Boy Scouts on Motorcycles Part 30

"Where did you get it?" demanded Jack.

"You're scared stiff!" Frank laughed.

"Grab the wounded men an' beat it!" Jimmie repeated. "This ranch will go up in the air in a second!"

"That's cheerful!" Jack cut in, half believing that Jimmie was up to another trick.

Jimmie dashed into the house, seized one of the wounded men by the shoulders and tried to drag him off the improvised bed on which he had been laid.

"All right!" he yelled. "You boys may stay here an' get shot up into blue sky if you want to, but I'm goin' to get these men out."

"Why don't you tell us what the danger is?" demanded Ned, shaking the little fellow by the arm.

"You listen!" Jimmie replied.

There was dead silence for an instant. Then, seemingly from underneath the floor, came a low, sinister hissing sound which every one of the boys recognized.

A great fuse was burning below, and might at any moment reach the explosive to which it was attached. The Chinese tools of the man at the head of the conspiracy were taking desperate chances.

In order to destroy the clues which Ned had found in the house, and also to prevent the boy ever discovering any more, they were taking the long chance of murdering the soldiers of a friendly power and bringing on international complications. Ned was by no means idle while these thoughts were swarming in his brain.

In fact, all the boys sprang to action instantly. Captain Martin was told to order his men farther away from the point of danger. In less time than the result of their activities can be written down the wounded men were lying in the grove, surrounded by their fellows, and the boys were waiting for what seemed inevitable, the complete destruction of the house.

CHAPTER XVIII

A BROKEN MATCH SAFE

"Why don't she go up?" asked Jack, as the boys crouched in the grove.

"I don't mind seeing a little fourth of July!"

"She's coming," Frank answered. "Do you see the light in the cellar?

That's the fuse burning."

"It must be a long one," Jimmie said. "Gee, but I was scared stiff when I saw it burnin' right under where you all were!"

"How did the sneak who set the fuse on fire ever get down there?"

wondered Jack.

"Must have been there all the time," Jimmie volunteered.

"But he didn't have the powder, or the dynamite, or whatever thing he figured on blowing us up with, in his pockets, did he?" asked Jack.

"I guess the old c.h.i.n.k down the road, the fellow who kept me talking at the gate, had something to do with storing the explosive there," Ned remarked. "I presume the plot was laid to blow us up the minute the effort to destroy us at the ruined temple failed."

"Merry little time we're having," Frank laughed. "Here, kid, where are you going?" he added, as Jimmie moved away.

"I'm goin' to see why that don't go bang!" answered the boy.

Ned tried to stop him, but the little fellow dodged away and disappeared around an angle of the house.

The boys waited in suspense for a moment, expecting every instant to witness the explosion, then Frank and Jack darted around the corner, in quest of Jimmie.

"Come back!" Ned called, but they paid no heed.

Both Ned and the Captain sprang after the lads, the latter expressing in very vigorous language his opinion of boys who would take such risks out of curiosity.

"I'd rather wait an hour for an explosion than go up to see why it didn't come off in time," he said. "That Jimmie needs a good beating.

He'll get it, too, if he doesn't behave!"

Ned laughed, serious as the situation was, at the thought of what would be apt to happen if the Captain should lay hands on the little fellow in anger. He would have the other boys on his hands in a second!

When Ned rounded the corner he saw Jimmie's heels half blocking a cellar window. Thick smoke was oozing out around him, and Frank and Jack were trying to pull him back.

"You let go!" they heard the little fellow shout. "I guess I know what I'm doin'. You let go!"

"Wait!" Ned said, then he stooped over and called out to Jimmie:

"Is the fuse out?"

"Sure!" was the reply. "'Sure the fuse is out, but before it went out it set fire to something on the cellar bottom, an' the blaze is workin'

its way up to the powder, or whatever it is. Ouch!" he added, as Jack gave a pull at his foot. "You let go!"

"Let him go," Ned advised. "Perhaps he can get in there in time to prevent the explosion."

"The little gink!" Jack exclaimed, "I wanted to see the thing bust up.

Now he's spoiled it!"

In a moment the boy was in the cellar, and Ned was not far away when the creeping flame was extinguished. While Frank and Jack looked in at the window, shielding their eyes and faces from the smudge as well as it was possible to do, Ned called out to them:

"Tell Captain Martin to keep his men on guard around the house. The scamps who did this may be up to some other trick. They're determined that we shall never get to Peking!"

Frank crawled through the window and stood by Ned's side, searchlight in hand. Just about underneath the center of the house, was a half barrel of gunpowder.

"That would have done the business," Frank observed, and Jimmie made a wry face. "If this little nuisance hadn't seen the fuse burning, we might have been killed."

"Aw, go on!" Jimmie said. "The fuse went out, didn't it? Gave us a good scare, anyway. I'm six inches shorter than I was before I saw the blaze creepin' along like a bloomin' snake!"

"How did it affect your appet.i.te?" asked Frank.

"If you mention anythin' to eat," Jimmie answered, "I'll have a fit. I don't know how people live in China, but I've been starved ever since I struck the country."

Flashlight in hand, Ned now devoted his whole attention to the floor of the cellar. There were marks of shoes here and there, and half-burned matches.

"It looks as if whoever did this job did it in a hurry," Ned said. "If the fuse had been set right it would have done its work. Do you see why it went out?"