conversation with the frightened engine-driver reported that two bridges had been destroyed, one at Ting Shing, about half-way between Pao-Ting-Fu and Pekin, and the other at Lu Kow, only a few miles from the capital.
"The first would be enough to stop us," said Rob, gloomily. "What other damage has been done?"
"He says not much, only a rail torn up here and there."
"Well," said Rob, "we might as well play this game for all it is worth; so, suppose we make the operator at the next station telegraph for a car with a dozen or so of rails on it, and a gang of track-layers, to be ready for us at Pao-Ting-Fu. Sign the message with the biggest name you can think of in this part of the country; say it is a matter of life or death to the Emperor himself for this engine to get as near Pekin as possible in the shortest possible time. It will be an awful bluff, of course, but bluffs sometimes work when you least expect them to. At any rate, we won't lose anything by trying. Hello! There's a station now, and a train headed this way on the siding. Lucky for us that it waited here, for there's apt to be trouble when two trains meet on a single track. I hope it doesn't mean, though, that they have heard of our coming. You run in and do your best with the telegraph man, while I stay here and keep this chap from getting busy. Better tell the agent, or whatever you call him, to rush that train out in a hurry, so its hands won't come rubbering round us for news. See if you can't pick up something to eat, too, for I am starving. We'll run up and take in water from that tank while you are gone. I'll make our friend here sabe somehow what I want him to do."
Rob's bluff worked to perfection. The waiting train pulled out the moment they had passed the siding switch, and went on its southward way without carrying a suspicion of anything having gone wrong. Rob got his tank full of water without trouble, and had hardly done so when Jo reappeared, hurrying towards the locomotive. He was followed by a boy bearing a basket full of cooked rice and Chinese cakes. The young officer had ordered the few employés of the station about with such a lordly air that they had obeyed him without question.
"Did they know we were coming?" asked Rob, as the engine again gathered headway.
"Yes," replied Jo. "They had received part of a message, telling them to look out for us. Then it was cut off, and they were a good deal troubled at not hearing a word from the south since."
"Good!" cried Rob. "We cut the wire just in time then."
"Yes. I told them I saw somebody destroying the line, and said I thought he was a Boxer."